Last week we were very lucky to have our friends Eline and Remko and their beuatiful little bub Ella come to visit. We were impressed by their willingness to venture into our world and it was great to have them with us. We were able to show them a little bit about our daily life, our house and our neighbours. So here, in a limited way, I will attempt to do the same here with more of a visual post today :-)

Disclaimer: when I took these photos, I had no intention of using them in a blog. And now I am too lazy to take any more. So there is no 'Home Beautiful' treatment.

Here is our kitchen. The first thing you see after coming up the stairs to our door.

And here is our kitchen with cooking lesson in progress.

The playroom

The playroom at Easter

Easter - activities in process

And finished.

The honeymoon suite.

Our favourite place in the house and an  unexpected blessing is our verandah. It allows us to be outdoors and also have (sometimes much needed privacy.) It's rare to be able to combine those two elements!  Right below is the duck pond. Which is great for looking at the ducks, but unfortunately also has a lot of rubbish in it. Those trees are mango trees, and here is another beautiful surprise we had one day.

A gorgeous kingfisher right outside our house. With nature a precious commodity here, I felt pretty blessed on this day.

Directly below the verandah is our water pump. We use this water for washing and showering but not for drinking, although a lot of people in our area do drink this water.

This is the view from the side of our balcony. In the background is the edge of one part of our community. The thatch building in the foreground is the community clubhouse. Basically that's a room for men to watch cricket in.

Fun new use for a palm frond. The lane that our house is on.

Ok, that's it. Hope you enjoyed the quick tour. Pop in if you're ever in the neighbourhood.



There is much beautiful imagery attached to water in the Bible. Healing pools, thirst quenching water, streams of life giving, life sustaining water. 

There are many beautiful examples of calming waters, clear streams, teeming-with-life rock pools that we have played in. They bring to mind the beauty with which our earth was created, and often remind us to slow down for a moment. Sometimes we even drink of their purity.





Our canal is not one such example.  Our canal is a shared, connecting feature of the four otherwise separate communities that our team occupies. Our canal is polluted with toxic chemicals causing it to change colours you never thought possible. It is the sewerage system for our communities. It is full of chicken bones, last night’s left over rice and lentils, plastic, broken clay pots, rats, snakes, and washing powder. And in the last two weeks, it has borne the stench of tragic death.

First of all, a baby boy.  The circumstances of his death can only be speculated. Perhaps a family overwhelmed by the prospect of another mouth to feed? Did he have a deformity? Perhaps a family unable to consider how they might pay for the extraordinary costs involved in funeral rituals (the services of a Brahmin priest, the relatives expecting  to be fed, the cost of new white garments to mourn in)? Perhaps an awful accident stemming from the fact that low-cost housing is found so close to waste water canals – marginal land, not much other value.

And then less than two weeks later, a local shopkeeper struggling with an embarrassing medical condition. Unable to find respite, he desperately takes his own life under horrific circumstances, leaving behind his wife and two children. How much pain does one man have to feel? Too much…

And the dirty water continues to flow. Potato skins, empty packets of chewing tobacco, blood.

My friend and team mate in whose community the baby died reflects on the words of Wendell Berry, farmer and poet;

                There are no unsacred places,

                There are only sacred places

                And desecrated places. (How To Be A Poet).

My friend says the canal is desecrated to him now, and I can’t but help to feel the same. We continue to look in faith towards a new earth, knowing that much redemption of our canal is needed if we’re going to see it restored to the biblical benchmark of beauty. But more than that, our hearts cry for the families living alongside this canal, our neighbours.

Cultural lessons in dental hygiene

When we came to K town, I knew I had a lot to learn in terms of cultural differences. I didn't anticipate dental hygiene being one of them. We have discovered that the morning ritual of teeth brushing is quite time consuming. One brushes one's teeth prior to eating and the process takes a minimum of twenty minutes. But don't be mistaken - productivity for the rest of the day is not lost. It's all about multi tasking. Here are some things I have seen people accomplish while brushing their teeth

Get daily supplies from the market
Got to the toilet
Play a game of soccer
Smoke a cigarette
Drink tea

Not sure if my dentist would be impressed or not?

Our First Jisu Christo Puja

For a long time we have spoken to each other, amongst our team and others in the city of our desire for a contextualised ministry. While good work is being done and has been done to reveal Jesus to nationals here, many expressions of faith mimic those of the West. Much of the meaning and depth of spirituality available as a bridge between believers and non-believers can be wasted as the potential for redemption of worship forms is dismissed as ‘non-Christian’. By discarding certain aspects of culture as idolatrous, or simply failing to recognise their capacity for redemption to become meaningful ways to worship Jesus, a barrier has sometimes needlessly been placed before those seeking to know Jesus.


To choose to embrace a new God as only saviour can bring with it a perceived need to denounce all forms of previous devotion, and that has been prohibitive to those who would know Jesus. It can mean ostracism from family having huge ramifications for believers. It can mean hiding faith or just being too fearful to pursue it. One simple way we have chosen to bridge a gap is by referring to ourselves as Jisu Christo Boktora (devotees of Jesus Christ), due to the number of connotations Christianity can bring with it in our context.



Being surrounded by many and varied pujas (expressions of Hindu worship – for a recent example see http://www.everyaffliction.blogspot.com/  ), we chose to share our Easter ‘puja’ with our neighbours. It was our first public foray into what it means to be a Jisu Christo Bokto. It was a simple affair. A mix of us foreigners with local neighbours. A service of scripture and prayer in Bangla and English celebrating the resurrection. We used incense – a common element in worship here – as a symbol of the fragrance of our prayers moving beyond ourselves and into the presence of God (Psalm 141: 1-2). A candle symbolised the life death and life again of Jesus.Our landlady and her family offered flowers and mishti (sweets), also a common devotional practice. I and others with me felt the presence of God in a way I have not previously experienced in our community. And then we ate a massive amount of chicken curry and rice – true Bengali style!

And as has become the norm, in the midst of me sharing the good news of new life with my neighbours, they began to teach me also. As I watched Aunty approach our devotional area, and ‘our’ God with such reverence, bringing flowers and sweets to offer, I was struck by her demeanour of respect. I’m still figuring out what it means for her to give offerings to her gods (want to vs. have to?). I’m struck by her continuing to come to our Jisu Christo prayer area everyday bringing incense and flowers. I’m wrestling internally with what it means to bring offerings to Jesus, when I know that He Himself is the final sacrificial Lamb. Once again I am reminded of the awareness here of the need for someone greater than ourselves, and the elements of spirituality which means that even in a ‘closed country’ I am much less fearful about being open about my faith than I am back home.

Growing up doesn't necessarily equal maturing.

"And I don't believe that anybody feels the way I do, about you now"

I’m wondering if I should rename my blog something along the lines of “Things we learn from kids”. I never meant it to be like this, it’s just that this is what keeps coming. Jesus teaches us to become like children, and I’m understanding that there is so many layers to His teaching. It really is a privilege to be a mum and learn all the things I was not privy to before.


We’ve just returned from a beautiful trip to Thailand. Half visa run, half holiday. So relaxing – markets, cafes, delicious street food abounds. The completely laid back atmosphere, something so different to what we have become accustomed to, was what I needed to get some energy back for returning to K. We spent an evening with one of our amazing team mates, (happy to chill with our little party of four!) We sat at a sidewalk table, as a soloist played guitar just across from us. Mim started to dance on the sidewalk. Just by herself, completely oblivious that other people were watching. She was just doing what felt right and fun! Jumping, skipping, twirling, making up some words and moving to the side if she was in anybody’s way and then picking up right where she left off.

It made me wonder why I can’t ‘dance’ in the same authentic carefree way, moving to the side as I need to, but coming back to what I know is right? A four year old can forget everybody watching, so why do I always move as if I have an audience, even when there isn’t one at all?

The Simplicity of Necessity and the Simplicity of Surrender - lessons from our neighbours

“One thing I have asked of the Lord,

That will I seek after:

That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,

To behold the beauty of the Lord

And to inquire in His temple”

Psalm 27:4

For a long time, this has been a favourite verse of mine. What a beautiful place to be, dwelling, resting, in our Lord’s temple, with nothing else to do but enjoy His presence. As a mum of two small children, at first preparing to move and now living in an Asian slum, quite frankly, that rest is fairly inviting.

This invitation of rest and enjoyment of the Lord continues to beckon me further and further into His presence, but more recently I have come to see that rest and peace come from not only seeking His presence, but the reality of actually only having ‘one thing’ to ask of the Lord. As I have reflected, it has become clear to me that although I desired to dwell in the house of the Lord, I am unable to say it is the ‘one thing I ask’. In fact, it is one of many competing things I ask. My actions, decisions and activities are associated with many motivations, usually trying to please people, being impressive and looking good in the eyes of others. Try asking yourself for a day or a week with every new activity ‘what am I really doing this for?’ The answers can be quite revealing. Having our motivation stem from multiple desires or impressing multiple people (spouse, church family, co-workers, boss, even my under privileged neighbours with our simplicity) can make our lives very complex. The peace I'm so desiring moves further and further away.

On the other hand, if we can ground our thoughts and motivation around this one desire…to move continually closer to the presence of God, simplicity and its accompanying inner rest is within our reach. Richard Foster calls this making decisions out of our ‘Divine Centre’ (The Freedom of Simplicity p 99). This doesn’t mean reverting to the life of a monk, that we don’t make further decisions or take on further responsibilities. Rather that when our motivation and thoughts flow out of a desire for an ever closer relationship with our Creator, complexities of purpose and its accompanying time pressures, ego struggles and other things disastrous to inner simplicity can no longer steal us away from the joy that has been promised to us (John 15:11). As far as I can see, God doesn’t promise that a life lived in harmony with Him means less decisions, less external commitments or less busyness although a commitment to move towards a single purpose in him will likely produce this fruit. But it does make decisions easier when one path will lead me further away from His house and another leads me right to His arms.

Quite clearly this conscious decision to simplify the basis of all decisions and actions progresses naturally to a tangible simplicity of lifestyle. When I am no longer in pursuit of security, comfort or an ability to keep up with the Jones, the way is made clear for me to seek the heart of Christ in whichever manner He is inviting me to do so. What is not as obvious, at least at the outset, is the lessons to be learnt from those who have already lead a simple lifestyle not as a conscious decision, but as a necessity.
I am no expert on the topic of simplicity by any stretch of the imagination, but I have tasted enough to know that the things that I have allowed complicate my world, have also held me back from entering into communion with Christ’s heart completely. In my ever evolving journey of simplicity, one way Christ has invited me to know him is through his heart for the poor of this world. And one way he achieves this is giving me my urban poor neighbours as my teachers. Unbeknownst to them, my neighbours challenge me into stripping away things previously known to me as essentials. As a family of four, the children 3 and 2 years, even if we do this radical thing and move to a slum, we couldn’t possibly do it without running water, a flushing toilet, fridge. Or could we? As it turns out we can. It is important to note that for me to live without these things through the luxury of decision means a different thing than my neighbours who struggle with heavy loads of water across a railway track, illness from lack of sanitation and the like out of injustice and lack of opportunity. But in choosing to surrender in solidarity with them, I get closer to knowing and therefore loving the ones forgotten by society, progress, affluence, us, yet not forgotten by God. If I can know the heart of Christ by knowing the ones he looks out for, and if I can do that by living more simply than I ever imagined possible then I can honestly say my neighbours have blessed me more than I them. It is my prayer to somehow repay my debt to them.

A prayer for the children

Just after writing about our neighbours here, our landlord asked them to leave because the boys were naughty. They left before I even knew they were leaving. I will always wonder what will become of those two boys. I think of the times I turned them away from playing or got impatient with their fighting. Could we have done more? Shown more love in the time we had with them? My prayer is that they will find a place where they are tolerated, and ultimately, their true refuge.

What is it about children anyway, that does tug at the heart strings? Why are we so endeared to them more than any other sub-group of humanity, particularly when they are in need? I have a theory..
With children, what we do now to them, with them and for them can be so influential. We have responsibility and opportunity.
Regardless of one's view on original sin, babies begin life untainted. True, child-like innocence is theirs. As yet uncorrupted, their trust is pure. And then life begins.
As parents and carers, we have an unparelleled treasure. A life to guard. A spirit of another human being to nurture and protect. Made in the image of God and with His handwriting already on their hearts, the task is next to overwhelming. I am not up to it.
I often think of the times I have yelled at my children, smacked them in anger, or perhaps missed sharing something special with them, even dismissing it because it was more important to them than to me. More than once I have wondered at me having the 'power' in the relationship when that power is able to corrupt, and when they have so much to teach me.  When childhood has such a bearing on all of life, even in shaping a psyche the guilt of influencing that to the detriment of my own children is sometimes suffocating. For me anyway, and I expect many mums, because my love for my children is consuming, so therefore is the guilt when that love fails.

I need Your power each minute to keep me from impatience, anger, pride, self-righteousness, inattentiveness.

I need Your Spirit to teach me to slow down and enjoy the moments of life.

I need you to somehow remove the unbearable guilt of failur, knowing that I can, have and will damage the most precious of souls. Oh Lord, how to let You be bigger than me??? How to let your goodness and plans for our children outweigh any harm we can bestow upon them. Children in my house and children playing across your earth. How to let your grace be sufficient - not just in the weaknesses I have, but in the weaknesses I cause. That our children may thrive because of you and despite of me.