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News From South Asia: Bangladesh - The Kingdom of God Is Like Leaven

1) BEA, GCI's operational arm in Bangladesh, is doing amazing work through their substantial mission base, including various social programs, schools, healthcare training, and gospel outreach. 2) A visit was made to encourage and strengthen the work, including meetings with supporters and leaders to discuss programs and challenges. 3) BEA runs various social programs like healthcare training, schools, and goat distributions to help lift people out of poverty while discreetly sharing the gospel.

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52 views3 pages

News From South Asia: Bangladesh - The Kingdom of God Is Like Leaven

1) BEA, GCI's operational arm in Bangladesh, is doing amazing work through their substantial mission base, including various social programs, schools, healthcare training, and gospel outreach. 2) A visit was made to encourage and strengthen the work, including meetings with supporters and leaders to discuss programs and challenges. 3) BEA runs various social programs like healthcare training, schools, and goat distributions to help lift people out of poverty while discreetly sharing the gospel.

Uploaded by

nica
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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News from South Asia

Southern Asia & South Pacific Region

April 12, 2016


GRACE COMMUNION
INTERNATIONAL
Bangladesh – The Kingdom of God is like leaven…

From a village you cannot find on Google maps, in southern Bangladesh, the Holy Spirit is doing an
amazing work in the lives of many villagers, with services emanating out from the substantial mission
base established there by BEA (Bengali Evangelical Association), GCI’s operational arm in Bangladesh.

National Director, Dr. John Biswas, made one of his


biannual pastoral and coordination visits to
Bangladesh in early March. He was accompanied by
his wife, Naomi, Robin and Arlene Connolly, BEA
board members resident in California, Rod and Ruth
Matthews, Mission Director for the Southern Asia &
South Pacific region, and (on the left) Don Fredricks, a
friend of BEA from California who conducts a
business basics course to aid those in the developing
world get a start towards a life that is self-sustaining
financially. A visit of about two weeks has to be
packed with activities to encourage, expand and
strengthen the projects there.

On arrival in Dhaka, with only one day reserved for recovery from the long flights, we held a meeting
of members and BEA supporters on Saturday evening, and over 80 were in attendance, packed into a
room that would be suitable for about 40 people in the west.

On Sunday we undertook the 8-hour, arduous and sometimes “exciting” van trip to Barisal in the
south. The driver has to evade buses (going as fast as they can) and trucks (sometimes barely able to
crawl with their heavy loads), pedicabs, occasional ox carts, weaving motor cycles and, oh, yes, some
cars too. Two hours out of Dhaka we have to take a 40-minute
ride on a vehicle ferry across the wide Padma River (the lower
reaches of what starts off in India as the Ganges). Lunch has been
arranged through John’s friends at a Baptist facility near Faridpur.
Then it’s another 4 hours to Barisal and we arrive around dark.
John and his local assistants then find that they have to negotiate
with the
hotel which
has double
booked a room or two that we need due to
pressure from a politician. We win.

On Monday a major outreach meeting has


been scheduled at the mission base at
Sathsimulia, which is over an hour’s drive from
Barisal, and perhaps 250 people pack into the
largest meeting room, in the humid heat, in the
newest of the buildings there (downstairs in
the building on the right). The people are
2

joyously praising God in song. The service includes listening to my Biblical message in English with a
Bangla translation provided by John’s nephew, Milton Biswas. He was very good.

On Tuesday there is a meeting of those in leadership


positions in the Barisal and mission base area to
introduce a Learning-for-Life Program, a mutual sharing
and learning program which includes the development
of effective speaking principles (right). On Wednesday
the gospel workers and supervisors of the various
outreach programs get together to give reports on the
year’s progress and outline the needs and challenges
for the months ahead. And so the time flies.

BEA conducts a wide range of social development,


humanitarian, and appropriate evangelistic activities with a limited staff. In the course of the year,
two training courses are conducted in the mission center for nurse’s assistants. Young women are
chosen from the surrounding communities, regardless of their religious affiliation, and are provided
with a basic medical and health education so they can gain employment in clinics, hospitals and
nursing homes. Since the intensive three-month program began in 2003, over 450 young ladies have
taken the course. At an approximate cost of $150 per student, all funded from overseas donations,
the course is excellent value for the impact it has
on the surrounding communities.

The children in Bangladesh are often deprived of a


good education when parents cannot afford to
send them to school, expecially if their village has
no local school. BEA runs 13 small elementary
schools, providing books, school supplies and
emergency health care support. Most come from
local Muslim or Hindu families, but they recognise
the value of the quality education offered which is
based on Biblical principles and promotes
community responsibilities and good citizenship.
3

Over many years, BEA has also run a program of providing


goats to disadvantaged families. Scant income from
laboring in the rice or corn fields isn’t enough to support
healthy, educated children. Providing a family with a goat
which they can breed with the neighbor’s goat will not
only provide the family with goats to sell but enrich the
family’s diet with the protein-rich milk. Goats can produce
four quarts of milk a day, often produce twin kids, and
can thrive in a wide range of environments. A well-
managed goat can lift a family from the bottom levels of
poverty and greatly improve their health.

The above three projects not only provide tangible physical assistance in the day-to-day lives of the
poor but are means of reaching out into the community with the most practical of demonstrations of
the unconditional love of God for all peoples. Nothing is asked in return. But since these projects are
in many ways counter-cultural, they engender questions and interest in what prompts these
initiatives. So they are discretely evangelical.

In order to equip people to appropriately


answer the questions that come their way by
virtue of all these activities, BEA provides
training for gospel workers – over 200 have
been trained in the last 8 years – to take the
gospel to small interested groups in their
homes, to teach in congregations and answer
Biblical questions in a country where few
people know anything about Christianity. BEA
distributes Bengali Bibles to literate people
who request it, and prints and distributes
small Bengali booklets explaining the gospel
message.

Bangladesh is a very challenging environment. Outreach into the community is the most effective
example of the genuine love of God for all peoples, expressed through those he has called, but in a
sensitive environment it can be misunderstood and must be conducted with the utmost wisdom and
discretion. BEA would like to expand into micro-financing so that some can support themselves and
their extended families with initiatives such as making handcrafts, sewing and fish farming. And there
are always reoccurring emergencies caused by natural disasters (this part of Bangladesh is very
susceptible to cyclones) and human-caused problems such as poverty and sexual exploitation.

We are privileged to be involved in a fairly extensive operation for a small church in a very populous
country of 175 million people. Yet the gospel percolates into the communities, through and in the
lives and examples of Christ’s disciples there. Your prayers and support for the activities and
challenges facing our mission people there, and the leadership of the work being done in Bangladesh
as part of Jesus’ ministry there is much appreciated.

--Rod Matthews

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