Final Days in Bangladesh

Hi everyone
We have finished our outreach in Rajshahi. We stayed on a YWAM base and helped out with the chores and visiting people in the village. I shared my testimony at a Sunday school. I told them about how volleyball was such a big part of my life. They were very interested and when I told them about my team and our winning streak, one guy started clapping for me. HaHa! That made me smile. The base staff here are wonderful and such joyful people. Our whole team got very sick for a few days, which was not very pleasant, but we got better and made the best of our short time there.
Our train ride to Dhaka was nice. We had our own room, which was carpeted and had fans and a radio and was clean!! Definitely was nicer than anything we have been on in a while. Nine of us crowded into the room, but we are used to being in each others space by now:) We just lay on each other and figure it out...no use in complaining. I really believe our our team has gotten along great! Thank goodness! We got to Dhaka and we had Nobian there waiting...He was our translator about a month ago. He is a really fun and nice guy. He is from Bangladesh. He got us taxi's and i yi yi these taxis wouldn't pass any sort of inspection in the U.S., that's for sure! By now, though, anything goes. I don't get nervous anymore. You just go with the flow.
We arrived at our destination and it's amazing! We're staying at a YWAM couple's aparment. It's clean, smells good, no rats, comfy beds, real toilets, annnd Americans to talk to:) It couldn't get any better...well, that's what I thought anyway. The 21st we had our first day of ministry, which was in the slums. Talk about heart breaking. WOW! I can't get over it, but just a smile is a minstry here, too. I helped in a kids school. I led songs with Jason and he told the story of Noah's ark. They had never heard the story. Nobian was our translator. We then did house visits and I prayed for a woman who was losing her sight and was really sad because her daughter had left. Then Jason and I went and sat in the Drs. office, which is in a little room with a mat on the floor. The Dr. is a missionary from New Zealand and has been here for 14 years. It was so interesting. People just come in and out and she prescribes the medicine most needed out of all the problems, because they can't afford all the medicine necessary. I got to sit and watch her examine some of them and then I played with some of the kids. The girls braided my hair and I gave one of them the butterfly clip I had in my hair. When I was walking away from the school area, one girl came running after me and grabbed my hand and pulled me down so she could put earrings in my ears. It was so sweet and it just blew me away. This girl has nothing and wanted to give me some earrings!!
So after ministry we got back on the bus and headed back to the apartment. When we got there we walked to a coffee shop. It was so nice. It was nicer than Starbucks. How does that work?!! They sat us and took our orders. We got a chocolate waffle with ice cream, a waffle with strawberries and all of us got frapaccinos!!HaHa! We were like, ' Oh we have to!' It tasted so amazing. We just had to splurge. So life was really great up to that point and then we got back to the apartment and guess what was for dinner....SPAGHETTI!!! It tasted wonderful. We haven't had anything that good in months! What a glorious day!!!
I know this is long, but I wanted to catch everyone up on what I've been doing. I miss everyone and look forward to catching up with you!
Until next time
Ames
(posted by Mom)