Our Last Day

This is our last day in Bangladesh for this year, and I'll talk more about that in a minute, but I also wanted to share a bit about our last day in Birisiri, which was last Sunday. Albert and I, plus Shagota, who came along to translate, rode on the back of motorcycles with three of the men from the GBC office. We travelled about 45 minutes, right to a village on the border with India where Albert preached to a Garo congregation of about 200. It was a beautiful village and the people were extremely welcoming. After church we had a wonderful lunch and then took another short ride to a Bangladesh Army Border Force station. They kindly allowed us to climb up their look-out tower where we a magnificent view of the surrounding countryside. The commander then proceeded to serve us tea! I told them I couldn't imagine the US army being so welcoming of foreigners to one of their camps. Here are a few pictures of what we saw:

Mission Accomplished!

Last Friday and Saturday I gave the last of the three Sunday School Teacher workshops that I came to give this year. This was quite a mixed group age-wise. I had a couple Pastors, a school teacher, an older, very experienced Sunday School teacher, and many young people who haven't started teaching yet. Once again I had a predominantly male class, 11 men and four young women.

All but two of the participants were Garo from the Garo Baptist Convention, whose development agency is a partner of CRWRC. The other two came from a town that is a couple hours away and are associated with PARI, another CRWRC partner that works in the Mymensigh area.

The workshop was in Birisiri, an area of Bangladesh is very near the Indian border which splits the Garo community between the two countries. Most of the Garo people live in India. My next blog will tell about our visit to a border village where Albert preached: stay tuned! Most of the participants came from pretty far away, so they stayed in town overnight in order to attend both days of the workshop.

Perhaps because it was the third time I had presented the workshop, but I think also because the participants were so very open, I was my most relaxed for this one. Every time we had a break - especially after they had made their own instruments- they would all start singing and accompanying themselves on the instruments. It was great!

When they presented the lessons they had designed, most showed a good grasp of the new concepts they had learned. I am confident that even those who were older and had been teaching in one way for years will use at least a few of the new ideas they learned from me and from each other. Many thanks to Shagota Chisim who once again did an excellent job translating for me and who bravely presented the parable of the Good Shepherd for the first time! Enjoy the pictures that follow:

Sunday School Teachers' Training at SUPOTH

My second SS Teachers' Training was quite a bit different than the first one,but I think, just as good. The group was much younger, many still in high school. The other unusual aspect of this group was that 12 out of 15 were young men. I was really delighted by this, since it would be very unusual in the U.S. for this to be the case.

The church in Nilphamari is all the same denomination, but seems to be splitting over an internal power struggle, so many of the churches are barely functioning. An unfortunate side effect of this is that most do not have a Sunday School at all at the moment. It was very encouraging then, to have these 15 young people determined to learn how to teach Sunday School so that they could begin the process of bringing a Sunday School program back to their churches.

They worked hard, and though many had little or no experience, they learned many new things that they are confident to try out as they rebuild their programs. Please pray with with me that they will soon be able to use what they worked so hard to learn.

Many thanks to Annie who translated for me. I also want to say a special thanks to Carol Reinsma who contributed the funds that made the workshops possible and to all those who have supported me so that I could come here to Bangladesh to volunteer.

Visits with SUPOTH Groups

We just got back from up north yesterday, arriving at about 11:00am after an all-night train. For some reason I couldn't access my blog up there, so I'm going to have to play catch up before I leave Dhaka again on Wednesday. We visited Adolescent, Women's and People's Institution(P.I.) (something like a neighborhood association)Groups who are part of SUPOTH, another of CRWRC's partner organizations. Because the area is rural, groups are quite far apart so there was a lot of traveling involved between groups, but the countryside is so beautiful it was well worth it.

The Adolescent groups we visited were all girls and were run a bit differently that those of SATHI, but I was equally impressed with them. They had many good ideas for improving their program as well; one that hadn't been mentioned before was that they want to have a little library in a box of small books relating to the subjects they are studying in their groups, so they can read more about them. I suggested to SUPOTH that they teach the girls how to make a proposal to their P.I. who would be able to make this happen.

I could say a lot more, but I want to get this up, so I'll stop for now and show you some pictures of the groups we met, the beautiful children we saw, and the lovely countryside of Bangladesh.

My First Sunday School Teachers' Workshop

Yesterday (Saturday) we finished the first two day Sunday School Teachers' Workshop. There were 22 participants. Half of them were Garo, which is a minority group here in Bangladesh, four were Telagu, another minority group, and one was Santal, also a minority . So only six of the participants were ethnic Bengali. Most of the group was quite young; probably early twenties which made it rather easy to get them to do all the action songs that I taught them!

I shared the basics of Child Development with a particular emphasis on how children experience God. They also learned a new way of telling stories (courtesy of Jana Brasser who helped me with Children's Worship materials), several new craft ideas, making instruments from found objects, many new songs, and the basic of constructing a good lesson (thanks to Jola Howe of Faith Alive for her help with this).

I was impressed with this group. Everyone participated fully, so they all got the maximum benefit from the training. An important, though unexpected result for me was that though several denominations were represented, there was a spirit of sharing and cooperation that was evident. At one point I asked if someone had a song they would like to share with the group. one woman shared a song that no one else knew. I felt this was a very important moment in the training. The attendees were not only learning from me, but, more importantly, from one another. It would be wonderful if this kind of sharing between churches, who sometimes can be at odds with one another, could continue.

Albert was my photographer and helper, and of course, he joined in on everything as well!

Now we off to take the night train to the northern part of Bangladesh where we will see the adolescent programs of the organization called SUPOTH and also do another Sunday School Teachers' Workshop. I am hoping my internet will work there - it is VERY rural. We'll see.....

Final Adolescent Field Visit

My last adolescent field visit was on Thursday to Lalbagh. This is a group that is a little older than some of the others, so when we talked to them about ideas to improve the program, they had lots! They want to add lessons on birth control, disaster preparedness, drug abuse, and several others. They brought up the point that they are learning about underage marriage and dowry, but that the adults need to know more about these problems as well. They proposed that they teach the lessons on these subjects to the adults. When I asked them if they would be comfortable doing that, they answered, "Of course! We know these lessons well and have been teaching them for a couple years. We would feel very comfortable teaching the adults."

So I have been able to pass the ideas from all the groups to the administrators of SATHI, and they are very interested in pursuing some of the issues brought up by the young people. I continue to be amazed and encouraged by the youth in this program. They are using what they have learned not just to better their own lives but are passing it on to others as well.

A few pictures from Lalbagh: