Study tours and visas

We are half way through February and thankful and have just been on study tours with most of our children.
The little ones 4-6 year olds went on van-garis (flat-bed rickshaws) to the bus terminal and our potters colony in Parbatipur.
The middle group went to Kantoji Mondir, the Rajbari and Ramshagar in or near Dinajpur.

Grade 6 to 8 saw a Sugar Mill and a church near the site where William Carey first landed when he came to this part of what was then India.
The children had a great time; I am thankful for a good teaching activity planned by one of the teachers in my group, for protection when a construction project on the otherwise safe walk saw our 52 children walk right past a 7 meter (20-foot) hole in the ground and for having all the children return safely to LAMB.

On the bus, one of our younger students wanted me to repeatedly sing a certain song for him; he said it was his favourite. The words are complicated if you are eight years old and English is your second language, but the tune is catchy and the last two lines are easy to sing.

Father God I Wonder how I managed

to exist without the knowledge

of Your parenthood and Your loving care

Now I am Your son, I am adopted in Your family

and I will never be alone

'cause Father God You're there beside me

I will sing Your praises

I will sing Your praises for evermore

After having sung the verse for him a couple of times, he said, 'Uncle, what does it mean?' 


Please pray that all our students will know that God is our Father because He has adopted us into His family.


We give thanks for more visas for teachers, do continue to pray for the remaining three at the school, and for a couple for other LAMB staff.

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.

Home visit

Today I had the privilege of visiting Setara, one of the children in Grade 4. I couldn’t find her house at first, and could hardly believe my eyes when I saw their new house. What a joy to see that they now have four rooms – well prepared for when Setara’s older brother brings home a wife – he is almost fourteen so there is plenty of time before that happens, there was a proper toilet and the courtyard has plenty of room for their two cows and the calf which Setara told me had been born just this Friday.

It was very encouraging to know that Setara now lives in a good house. Setara’s father, Motaleb, had the flue but her mother, Jahanara, got the ‘tea-pot’ boiling and soon had a snack ready for me.