Home of Love

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Rain, Rain, Go Away...

The monsoon season has begun earlier than normal and like with most seasons in Bangladesh with a vengeance! It seems each of the 6 seasons here are difficult for the poor, each one carries its only individual suffering along with it. Now as the rains are pouring down buckets from heaven the houses of the poor are in some parts of the city, chest deep with rain, inside.

In just the first 24 hrs of the rain, we received 8.5 inches of rain. The ponds at the orphanage have overflowed and the catfish the boys were raising decided to be adventurous and are now swimming in our field. They tried to get them back with mosquito nets and their bare hands but it was quite fruitless.
Today as I left the orphanage and traveled out on our terrible village road, Ruben and I hung on for dear life as our motor-rickshaw bounced and sprang from low to high place, because much of the road had been washed out. We find that in those situations, because the taxi's are just a metal frame covered with tarp, it's essential to keep your head well centered otherwise you will bang it hard! Our trip today took double the time as the roads were covered with water and all traffic had to use the middle of the road to even drive. Arriving in the city we saw that the drains were overflowing and the streets had turned into rivers. Without many options our Bengali staff, Ruben and I walked the remaining way home in thigh deep water. The swirling gray water with garbage and other debris floating made me rather apprehensive but the downpour from heaven made me think more about just getting home. The Bengali storekeepers whooped to me in encouragement and jabbed each other in the ribs as they pointed at the white lady in the water. I knew at home I would have dry clothes, a clean house, food and fresh water. The masses of people around me would be arriving into wet muddy huts with no place to hang their clothes out, no dry firewood to cook with and the debilitating fear of their kids getting sick. Thomas waited 3 hours outside of town in the school bus that had taken four of our Home of Love children to the Hospital today because of the flooding and said that he was thinking of purchasing a simple boat

What seems to be a river is actually a main road in Chittagong.

posted by Colleen at 7:07 AM

Sunday, May 28, 2006

Playground gets lots of use!

Bora school students LOVE to have their P.E. class at our playground. They come over once a month and slide and swing like crazy. They have never probably seen a playground like it before and marvel at the twisty slide. Shouts and happy playground sounds were my background music today as I studied Bible and attended to all my duties.

posted by Thomas at 11:39 AM

Friday, May 26, 2006

Cooling Off American style

In the heat of summer we thought maybe the toddlers and kindergarteners would like to cool off. We had been given a blow-up baby bathtub from someone and found that it doubled as a boat! How fun the kids had "accidentally" falling in and then pushing each other on the boat. Even the older kids and staff came out to see the fun. It is not a part of Bengali culture to really play in water, especially not little kids unless they are poor and not properly watched over. Some of the teenagers worried about the little ones getting water in their ears, eyes and mouth.

posted by Thomas at 6:03 PM

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Mr. Green Thumb

Thomas has really enjoyed his new hobby of gardening. We have had fun bringing in some plants from Thailand and trying out many of the Bengali vegetables. This year we have had okra, pumpkin, carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, eggplant, chili peppers, green peppers, radishes, onions, spinach, bitter gourd, spices and have just planted sweet corn. We have papaya, lemon, pomegrate, pomelo (grapefruit-like), guava and mango fruit trees. We hope to extend the gardens more next year. Our land is producing now 50% of the rice the kids eat, we have a full time farmer employed to take care of the rice fields. Below is a picture of Mridul, our faithful helper. Those of you who have visited know him well.

posted by Colleen at 10:48 AM

Sunday, May 21, 2006

Study, Study, Study = Good grades

We have finally been able to set up the study room fully and open it up for use. The high school kids are able to leave all their books at their individual desks and now have a good atmosphere for studying. The girls are on one side and the boys on the other. Right now because of the nation wide HSC (12th grade exams) all of the high schools are closed so their classrooms can be used for testing. The high school kids have one month off so we have made a routine of work, study, computer and tutoring the younger kids in the afternoon. They don't always act like it but I think they like having a set schedule each day, it keeps them from being lazy or getting into trouble.

posted by Thomas at 10:48 AM

Friday, May 19, 2006

"Look what we caught!"

These friendly faces have just caught 3 water snakes with their hands! They dug into the hole with only a plastic bag covering their hands and pulled out one slimy one after the other. The little ones were so excited they were jumping up and down. The words,
"I see a snake", can be heard all over the property clearly and even amazingly by kids sleeping! They run excitedly each time in hopes of seeing a really big one! These snakes had been feeding on our fish and were not wanted.

posted by Thomas at 7:02 PM

Monday, May 15, 2006

Deborah

If you heard us speak last summer we probably mentioned the story of Deborah. A baby left in front of a pastor's home facedown in the mud. As you can see from the picture, Deborah has grown into a beautiful young lady. She is in the 5th grade and loves sports. She's good at soccer, cricket, badminton and monkey bars.

posted by Thomas at 10:03 AM

Friday, May 12, 2006

Mark is quick with his hands

...and Mark like a good challenge. They try to catch fish with their hands! Today they had success. Mark is failing in school and has a severe learning disability. He can barely count to ten correctly but is a teenager. We are asking God to direct us to the right spot for Mark to use his talents for farming and the outdoors in a good environment. He has a good heart, strong shoulders and isn't afraid of hard work.

posted by Thomas at 12:52 PM

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Good afternoon

Agnes and Phoebe

posted by Thomas at 11:13 PM

Homemade toys

Nobojoy and Jonathan are practicing their aim on the bamboo bow and arrows. They make most of their toys by themselves, imagining and creating as they go. You can imagine how our 4 year old son loves his life here at the orphanage. They hunt tigers (imaginary), chipmunks, snakes and any large birds. Running silently behind their prey and scrambling up trees barefoot they make playing with plastic trucks seem boring. No wonder our son looks at us funny when we tell him to play with his trucks in his room. Alone? Without friends and his bow and arrow?
One boy, named Alio recently made a camera out of clay and then baked it in the sun. It had all the right buttons and he had embedded in a piece of old glass for the lens. It was a work of art, I tell you!

posted by Colleen at 9:40 AM

Monday, May 08, 2006

Swimming is refreshing

All kids love to play in water and even though here the water is green, contaminated and just plain dirty it doesn't deter anyone. They would swim everyday if possible.

posted by Colleen at 9:03 AM

Saturday, May 06, 2006

Study Room is ready to go!

Ribbon cutting ceremony

On their way to take ownership of the new room

The kids are excited to start using their new study room upstairs next to the Library. It took us a long time to get it all ready but now as you can see it is all prepared. A group of caring people from DICC in Dhaka, Bangladesh donated the money to buy the furniture. Thank you to them! We hope that this quieter surrounding, away from the little ones will give a better chance for the kids to really study hard for exams. The schools here teach by rote method and so almost all studying is pure memorization. Our desire is that the kids will find a good place in the study room for learning.

posted by Thomas at 1:35 PM

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

April Birthdays

Here are the kids and youth from the HOL that had there birthday in April.

posted by Thomas at 9:24 AM

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Exams are over, Phew!!!

Ukoching (right) and Tuntu finished their SSC (secondary school certificate) last week. They were relieved and thanked God that they didn't get sick or have any major disruptions during the month long exams. They now have to wait until July to get their results. Only about 50% of the students in Bangladesh pass these tests, they are equivalent to a 10th grade level.

posted by Thomas at 12:35 AM