B-Team update #3
Wednesday 11 July, 2007 · Posted by Ben Atwood
Bangladesh Mission Update
Dear compadres,
We write from a flat in Banani, one of the wealthier suburbs in Dhaka city. We are on an overnight ‘holiday’ from the children’s home to rest and experience some of the more ‘touristy’ things of Bangladesh - i.e. shopping!
Today, we visited a garment factory in Gazipur district which is owned by the Square Corporation, the highest taxpaying corporation in Bangladesh. The CEO and his family are Christians and have shown great support for the ministry projects we have been involved in so far.
This particular garment factory is massive, covering over one hundred sixty acres and handling the process of garment manufacture from weaving the fabric to packing and distribution - the shirts made there are sold off to various companies like Puma. We were taken on a tour and saw the various stages of garment-making, from the pattern design and cutting to the weaving, the dying, and quality control. The factory provides lunch to each of the three thousand employees and also provides accommodation to three-quarters of them.
We are now in Dhaka for the night, and have already been to Aarong (a shop which sells handmade goods in order to support poor people) and spent much of our spending money! We were also taken out to Pizza Hut for dinner, where we discovered that a family-size pizza costs more than a salwar qamiz. Sam got to catch a cycle rickshaw for some of the way home and see some of the night life of Dhaka!
Please pray for Lucy and Graham, who are still fighting illness and fatigue. We are just over halfway through our trip and several members of the team have often been out of action due to stomach bugs.
However, God has been good to us and we have been busy with chapel talks at the children’s home, as well as some English teaching in the classroom - the children have readily engaged with our teaching and we have already had some good conversations with the older boys and girls about their faith. Some of the team have even shared their testimonies and had opportunities to discuss their stories.
We will be returning to Savar tomorrow morning (after some more shopping). Thanks for all your prayers - we are already seeing the fruit of God’s work here, and this trip has been a tremendous source of encouragement for us all.
Abar dekha hobe,
The B-Team (Ben, Dave, Graham, Kit, Lorien, Lucy, Sam, and Sarah)
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