There is Life in Bangladesh

Last week when my gardener invited me to visit his home church today for the baptism of twelve new believers I didn’t think I would go. Sunday is a work day and I don’t encourage (read; ‘allow’) my teachers to take time off on school days. As it is I only have one class on Sundays, and that with a co-teacher. From my gardener’s perspective the excuse didn’t really work. He ended up with support from my director and so I went.

I had planned on going by bicycle – it is only thirty minutes from here and I need the exercise – but then yesterday I was told the head of the church – the GS, was coming by in a car and invited me to join him.
We were due to leave at half past eight from LAMB so I had plenty of time for our monthly birthday celebration at the school which started at twenty to nine and finished in an hour. Church started at nine and we got there just in time for a light snack and tea. When the service was over at twenty past two we had been at it for over three hours. Nobody was troubled by the timing, and I have been here long enough that I impressed myself by not being bothered by it either. I’ll leave it to those who are so inclined to sort out when things happened and stick to the more interesting ‘what.’
I am not going to guarantee anything about the following as, apart from the sermon and my two minutes worth, everything was in Santali, a language I do not know.
The visitors, including myself, were invited to bring greetings and so we did. These included the clergy, the church politicians and representatives from two NGOs, one of which had paid for the feast afterwards the other being me. I didn’t realise until after I had had my turn that I wasn’t there as my gardener’s friend, but as the LAMB representative.
The first thing that happened after the introductions was a couple who were accepted back into the church after church discipline. They didn’t look too repentant, and the male part was an active participant in the church afterwards. I am blessed with not knowing anything about the story. The idea is that they are now forgiven so I really shouldn’t know; and don’t.
The sermon was exactly twenty two minutes from six before the hour until twenty seven past? It was a good sermon, the preacher who works at LAMB, started by saying he was going to read the text for today but was going to preach from Matthew sixteen. That’s not true, he started by praising the congregation for participating well and encouraging them to continue to come every Sunday so that the GS might be motivated to fund a bigger church building. The main point I took home from the sermon was that we can all be like Peter – perhaps not be too bright, but we can be used by God if we will let Him. (The sermon was in Bangla which I do understand.)
After the sermon, and before communion, there was to be baptisms. Two families from the village who have resisted the gospel have decided to become Christians. I would like to think that my gardener friend has had a part in this, but nobody took the honour for it, at least not in a language I could understand. Since there was a 'real' pastor there, the congregation also accepted three previously baptised Christian’s from another church into this congregation. They had been looking for a fellowship. We only call it sheep stealing when it is the other way. Besides, I have come to be rather fond of sheep stealing because it often means someone who is looking for money (rather than God) leaves one church and becomes part of another. In order to do so, he will have to go through some sort of Baptismal classes where he might hear the gospel again. He will then hopefully learn that becoming a Christian is not about getting rich – even if it is about God looking after his sheep.
Yesterday somebody called me and introduced himself with the following sentence, “I want to become a Christian because I need money.” He went on to explain how I would give him a job if he became a Christian and that many people do that. I told him that becoming a Christian would give him lots of trouble and no wealth and that he should try to find some of these people who have become Christians and rich to find out how they had done it, since I couldn’t help him. I can’t think of anybody who has become rich by becoming a Christian, but I know several Christians who have had their share for problems – my friend the gardener is one of these; he is an old man who doesn’t always have enough of anything in Maslow’s pyramid, not for himself, nor for his wife or children. No, that is not true, there seems to be genuine love between him and his wife. Her eyes were as bright as the sun and that in spite of her needing a cataract operation within the foreseeable future.
Sorry, I got sidetracked from the service, there were twelve new believers four little children, three not so little children an old widow and two sets of husband and wife, then there were the two toddlers whose parents took the opportunity now that the pastor was present to have their children baptised.

We aren’t quite done yet, but we did get ready for communion. It was an opportunity to see four pastors; the congregational pastor who has very little training and doubles as my gardener, the pastor who has responsibility for a greater area with several congregational pastors under him, then there was our former pastor at LAMB who is more senior again in some capacity and the GS who is the head of the church. They took turns giving out the empty cups, the oblate, the wine (rose water) and 'sitting out.' If there was anything that showed who was more important it might have been in the reading which my gardener didn’t do. Reading also required good young eyes as there were no electric lights in the church. (There were no candles either that would have made the heat unbearable.)

When everybody had been served, two of the pastors suddenly disappeared out the front of the church, I know from a photo shown later, that they went some ways into the village to find an old lady who was too weak to come to or sit in the church. The lady really needs wheels.
The last ceremony in the church was for a couple who had been married in a secular ceremony and now were blessed in church; a girl who might have been their daughter looked to be about eight so it was about time. (Couples who do not get their parents’ blessing to get married often run away and then get a church blessing once the marriage has been consummated.)
We were all ready to leave when someone remembered that the wives of two of the visiting people might also want to be introduced so we took the time to bring them up front and have them remind everybody who they were – as in who they were related to or perhaps how they are all related. It is a great pastime for many here to go through each other’s pedigree.

I had not been bored for a second in church, it probably helped that our former pastor had asked me to bring a camera, and called me up front to document every part of what happened, but also because I had time to reflect on how the congregation was alive and involved. It was great to be reminded that there is Life in Bangladesh.
I was also impressed by the relationships between the sexes. We sat on opposite sides in church, but there was room for all. The pastors were all men, but the men and women worked together at the feast afterwards, at least my gardener and his wife did. And they talked to each others as friends.
By the time we got to the end of the service I had passed my camera off to a boy of perhaps twelve. He was keen and did a great job taking photos.
I had time to enjoy the day and rejoice in what God is doing in one little corner of His kingdom in Bangladesh.