Thurs May 7

 Video called with my big sister and fam. for an hour while Dipti was washing dishes and floors. During which we had a Very t i n y baby at the gate wanting to get on our milk program. These people and their baby’s age can be very confusing at times!?! They kept telling us the baby was 7 months! And there was just no possible way for that to be!?! Finally Lonnie thought to ask what It’s birth date was and they said March - -. So we think the baby was maybe born at 5 or 7 months gestation and now it’s actually only 2 months. Which seemed much more believable! When I saw the lady at the gate with a pink blanket in her arms, I said, there can’t be much of a baby in there! Even for 2 months, it was extremely small. The mother is in the hospital..

Otherwise got lunch on, made cookies, took care of littles, and a load of laundry.

Wed. May 6

 Woke up to the word that my little sister is in the hosp. after getting run over by a pickup!! Not the kind of thing one Ever wants to hear and for sure not when you’re on the other side of the world!! The tires went over her legs. She was not able to move them, so she went by ambulance to the hosp. Xray shows that they are not broken!?! And on pain killer, she is able to move them, but too painful to bear weight on them.😏 We are thankful her life is spared🤍She did land on her arm so she has a broken left arm that needed a pin.   The story is: the children and her had loaded prunings from the yard in the back of the pickup. They had to go thru the pig pen to get to the burn pile so Trina was trying to keep the pigs from escaping while her oldest dau. drove thru the gate. The accelerator instead of the brake was used, knocking Trina down, even tho she made a leap to get out of the way… Mom went the next morning to be a helping hand around the place while Trina heals. 

Over here in Bangladesh life goes on, the girls go upstairs to school, Dipti arrives and makes fish curry for lunch, the Police show up at the gate.. they keep tabs on us and try to keep up with our legal status.. Lonnie spends time just down the road at a repair dokan again, helping when the opportunity arises..

Tonight on our walk, we find ourselves walking the same direction as one of Lonnie’s Muslim friends. He  tells Annslie to come to his house. He has told Lonnie  other days to come, as is common in this culture, but so far Lonnie has told him, Another day. Tonight we took him up on the invitation. We followed him down the path to his concrete house. Quite nice by village standards! His wife and daughter in law are there also. He quickly walks back to the dokan to pick up Sprite and cookies. Sets the coffee table in front of us and pours a pitcher of water. Switches the TV from Bangla drama to cartoons for Annslie even tho we told him we didn’t need the TV. But the prayer call was sounding, so he left us there with the ladies🤔 His wife actually did very good with throwing English into the conversation! And the daughter in law was so shy she was hanging out in the kitchen. We told her to come join us! She had married into the family only 5 months ago. And when we asked her age, we were a little taken aback. We know it’s common here but still, here she is 16 yrs old, living away from home with her husband’s family🤦🏼‍♀️ Lonnie asked her if she wanted to hold Gentry and she did not hesitate to take him up on the offer. She relaxed as predicted, children can be a real asset at times🫶🏼 We did not stay long and finished our walk home.

Tues. May 5

 Mangsho(meat) day. Tulshi went for pork and chicken and later to Chakrakhali for a Tilapia fish. So Lonnie washed pork, cut up 2 very large chickens and later filleted the fish. We had pulled the pork and fat we’ve been collecting in the freezer out to thaw and then Lonnie cut it all up for sausage. We made a bigger batch than we have in a long time! 27 lbs. That should keep us supplied a couple months. Which is a good thing as we are running out of the imported ingredients and don’t know when we’ll be able to get more..

Christina made us a delicious honey chicken over rice for supper

Lonnie and I have been taking walks with the littles in/on the stroller after supper which is also often after dark. Tonight there were So many smaller white moths? gathering around any light! I certainly didn’t need any cha tonight as I observed the tea stall where the moth was fished out of the cup of hot tea and the sugar spoon just went to the side of the moth that landed in the sugar container, etc.😝

Mon May 4

 Lonnie took the bus with Kobid again to Gopalgonj to do Doyle’s clinic day, check on the house, and touch base with Brothers Kokhon and Ripon.

Monthly School Board Mtg. 

May 25 is when their school work will be finished unless Fellowship Mtg materializes before then and pushes the end date out a few days.

Sat. May 2

We stuck around the house most of the day, waiting on the man from Dristidan(the eye hospital that we work with) to show up. So Lonnie could settle the bill for the patients sent there thru CSI. 

Then in to Khulna City for 6 mo clothes for the Bud, groceries, and hamburger and fries and fresh lemonades at Mambos https://maps.app.goo.gl/rrdKTn8NPMTptpRU7?g_st=ic

At Safe N Save where we stopped for groceries, as soon as I stepped in the door, I saw WHITE people at the checkout counter! In this land, it is a special experience to meet another white person especially here in Khulna. So, the family is from Germany, been here 5 years. Four ? yr old twins, boy and girl, and a 1 yr old boy. The children only know German and Bangla but the parents know English also. They run a home for under privileged boys is how I got it..but it is not currently operating according to full potential as they are under staffed. I got her phone number so we can go check their operation out sometime. The beggar children were being really aggressive! Kept touching our phones, pushing and shoving while we were standing by the van exchanging numbers. And then later, when I was trying to put the groceries in the back of our van, one of the boys crawled right in and wouldn’t get out till I took hold of his arm and helped him out! Then Lonnie quickly locked the doors  as he was trying to open it right back up! They have never been that aggressive before 🤔 

Hit the fruit and veggie market yet on the way home.

Fri. May 1 Worship Day

 Felt like it had been Quite a long time since I’d been able to participate much in a “Sunday”.

I just got sat down at the 1st Sunday School tho when I realized the Bud needed a diaper change😏 So I walked back to the house since I hadn’t brought supplies along for that. The twin girls (12 y.o.? Maybe) that are often in S.S., were walking with their dad and were Happy to take turns toting Gentry till they turned off on a different road. Was able to get back in time to listen to the story. 

On to Chakrakhali S.S. I sat outside of the little S.S. shed with the sleeping Bud. And about 1/2 way thru, the recycle man showed up. So that was entertaining to watch as he would dump out a gunny sack of plastics and go thru it, sorting everything. The man of the house would scrounge around the yard and add more things to the pile. The man was a cheerful jolly sort, visiting as he deftly worked. He says it’s a good job! He can make 2-3,000 Taka a day, self employed in the occupation. Versus only 500 Taka a day if he was doing it for somebody else. Bodie, the lady of the house, brought out chanachur for everybody yet before we left.

Home, to finish putting on lunch of our home brined ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, meeshti kumra(fixed like sautéed squash),…

4:00 church service. Sis. Shotti seemed happy to take care of Gentry during the service again as I tended to the task of 3 yr old. Once more a parade of Hindus with loud drumming starts their march outside the church house windows. Us ladies close the windows on our side to block out the distraction.

After church, everybody was invited in to our house. Last time Shanto was here, he said he wanted to learn how to make Thanda cha(cold tea). So I told him I could have a cold tea making demo this evening. Kobir and Liton were very interested also as their latest brainstorm is a cold tea dhokan. Kobir was super impressed with how clean everything was, so different from Bangali way. He wasn’t even noticing the cobwebs in the corners, the dust on the shelf, the smudges on the walls,.. everything is just so much cleaner than most local standards.. He was pretty sure if he had a dhokan with a high standard of cleanliness, it would be very high rated.   Shotti fed Gentry mashed potatoes and played kinetic sand with Annslie.

Shotti shared with us that Rhidoy and Pinky plan to come home for their 1st visit at the end of the month, since moving to Dhaka to work, in Jan. There were tears of happiness in her eyes. We have missed them so much also!!

This is the day also, that fellow missionary Doyle and Krystal Barkman family, left the country for their furlough..

Thurs Apr 30

 Update on Gentry, 1 wk since his follow up/6mo appt . He gained 2 lbs this week!?! 😅 making up for lost time I guess! His little chubs have returned and he seems to have fully recovered. Even his junky cough that’s been ever present the last 2+ mo. Is gone!! It’s So wonderful to have health restored. We are thankful🤍

This evening, was still not quite so hot, so we decided to take the opportunity to get back to the river. The evening was Beautiful!! The girls enjoyed playing in the sand again. We took a tub along for Gentry to sit in as I’m not quite ready for the stage of him getting covered in sand.

Stopped by Batiaghata Bazaar, on the way home, to pick up some street food for a little supper. Gentry was sleeping already so Lonnie opted to just go get the food and bring it back to us in the van. When he gave us the bags of fried food, the smell and occasion made me think of McDonald’s(or any fast food back home) just Quite a different setting! And the menu is quite a bit simpler/less items to choose from here😅