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| Monday, November 28, 2005
Pretty, huh?
Saturday, November 26, 2005
 The sun sets over Home of Love each evening now at 5:30pm. The darkness comes suddenly as one minute you are finishing up in the garden and the next you look around and it's black around you. It gets dark in Bangladesh basically at around the same time all year around. It varies only about one hour from winter to summer. For a Midwest girl like me used to still riding horses at 10pm in the summer, at first it seemed quite odd. posted by Colleen at 8:37 AM The entertainer
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
 This boy pictured above is Shaon. He is one of the silliest kids I know and brings me such joy. He is the entertainer at Birthday parties and the most brilliant singer in Sunday school. He leads us in singing sometimes and has built in "moves" to go along with his songs. Here he is with a body full of itchy heat rash and yet so happy and silly. We thank God for Shaon. posted by Colleen at 7:12 AM Interest in world
Sunday, November 20, 2005
 In this picture you see a daily occurrence at the orphanage, the reading of the newspaper. Reading is an unpracticed hobby in Bangladesh that we hope to change through our library. Some of the older boys though do enjoy the newspaper and reading about the world. They are pretty well informed on what is happening and get a lot of Bangladesh political news. posted by Thomas at 7:37 AM Murray Bawden visits "Home of Love"
Friday, November 18, 2005
 We were privileged to have Mr. Bawden visit us from Hawaii last week. He is going to be assisting us with a team of builders on the next big project at "Home of Love" which is putting in a carpentry shop. We look forward to working with the team on this neat project. The dream is to have a carpentry shop where people could come from the States and teach our boys carpentry skills for a month or more. It will be great to have an established facility to accommodate such things. Mr. Bawden and team will also hopefully put in the playground in Jan., when they come providing it arrives on time and gets out of the port. Please pray with us for that! Mrs. Bawden has been instrumental in helping us order and organize getting the playground shipped to Chittagong. We salute the both of them. posted by Colleen at 7:36 PM Sharon
Monday, November 14, 2005
 Sharon is one of the girls you see on the top of our home page in the green dress. She is the older one. Sharon came about 6 years ago and was very angry and her heart seemed stony. She resented us and refused to receive our love. One day I brought her a doll and tried to give it her but she pushed it away and stared in the other direction. I told her that we love her and laid it on her bed. Later in the week, I saw her carrying it around and ever so slowly she began to melt. Sharon is going to be a tall girl, already taller than her peers; she is shy and quiet but knows what is right. Sharon still has another year before she goes to middle school in the city and turns into the classified, "Boro meye" which means, older girl. Pray that Sharon becomes bolder in who she is, becomes a girl that is unwavering in her faith and a blessing to others. posted by Thomas at 10:08 PM The gospel tested and true
Sunday, November 13, 2005
It is true, He is enough. How else do you explain little children losing their mothers, fathers, siblings and coming to a new place with strange looking foreigners as guardians and not being out of sorts? How do I paint the picture of Alio, Gideon and Joshio? If you could see their smiles! They are happy inside and it shows on the outside. Their families have been torn apart, they have experienced BAD things but they are doing so well. They have no need for therapy, no constant tears, no misbehaver, nor nightmares or bedwetting. The heart of God is enough to soothe, comfort and take care of little boys orphaned into this world.
posted by Thomas at 7:24 AM Animal, kids, and fish
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
 Slowly we are adding to our number at Home of Love some different animals. We have a couple goats, a dog, packs of rats (my least favorite) and an assortment of 18 doves, 40 chickens, and 60 ducks. Today a big snake was found and killed in our pond, it was catching our fish and looked like he had just swallowed one when his/her end came. His middle was the size of an orange. Our staff said it was a poisonous one. This is the second snake killed in the orphanage premises this week! We continue to pray for protection for our kids who often don't wear shoes outside. posted by Colleen at 10:11 PM Neighborhood clean up
Friday, November 04, 2005
Not only do we want to see a clean orphanage but also a tidy neighborhood. Impossible? Probably, but we'll try anyways! Today I took all the elementary students on a clean up drive, manned with waste baskets and sacks we marched out of the orphanage and started at the clinic. Spreading out to find every large and tiny piece of plastic and garbage we found that many hands make light work! Getting into formation again to march (the kids thought that was sooo fun) we marched to the squatter village and fanned out to clean up there also. The neighbors were very skeptical and wondered if we were finding secret treasures that they didn't know about. They asked the kids in Bangla, "What are you doing, what are you looking for? What are you going to do with that stuff?" One of our kids replied, "We're not going to do anything with it, we are cleaning up and you should not throw your garbage outside anymore." Pretty soon we had a group of housewives with hands on their hips watching us and murmuring to themselves. I had a terrible migraine but I wanted to take part because it was my idea. Every time I bent down I had tears in my eyes from the pain of my headache and my smile and encouraging words were superficial. That ended when the cow nearly butted me when I went to grab a plastic bag from his area and I had to jump while twirling to escape her horns. The kids and I laughed and laughed from the heart. I am sure the village will enjoy that story for a few days. The kids thought that the whole 'clean up' was great fun, afterwards we all ate choc. chip cookies from our house. Goes to say that a little initiative can go a long way, we cleaned up a big area in one hour and filled 5 sacks with garbage.
posted by Colleen at 6:47 AM Books
 The books pictured above arrived some days ago, two men from the post office brought the jute bags sealed with a wax coin with emblem stamped in the wax. Each package that goes through the post office is hand checked and then sealed. These books will go into our box labeled "Library Books". We hope to get a lot more and be able to fill many many shelves with good books for our Home of Love kids! Are you interested in sending us books? Maybe you have some you could sort out and send? If so please contact us for information. If the books are shipped 3rd class, it isn't so expensive. The books shown here took 4 months to arrive, but late than never! Thank you Sara Veldhuizen for sending them!  posted by Colleen at 7:33 AM
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