These are My Kids!

Here is an excellent video that my friend Calvin made when he came to Bangla hope a few weeks ago.

http://vimeo.com/39122498

Also, I ask that you keep Lauren, Sarah-Kate, and Danielle in your prayers as they make their way to Dhaka tomorrow. They are leaving on Wednesday night to fly all the way back to America.

Thank you!

Little Adventures

All of my walking buddies had left the country. At first this depressed me because my daily walks were part of the reason that I could keep my sanity. If I didn’t have them then I would be on the same small campus everyday for what could seem like an eternity. I decided that the best solution to this problem would be to go on walks with kids. This proved to be the best and most entertaining way for me to keep my sanity!            
             One time we went out to this village and were having fun swinging from the roots of a banyan tree! Some of the roots are tied together at the end to create swings and so we spent some time just swinging around like monkeys. Finally we decided that it would be a good idea to walk around the village more. Before I knew it we were ambushed with about 20 villagers who thought I was some sort of doctor. One man came up to me with 6 fingers  on one hand and asked me to cut off the extra one. I examined the 6^th finger like I knew what I was doing (because the man made me). It was squishy and added character to the guy.. don’t know why he wanted to cut it off. I told the people over and over again that I was a teacher and not a doctor but it didn’t matter, they still wanted me to cut off fingers and fix peoples eyes! I finally got away telling them that our nurse would be back in 2 weeks and she could tell them more information.  I haven’t gone back there since.
             Another time I took Metali and Moni out to this tree. We went off the road onto this little path that went through the rice fields. We ended up by this big pond with a tree that stood alone looking rather majestic (and climbable). The first thing I did was run towards it with open arms and I started climbing up. Moni and Metali looked at me as if I was crazy for a minute and then they eagerly fought over who would get to climb up first. When we were done climbing and on our way down the tree a woman appeared from around a mound of dirt. She was walking her goat when she started yelling at us. I was mortified because I had probably offended her by climbing her god. I asked Metali to apologize to her as I scrambled down the tree but what she did next made me laugh hysterically. Since I was already up in the tree she wondered if I would knock some branches down for her goat to eat. Essentially she wanted me to tear down her god so that her goat could eat it. The whole situation was quite humorous. After I had gotten down she asked me why I didn’t fear the “tree” god. I tried to explain that I worship one God.. and it wasn’t a tree. I don’t think she understood but Metali did her best to explain what Adventist are. I hope we got her curious so that she’ll come visit Bangla Hope in the future.
             There are so many fun and weird things that have happened on our adventures. We have caught frog and tadpoles, run through the rice paddies, swung from trees, caught run away cows and eaten fruit that tastes like wood. Each day that I go on these little adventures creates many bonding moments with the individual kids I take. When I’m back in America I think that these little adventures are going to be what I hold onto when I think about my kids back in Bangla Hope.

I can’t believe I have less than 2 weeks! 

The Epic Life of a Christian

I have spiritual A.D.D. 

Everyday I try to bring myself closer to my Savior but I get stuck in ruts where I rely on myself rather than the power that comes from God alone. I’ve been stuck in that rut the last 2 months. I have not missed a day of reading my Bible and I have made a constant effort to pray but after evaluating my spiritual life last night I realized something horrible. I am neither hot nor cold. I have reached this place of complacency where I have not let the Holy Spirit take complete control of me so that I may shine forth to anybody and everybody.  I try to keep my eyes fixed on God but then something distracts me in my own life (hence the A.D.D. part). Then I am stuck praying and focusing on my own problems and I forget about how AWESOME my God is! And when my eyes slip from looking at God to looking at myself.. my passion goes away with it.
             The beautiful aspect of this problem of spiritual A.D.D. that I have is that God is continually fighting to have a relationship with me (how exciting is that)! He knows exactly where my heart is and it must pain Him to see me struggle over things that He could take if only I offered them up to Him completely.  However, God keeps working patiently with me to renew my love for Him and my desire to serve him completely once again.
             I write this because I know that many people come to this place in their spiritual life. The “first love” feeling is gone but they desperately want to be close to the Savior. Yet their hearts (and Satan) have led them to focus on themselves and the problems they face in this world. I write this because I believe in being completely passionate about God and telling everyone about it but sometimes we need to be awakened from our spiritual sleep so that we can rise up and fight off the Devil’s attacks and tell the world about our new lives in Jesus. Our lives as Christians are actually pretty epic if you think about it (hard but totally epic)! Every morning we wake up to a battle for our souls. Jesus vs. Satan. Some days we fight using our own strength and by noon we have lost and are overwhelmed by the struggles of our everyday lives. But if we choose Christ and put on His armor we have already won. The only way to keep on winning the battle is to continually put your life in Jesus’ hands (I know, easier said than done). 
             I am going to be a missionary in America in 3 weeks. This morning God has awakened my outlook to see that my biggest desire in life is Him and He has filled me once again with the untamed longing to tell everyone about Him and His glory. My prayer is that God is putting that longing in you as well. Jesus is coming again soon and I believe that with every fiber of my being. The world is full of people who are looking for Jesus (even if they don’t realize it yet) and that is so much bigger than any problem that I am facing.  

“The less you cherish self the more distinct and full will be your comprehension of the excellence of you Savior. The more closely you connect yourself with the source of light and power, the greater light will be shed upon you, and the greater power will be yours to work for God. Rejoice that you are one with God, one with Christ, and with the whole family of heaven.” The Desire of Ages pg 528

Water Fights and Cricket!

It is starting to get hot here! It isn’t quite as bad as when I first arrived but the heat still wraps around me and makes me rather uncomfortable.  The other day it was particularly hot and we still had the long agonizing hour before dinner where my stomach wont let my mind focus on anything else. I was trying to figure out what I should do to keep my mind off of food and being hot when I thought of water balloons. My friend Calvin had bought balloons in the Indian shop for such a time as this. I ran over to where he is staying and I looked through the screen door and asked, “Water fight?” Eagerly he agreed and we rushed to begin filling up balloons and placing them in two large buckets. Half of the balloons had holes or look like they would pop if you touched them (that’s what you get for having Bangladesh balloons).
             When both buckets were filled to maximum capacity we decided it was time to figure out how to execute our mission. We gathered all the other SM’s and decided that I would take a water bottle and pretend like I was lecturing the kids for doing something bad. I got a bunch of them to sit by the outside faucet and then when I saw that Calvin and Lauren were bringing the buckets full of water balloons I would dump my 1.5 liters of water on the unsuspecting kids (thus initiating the water fight).  It was hilarious to see the shocked faces of the kids as Chantel Teacher spilled her water bottle all over them. Then their faces turned toward the buckets full of water balloons and they knew they were trapped! After that we spent 15 min running around throwing balloons, filling up buckets, spraying them with a hose, and simply laughing.  Afterward some of the girls came up to us and said that it was their laundry day and they didn’t have any clothes to change into –oops! Haha. Don’t worry, they found clothes to change into!
             After we cleaned up it was time for dinner and afterwards Tim suggested that we go for a walk. We decided that we would walk to the Banyan tree. This is the tree that we walked to quite often because it is so large and majestic! There are huge bats that live among its branches and the local Hindu villagers worship it. We arrived and notice some village kids playing cricket underneath the tree. Since Calvin is from Australia he knew how to play so he jumped in while Heather, Tim, and I observed. I wanted to jump in and play but I didn’t know how they would react to a girl playing. Eventually I found myself with the cricket bat in my hand and although I had no clue what I was doing I stepped up to hit the ball. The first ball was bad and the second one I missed. The third pitch came and I hit it over all the boys’ heads and almost all of their eyes popped out in amazement. After I was done hitting I went to the outfield. I stood in the perfect spot where all the hits came perfectly to my open hands. I got a couple of the village boys out! I don’t know who was more amazed the village people or me! Eventually the sun began to get lower in the sky and we decided that it was time to head back to the orphanage. I then got to kiss and hug all my lovely children goodnight!

 That was a day that I will always cherish!