Prayer Letter November 2013

…that all kingdoms of the earth may know that you, Lord, are the only God.

 Is 37:20

Dear Friends,                                                                                                November 2013

Greetings from a beautiful and much cooler Bangladesh than the one I first encountered when I arrived home at LAMB in mid September. After three weeks storms brought temperatures down to around 30 ˚C and they are now sometimes even below 20 ˚C in the morning.

It has been great returning to LAMB after a year away; the welcome by friends, staff and students has been overwhelming. The fact that the school seems to have be running very well increases the joy of being part of it once again.

Returning has brought new opportunities for engagement at work and in church; at the school my replacements have decided to stay on for (at least) another year giving us the opportunity to reconfigure responsibilities and focus on continued development at the school. We were hoping to get some construction under way, but need to find funding before we can do so. Some of my colleagues are hoping to have extended leave the way I did. Please pray for teachers who can teach English and other subjects to children aged 12 to 16 (Grades 6 – 10/Years 7-11).

It feels like the team at LAMB is committed to doing God’s work; this is a good foundation for working through our, sometimes contradictory, ideas about how and what doing God’s work looks like. At times we may be confused about what is God’s plan and what is our own personal agendas. Pray for humility and the ability to listen and hear each other.

In the Bengali school year it seems to be exam season – in fact, it seems to always be exam season – our sixth-grades have had three sets of mock tests for their final “Primary School Certificate Exams” scheduled for 20 – 28 November. Grade nine started their final “Junior School Certificate Exams” on 7 November. I don’t know how many mock tests they have done, but when they come back, we have our own week of assessments before the Christmas break. I wish we could just ignore these exams, but the results may make the difference for what further education opportunities our children have after they graduate from high school.

We believe our school provides good education but because our style is so different from other education available locally it can be a challenge for our students to adjust after LAMB. We give thanks that so far, our students have been able to continue their education in various schools in Dhaka, at Hebron in India and further abroad.

The government’s five years are up and it is time for their final exam. The opposition has called for ‘hartals’ (general strikes) since the incumbent government was supposed to step down according to the last constitution but not according to latest amendments. The hartals have resulted in about 20 fatalities so far. Most of them were ‘little people’; either ‘foot-soldiers’ who were deployed to fight ‘the good fight’; people who were caught out perhaps because they couldn’t afford not to work and even children. The incumbent government insists on an ‘all-party’ government to oversee free and fair elections, the opposition demands a ‘no-party’ government. What they agree on is that the others can’t be trusted in free and fair elections . Our students seem to have similar experiences as they return telling about how teachers and invigilators help individual students copy answers and solve problems during the tests.

The church has been without a pastor for a year now, the candidate selected after the first round of interviews has turned down the offer. Please pray for the church council to find someone willing and able to fill this role – someone whom we will be willing to have teach us God’s word.

In the teen-group I am getting good help from two others, but pray for a permanent national Christian to come help set direction for the group. It can feel like a big challenge to teach and organise a group of discerning (or critical) teens.

One passage from Isaiah recently caught my attention. In it, the prophet talks about good things the people have done but mourn that they do not recognise that the resources and conditions that allow the work all come from God (Isaiah 22:8b-11). It is my prayer that we all will recognise God as the source of all the good he does here at LAMB.

Thank you for your continued support and prayers. Pray especially for the children as they study and grow, for their teachers to have wisdom and insight into how to teach and for us all to know God and his faithfulness.

Prayer Letter, September 2013

Dear Friends,

After experiencing the seasons; rainy-, winter-, and what I am told is a rare guest: a beautiful sunny summer, in England my tickets are bought, visa in hand and vaccinations scheduled it is time to return home to Bangladesh.

I have been privileged to study at Redcliffe College in England for a year. While others have finished their degree in a year, I will need more time to do so, and because I am scheduled to start work again from mid September it will be quite a while before I finish my degree.

It has been a privilege to study Justice, Advocacy and Reconciliation. The requirements have been that the students make their studies both Biblical and relevant to their work. This has helped maintain motivation for me as I have been able to work on how various challenges others are working throuh have relevance for us at LAMB.

Studying has been challenging in many ways, not least academically. The struggles have given renewed appreciation for those of our student at LAMB who find learning a challenge. Insights from many parts of the world on working for justice and reconciliation have also given me hope; hope that circumstances can improve for those who do not live the lives of freedom God intended.

A key passage from the New Testament is where Jesus claims that the Isaiah’s prophecy has been fulfilled:

Luke 4:18-19.

¹⁸ “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, ¹⁹ to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour. …

²¹ “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

A challenge for us today is to see how this is true for us today, and in what ways we are called to participate in making it a reality. Redcliffe has given me many questions; while the answers are few and weak the hope we have in Christ is strong.

When I return to Bangladesh I hope to work on my dissertation every week. There is much to learn but I look forward to the process of relating what I have learnt to our lives at LAMB.

Highlights from the past year includes bike-rides with former colleagues from LAMB; visiting and having visitors from all over the world and experiencing God’s provisions for people I care about and for me. Being away from LAMB has given me renewed appreciation for the work God is doing in and through us there: I count it a privilege to be part of a work which, while by no means perfect, has a focus and aims to be proud of.

At the school a new year has started, we continue to take on more students and new challenges. The Snowdons who have covered for me while I have been away have agreed to stay on at the school. I look forward to working with them on developing the school in new areas and to return to work with all the colleagues who have carried extra loads while I have been away.

Praise

A year of study and reflection

Competent cover at LAMB while I have been away

The opportunity to meet friends and family

The opportunity to return to LAMB

Prayer

Travel mercies

For good re-integration into work and community at LAMB

For wisdom to know how to use what I have learnt

For time and stamina to finish my studies

For LAMB to do justice to our focus and the God we claim to serve

Christmas 2012

Dear Friends,

At first, an apology for not having written for a long time, then best wishes for Christmas and New Year 2013.

This picture was taken today, 9 December 2012, from the window in my college room.

I sit at my desk and look out, and get a glimpse of the countryside in the horizon and today, the hope symbolised in a rainbow.

My current assignment as a student – a four-and-a-half thousand word essay – is about how we, rich Christians relate to poorer Christians. The buss-word is ‘Inaugurated Eschatology’: about how God’s Kingdom has already come with Jesus’ first coming that Christmas two thousand years ago and how it gives hope to our lives today, both in light of Christ’s second coming when everything will be made new; when such things as poverty will be history. It also gives us hope for today when we let that future reality take hold and let God reign today, in our lives, right where we are.

I am struggling with the academic way of thinking and perhaps more to the point; writing, but I am thankful to God for the opportunity to spend a year studying and I am excited about the fact that the focus is required, apart from having high academic standards, to be relevant for the work I am a part of at LAMB and Biblically based. It is to be true, relevant and good.

A friend reminded me, when I got my first assignment back a few days ago, that it is more important that what we learn is useful than that it is assigned good marks. (I wouldn’t mind both.)

Back at LAMB, the school seems to be running well, Dave and Shannon Snowdon who are covering for me, as well as the wonderful team of teachers are a gift from God. We continue to have challenges with visas, trained teachers, special needs and teachers who have been unwell. I do believe, however, that God is faithful and continues to care for us.

A number of children will transition into other schools from January. It is always with mixed emotions we say goodbye to children. At times we would like to keep them for a while but the alternative leaving would probably be worse.

The challenge parents face is always to know when is the right time, given the need for children to continue education in another system, sometimes in another language. Each child’s aspirations, potentials and gifting along with the family’s hopes and abilities – including but not limited to financial abilities – determine when is the best time to move away from LAMB School.

We are thankful for the time we have the children and we pray – do pray with us – that we will have helped them grow to their potential and that they know the God who loves them.

On next Saturday I plan to travel to Denmark to spend three weeks with family and friends there. In 2010 we hoped to have our whole family together for Christmas. I had to leave just before on 22 December to return to Bangladesh because of visa issues. If we succeed this year, it will be the first time since 2001 or 2002.

May your Christmas be a celebration of the reality of Luke 17:21 ‘the kingdom of God is in your midst.’

In Him,

Christian Vestergaard

LAMB, Bangladesh; 1995 - ?

Redcliffe, England; 2012-13

Kingdom of God; already and forever…

If you want to see where I am now, enter my current post code ‘GL1 3PT’ into Google maps or another mapping application.

There have been lots of complaints lately, loud, rude, inappropriate early moning and all through the day complaints; persistent complaints; furious and frustrated complaints; at times violent complaints.

Some of these have been at work, but the ones I mention here have been at home – on my roof. 

This winter I got a new water heater, a beautiful shiny new water heater, enough for everybody in the house to share – as long as we told each other when. That hasn't been the complaint at all. The problem has been that on the other side of the shiny surface there has been a matching number of claimants to the space on my roof, and the crows have been at it for weeks.

I didn't realize right away that the intruders on the other side of the shiny surface were what caused the furore and have been asking around to find out what to do. Most people say it is impossible to get rid of crows and as the days grow longer - and start earlier - I have been alerted to the conflict above my head earlier and earlier each day.

I am not a good sleeper at the best of times, but when on a weekend morning I just about managed to sleep in and then woke up because of the racket on my roof I had had enough. 

One neighbour suggested that, if I could only kill one single crow and hang a wing somewhere on or near the roof, the crows would not come back. I was ready to do what it would take.

That is when another neighbour suggested we cover the heater in black plastic and so reminded me that I had some paint left over from when my parents painted my kitchen this January.

Light blue paint on my water heater has done the trick, it is bright, but much to prefer above the alternative of a dead crow hanging over my head. I still hear the crows at times, but now theirs has mingled with the sound of hundreds of other birds. They are still loud, but their talk is no longer incessant complaining but more a quiet sharing of joys and sometimes sorrows too – just like at work.