Aunty Popy and Uncle Josh

Photos from the engagement ceremony on Sunday, 2 August 2009.

From More photos

A hundred and then some

We are just a few days away from the beginning of a new school year at LAMB School. There are many new things to report. One being a new mid level management with a Head of First School and a Head of Upper School.

The changes have already made a positive impact on the school with better division of responsibilities.
When the doors open to a new year on Sunday we expect one hundred and nine children in twelve grades. This is the first time we have more than one hundred children, and the first time we have grade ten at the school.
There is no doubt the challenges are great, and in order to help you know what to pray I have included the list below;
* The challenges of preparing all the children for continued education after LAMB
* Children with special needs
* Teaching to the standards needed for O Level Exams next summer
* Living up to the values of serving God by serving the poor while meeting the specific needs of LAMB
* Government approvals (renewal of existing approval to run the school)
* Visas for foreign teachers
I could continue with more, but will give thanks for all that God has given us in stead;
* Many supporters who pray for the children and the school
* Good national and foreign teachers
* Great office staff working with the government offices to secure needed permits
* Good results from a Grade 8 test (externally validated)
* Sufficient funding for the school year 2008-09
* An unexpected visa in stead of an exit permit in June
* Former students getting excellent results in their Grade 12 exams
It is a privilege to be serving God here - thank you for joining us.

Hope

It honestly doesn't really have anything to do with this photo, but we are trying to create a little shade in front of the school for our Sunday Assemblies when it gets hot on a Sunday morning just before nine.
I have asked our gardener, Johon, whether he thinks it will take, he is confident it will, and I have hope that he is right.

This week the children are sitting their final exams, like the tree they might need support, but there is a lot more hope for them than what meets the eye. Please pray for the children, and for the teachers this week.

Cyclone Aila

Bangladesh and India have again been hit by a cyclone. This time she was named Aila. So far 130 people have been reported killed; I don't know whether this is in Bangladesh alone, or it includes the ones in India.
We had a bad storm, but the cyclonic weather never reaches this far north in the country. Here trees were uprooted and houses broken. Sonkar, the older brother of one of our students, reported that Omika couldn't come in because she had had to help recover bits of the house and work on rebuilding it again after the storm.
For the children the blessings come in the tradition that any fruit that has fallen on the ground may be collected by anybody regardless of where it fell. In this picture two of our students are using the time before the first class to gather mangos.
Like the students in this photo I had to use a towel in stead of an umbrella. A towel is hands-free and doesn't get broken like my umbrella did when the storm blew it inside out.

Infirmities, ailments and bugs

With a total of just over a hundred people, it is quite unusual that twenty people are absent due to illnesses, but that was the case at the school by the end of today. Mumps, fever, diarrhoea and runny noses have laid claim to a lot of us.
Will you pray for us today?
We have a centrally located whiteboard for messages to teachers, this is also where we write the names of children and teacher when they are absent. It started as a game that we chose different words meaning 'ill' for each person. I don't think that was the challenge that made me sick, but I do need to get to bed early tonight.

14 more

We have invited fourteen children to start in preschool in August. There were as many more on the waiting list, and that is without counting the ones who were too young, and the ones who were too old.
We have full grades up through grade four next year and I think it is fair to say that the school has entered a more established phase, a time with focus on how to improve quality and consolidate rather than build, but that is jumping ahead.
Next year our first two pupils are due to take their O Level exams from Cambridge International Examinations in England. There are still many challenges for us as we seek to develop our capacity to teach the higher grades.
The focus for the next couple of weeks are the exams in the second week of June. The children are studying harder than they have been; at least some are. We are looking forward to seeing evidence of our efforts this year. We see that all the time in children who read and write and get their numbers right, but there seems to be extra magic attached to the results of the timed work that some call exams.

April Updates

I had the privilege of a holiday in Greece over Easter. It meant skipping school for a week before Easter and it meant missing out on Easter and Bangla New Year at LAMB - two of my favourite events.
At the school two students have left to a new school opened just outside LAMB by a former teacher. It is sad to see children go, but we pray that another school will mean more children get a good education here.
On Thursday, 23 April, we interviewed potential teacher candidates. We need more teachers, mainly in the upper grades but find it very difficult to find qualified Christians who can master the subjects, teach them in English and are willing to work for what we can pay.
We need to work on developing our own staff, please pray for opportunities for training, and wisdom to know how to use all the wonderful resources we have.
If this seems like a list of prayer requests to you, pray!

Blessings

For the past month I have had the privilege to again teach some of the younger children. It has been such great fun to have both grade 1 and grade 2 for one lesson every week doing a ‘Writing English’ class.
I enjoy it much, probably because the children are so eager to learn and so open to any idea I present. Their learning targets have been set by Bani, their English teacher. I get to make up stories together with them, talk about things they did or describe life as it looks from the perspective of someone who is seven or eight years old.
The children seem to like it, I love it and they might get a little closer to remembering capital letters, full stops and how to spell lizard, but not always.

God's provisions

Today we got the final signature that means LAMB again can bring funds into the country. After more than four months of hard work and prayers the relevant authorities finally signed the final piece of paper that clears the way for LAMB to access our funds.
Please praise God with us for his provisions.
We are also thankful to the Government of Bangladesh and to the many diligent workers, at LAMB, in our office in Dhaka, and in various parts of the government system who have worked with us to ensure that LAMB can continue 'to serve God by serving the poor, especially women and children in Bangladesh.'
Please continue to pray that the government will grant us the same permission for the school.
Please pray that God will be glorified for His provisions.

And two hours later...
During prayers at the Sunday evening service loud 'Amens' (something I haven't heard before) echoed at the request to praise God for His provisions. The prayer leader prayed that the funds we now can bring into the country will bring further glory to God through more people knowing Him. Amen.

Science Equipment

Thanks to a gift from Hudsonville Christian Middle School we have been able to purchase quite a bit of equipment for the science lab. The only thing missing from the photo is a triangular file that got left in one of the boxes. Triangular files are used when cutting glass rods.
It was great to be able to tell Ovi (Grade 9) that we probably could look into a kidney, when he asked yesterday, because we now have three dissection sets with which to do just that.
We thank all those who helped contribute towards this wonderful gift. We thank God for friends in so many places who help make LAMB School possible.

But Jesus loves me, doesn't he

As I was walking away from the school during the lunch break, Rick* ran up to me and shouted, "Uncle, Uncle, do you know what Sara* did?" There usually follows a story about some misdeed committed by a fellow classmate and today was no different. "She scared me."
Rick is a lively boy in Kindergarten so I picked him up and said, "But if you have been a good boy, it doesn't matter so much what others do."
"But it hurt me in my heart." he replied taking his hand to his chest.
I went on talking about him being a good boy when he interrupted saying, "But Jesus loves me, doesn't he?"
"Yes."
"Yeah!" was his only reply as he danced back towards his friends and the swing.
There is nothing like children to cheer you up and remind you of the most important thing in life. God must have sent Rick to me today.

*The children are real, the dialogue is my translation from Bangla but I changed the names.

Pray a little longer

Thank you to all of those who prayed for the fund release for LAMB. We don't have the paper yet, but the promise we got was that it would be signed early next week.
Please continue to pray that we will get the fund release for both LAMB Hospital and for the school.

FD-2

After the auditors have scrutinised our budgets and found that we have accounted accurately for the money we have been given, and that we spent our funds during the last fiscal year (July - June) in accordance to the mandate given us by the government we apply for permission to bring in funds for the new year, a so called FD-2.
For some reason or other this process has been delayed this year and we have run out of funds in country.
Tomorrow, Thursday, our ED is hoping to speak to the authorities in Dhaka so that we can access the funds already given to LAMB.
Please pray for fund release - we need two; one for the school, and one for the rest of LAMB Project so that we can continue to pay salaries and provide the services to the people we have been sent here to serve.
Please also pray that we will see God's hand in this, and learn from it not to make the same mistakes again, and more about God's faithfulness in providing for our needs.

Microscope

It is a while since we were given this microscope by friends from Minneapolis in the US. Thanks to people at Nativity Lutheran Church we can now say we have done scientific research on pollen.
You won't be able to see what the students in grade 5 and 6 saw, but the photos show you some of their reactions to it.

Picnics

Thank you for your prayers. All the beautiful children

are back from Rangpur Zoo after seeing wild and dangerous animals

safely caged

and well fed

You can see more photos and, if you read Danish, read about what grades 2, 3 and 4 did on their picnic here.

Study Tours & Visitors

Tomorrow is the day when all the students and teachers at LAMB School head out into the big world on our annual picnic. Apart from two teachers who would be throwing up all over the children if they came on the buses, we will all pile into vehicles that will take us to new and interesting sites.

It's not like browsing the web, the world we see will be real enough and the traffic will be full of big trucks and buses; cars and rickshaws and cycles; pedestrians and cows and goats; children and motorcycles weaving in and out of the mesh.

I'll admit to being a little apprehensive of the whole thing but it helps knowing that God has protected us every year so far. Do pray with me, please.

We have four different trips for three grades each heading south. Grades five and six, however, are spending three days with two school classes from Grace International School in Dhaka and will join them on a trip north to
Kantaji Mondir - a famous Hindu temple and a castle ruin near Dinajpur.

I'll put pictures on the blog soon after we get back.
Rusho has taken pictures of the things they saw on a walk with the children from Dhaka, the ones you see in this post are his;
Papaya fruit,
irrigation pump,
calf,
painted mud floor and wall,
fire place,
girl grinding henna.

Counting Our Blessings - 2008

Today I was reminded of all the things to be thankful for at LAMB School. God has been good to us and deserves our praise and honour. You can follow read the list on the right and take a moment to thank God for what he has done, then add your own.
There are many more blessings than these; look at the list of staff and visitors further down the page. Then there are also all the wonderful students we have the privilege to teach and the many moments of 'enlightenment' when a student conquers a new area of learning.
God is good.

Thank you Alan!

dave armstrong came to be with alan for his last week at lamb school. while here dave set up a school bell and a sound system for us. it will be much abhorred by our neighbours but only until we get the volume adjusted down. it is good to have friends and as alan's friend you instantly became ours.

it is a mark of everybody's appreciation for the friendship and appreciation for alan that so many of us, i think it was pretty much all the staff, showed up for the farewell at alan's house. alan will be remembered at lamb school for his friendship towards everyone and for his willingness to try his hands at any task, to work hard at them, and for the ability to come out shining regardless of whether the task was hard or silly or both.
alan will also be remembered for his deep thoughts and keen interest in the difficult issues that face people at lamb and in bangladesh. he will be remembered for asking difficult and engaging questions that never allowed any kind of superficiality.

you were another of God's good gifts to us at lamb school. we will remember you and be sad for a while, but then our memories will hold only the blessing that you were.

A new semester

A new semester has started at LAMB School. We have never been as blessed as we are now. We have enough teachers, yet again. We have a new teacher from England who is starting to work with us all on the quality of our education. We have two school buildings that have been painted all over (well, almost all over) and the children are learning.
We all have valid visas for the time being. I just got mine for 2009. We have funding for this year and have the promises of a faithful God.
We have all had a break from the work at the school and life is settling into its routines and it is good. Praise God.
Pray for us as we continue the work God has given us here.