Going Native

              As soon as my foot steps outside the apartment building children mob me. There is so much love here! The other day I was in the yard hanging out with a few of the children and then I had to run up my four flights of stairs to grab my water bottle. I took my time fiddling around with things in my room and then I glanced out my window. To my right all the kids were gathered around Heather, Lauren, and Kerri. When I glanced the other direction I saw Luke, Chrissy, and Joni (these are a few of the kids that have favored me over the other girls) all of them were sitting around by themselves waiting for ME to come back down. It made me feel so loved and needed. I received two colored papers today from Tisha and Deborah. Tisha’s says “Teacher Cantal I love you so mush.” I may not be her teacher yet but it is still sweet! Another girl told me that when I left she would cry every day. Yes, I am definitely feeling the love.
             I have a few of the kids names down but it has been rather difficult getting to know all the children’s names since there are 115 of them! At the same time I am trying to learn Bangla and all the caregivers names. A few words and phrases I’ve learned are:

-Camonachu (How are you?)
-Balo Achi (I’m good)
-Nomasgar (Hindu Greeting)
-Ami Tomo que balo achi (I love you)
-Namkey (name)
-coo coo (dog)

Of course none of these are spelled right but you get the point. We had a photo shoot with the kids so that their sponsors could receive up to date photos of their child. This has helped me learn many names but it has been so difficult to make some of these kids smile. There is this one boy name Jamie and he will not smile at all! Lauren says it looks as if he is solving the world’s problems because his face looks so serious and sad all the time. Another girl cried every time they put her in front of the camera. Slowly but surely we will get all these kids photos taken!
             In other news we have received our Shama camis. This is the outfit that the women here wear. It is a long shirt with pants that kind of look like Pajama pants and of course the olna (scarf). It took four days for them to get tailored and my pants are a little short. It was so much fun shopping for them. We went into town with Bani and Ellen, two ladies that work at the orphanage. They would take us to a shop that had all sorts of fabric that was already made into the shirts and pants they just needed to be tailored. When you go into a store you are suppose to sit on these stools that are set up for anyone who is buying something. We told them that we wanted cotton because it is the coolest material and then they would start throwing down different packages of fabric.
             I bought three, each of them were about 500-600 taka, which is around 8-9 U.S. dollars. After you buy them you take the fabric to the tailor and they make them fit perfectly for you, although I don’t think they did a very good job.
             We went into town (5 in the back seat) and picked the outfits up yesterday and then we got to ride back on a rickshaw van. This is a flat piece of wood that is pulled by a motorcycle.  It was so much fun but at the same time completely terrifying when you see a huge truck coming at you from the other direction and when it passes you it is only a foot away. All the women here are so excited to see us dressed like them. They are telling us that we are real Bangali woman now. Watch out I’m going native!! 

Resting in Jesus

“Rest in God. He is able to keep that which you have committed to Him. If you will leave yourself in His hands, He will bring you off more than a conqueror through Him that has loved you” (Steps to Christ 73).

             I’m going to be honest with you at this moment in time I don’t feel as if I am really needed at Bangla Hope. Since I just arrived I don’t really have a job set up for me (although they are telling me that I will be teaching English and a few other subjects soon). The only thing that is keeping me going is the realization that Jesus put me here for a reason.. whatever that may be.
             When I was leaving for Bangladesh I was worried that my bags that were too heavy might have to be emptied of some of the precious cargo they carried.  I was several pounds over according to my grandpa’s scale and it was stressing me out. My mom and Grandma prayed with me about it and later when I would bring something up about it my mom would simply say “Chantel, you gave it to Jesus. Leave it in His hands.” In turned out that we were actually 4 pounds under!
             Now I am here and I feel overwhelmed and stressed but I have forgotten that I have committed myself to Jesus and now I may rest in Him. Isn’t it amazing that we have a God who cares so much about us.

Just for You Readers

   I have had trouble getting internet and still do not have it on my computer. Therefore I will be posting pictures that go along with the posts later on when I finally figure out how to get internet with a mac computer.

Thanks for reading :)

The First Sabbath

      Today was like a roller coaster of emotions. It started out with a lovely walk where I got to mingle with the village people that literally live right behind my apartment. We then ate a wonderful breakfast and went to visit the Sabbath schools. All of us missionary girls who were suppose to be observing the Sabbath schools and seeing how they worked ended up telling stories in the classes and singing up front. I thought it was bad when Pastor Greg asked me to talk in front of chapel the night before but these people asked me to tell a story a few minutes before they pushed me up front. By the time church rolled around I was to exhausted and the thought of sitting in a stuffy hot building sweating like crazy didn’t sound appealing. During the sermon I had too much time to think since I couldn’t really understand what was being said even though it was translated. I began to feel a little home sick and I wanted to crawl back into my shell of comfort at home. Last Sabbath was such a wonderful day where my mom and sibling came to visit me before I left and now I was sitting on a mat dripping with sweat (I know they say that girls don’t sweat “they glisten” but obviously those girls have not been to Bangladesh). The pastor approached us after church and asked us if we would go to the village Sabbath School at 2:00 and we all hesitantly agreed.
            There was about two hours until we had to leave so we all decided that a Sabbath nap sounded beautiful!  I brushed some bugs off my bed and laid down, I felt like never moving again. I’m not sure if I’ll ever get use to this heat, humidity, or simply just being out of my comfort zone. Prayers began to bubble in my head as I surrendered my unwilling and uncomfortable spirit to the only one who can change my outlook. Just as I was beginning to fall asleep Danny came and rang our doorbell (we didn’t even realize we had a door bell until then) and he told us that it was time to go for a walk in the village. Lauren, Heather, and I stumbled out and threw our olna’s (scarf’s) around our necks. Danny was waiting at the bottom and he popped out and scared Heather and Lauren who were ahead of me. Hearing all this commotion I decided that I would pop out and scare Danny. So I jumped around the corner and yelled “BOO.” He jumped back and began laughing hysterically. At that point I realized that God had renewed my spirit.
            By two we were ready to walk to the other end of the village (I have walked 5 or 6 miles in 96-100 degree weather by this point). The village road is gorgeous though it is raised up high to keep it above the rice fields and lined with trees to give shade to everyone walking along the path. Sabbath school was actually really fun of course we were put on the spot once again and asked to tell the story and come up with a new song (how are we suppose to know what songs they know?). Lauren told the story about Jesus feeding the 5000 and the village kids who are all from hindu and muslim families listened intently to this story that they had probably never heard before. I think next week is my turn to tell a story (does anyone have a suggestion of one I should tell? Hahah).
            God is so amazing. Even though I have been so overwhelmed and cannot focus completely on Him all the time because I am so stinking hot He is still with me every moment. He knows that all of this is hard for me and He will give me the strength to get through this time here in Bangladesh. Thank goodness we have a God who cares soooo deeply for us.

The Mighty Battle with the Ants

           I read all the other missionaries’ post about their battles with the dreaded ants yet it didn’t occur to me that ants would be in Bangladesh. Yesterday, when I came back to my room I found that they had gotten into my bag and into most of my food. I am not talking about a few ants here I am talking about millions of ants all over anything that has ever come in contact with food. As a result my homemade granola and trail mix is no longer edible. I was super bummed and spent the rest of my night cleaning up everything the ants had gotten into and putting my other food into a Tupperware (which had a crack in it that I didn’t know about so they found their way into it later). Finally exhaustion got the better of me and I fell asleep at 8:30. In the middle of the night I awoke to ants crawling all over my face and body. I quickly brushed them off but I spent the whole night being bit by ants. So Today while we were in town we bought this enormous can of ant spray, which is probably illegal in the United States, and we sprayed all the places with ants. I may get cancer later in my life from the fumes but it was totally worth it. Therefore I conquered the ants and they all lay dead throughout our apartment. I’ll have to sweep them up later.

From Dhaka to Bangla Hope

After sitting for three days in either a plane, airport, or car we finally arrived at the Bangla Hope orphanage. We arrived in Dhaka last night around 8:40 and were taken to a Hotel that was about 5 min from the Dental clinic that the orphanage owns in the city. The hotel room was kind of sketchy and the bathroom was worse. There was no shower curtain around the bath tub  so when you took a shower the water splashed all over the  whole entire bathroom. They also have pink toilet paper here (I thought it was so cool and then Mrs. Waid informed me that it isn’t good for the women here to use it because of the pink dye).  Although the room wasn’t the most beautiful thing I was just excited to have a place to lay down and sleep for the first time in days.
            We woke up at 5:30 to beat the Dhaka traffic (which apparently is horrible if you go any later than 7). I sat in the van closest to the door because I was afraid I would be too claustrophobic anywhere else. However, this meant that I didn’t have a seat belt, which is extremely scary in third world countries. But after the first hour I calmed down and just looked out the window.  It was so amazing to see the Bangladesh culture flash by.
            Three hours into our drive (it was a total of a 7 hour drive) we stopped at this restaurant that makes naan bread. They would take the naan and flatten it out and then throw is around the inside of a dome oven and the bread would puff up like a balloon.  It tasted AMAZING. They served it with a fried egg(I’m not a big egg person but these were delicious) and they had these tiny onion, extremely hot peppers,  and limes to go with it. They tried to give us ice cream but I wasn’t sure I wanted that for breakfast, plus there was no room left in my tummy.
            We continued on the road and as we got closer the countryside began to change and become more farm lands (mainly bananas and rice fields). At one point we stopped to get gas and the venders came out to try to sell us food. There was this one boy who was trying to sell these rotten grape looking snacks and everytime he looked at me I just burst into laughter because I had no clue how to interact with him. He thought this was hilarious so he would get his friends together and then try to get my attention by mimicking my laugh. There was another vender there who was making chanicha, which is a mixture of mustard oil, puffed rice, hot peppers, onions, and other unknown substances. Mrs. Waid stuck her hand out the window and used a paper to make the mix herself because the man’s hands were so dirty. The poor Bangladesh people had no clue what she was doing but I thought it was hysterical. After waiting about 25 min for gas we finally were back on the road leaving our new “friends” behind laughing at there strange encounter with the weird white people.
            Finally we arrived at the orphanage. And the caregivers and children had a welcome dance and song for us. The children were to shy to really come up to us at first so we didn’t really get to meet them until after dinner. Heather, Lauren, and I were talking to Mrs. Waid when all of a sudden a little hand was holding mine. He looked at me and exclaimed, “my name is Luke, I am going to give you a kiss!” He then reached for my face and gave me a kiss on the cheek and as I began to turn away he grabbed my face again and twisted it so he could kiss my other cheek. Luke speaks a lot of English so he gave me a tour of the campus and introduced me to the other kids. There was a group of girls who followed me around and kept yelling “KELSEY” (the girl who worked here last year) and then they would laugh and run away. There was another girl named Disha and she would yell at them “This is not Kelsey this is Chantel.”
            After we met with the kids it wasn’t hard to be there friends. Now my hand is constantly being held and children are always around me when I go down to the court yard. So far I love it here but it is already tough and I have a feeling it isn’t going to always be fun but I am still staying rather optimistic. Bangladesh is an amazing place and it is fun to learn their culture. For example: Men wear skirts called Lungi (Lune-gee), If men here are wealthy they bleach their hair and beards so they turn this nasty orange color, they like their curry extremely HOT, and they throw their gods into the river every once in a while. There is so much more to learn!

My God can do the Impossible.

“Jesus looked at them intently and said, ‘Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But with God EVERYTHING is possible.’” Matthew 19:26

              I forget how powerful God is sometimes. I always stick Him in a box and limit how much power I really think that He can handle. Whether I am trying to control my own life or just having expectations for Him I have always limited His power and work in my life. It seems that most of us do this and that maybe why we don’t see as many miracles today as performed in the Bible. We look at situations with our human reasoning, not realizing that God’s power can take on any task or struggle that we are going through.
             I am nervous. I have always had the tendency to become super homesick while first traveling to a new place. I’m scared that I will be miserable for the first little while instead of enjoying every moment that God has blessed me with on this trip. But whenever I let this fear get a firm grasp around me it is showing how weak my faith is in an all-powerful God. I hope that He changes my weak faith and self-centeredness throughout my experience in Bangladesh. He can do it. He can do all things.
             So now that I am realizing all that God can do I am ready to leave the Hong Kong Airport and get to Dhaka. There is a group of Children out there that are just waiting for me to pour out my love!

I am so excited! 
(sorry if this post has errors in it. I haven't slept much lately and I am not reacting well to my Malaria pills haha. Plus I only 3% battery left on the computer!)