The Bangladesh Diaries: Love and Grace

And just like that, it’s the middle of June.  I’ve been back from Bangladesh for a couple of weeks now, and I’ve needed all the time I can get to think and process and grow from everything that I saw and did and learned there.  The past two weeks have been particularly emotionally and spiritually challenging for a number of reasons, but the Bangladesh GUP was undoubtedly the best thing that God could have done to grow my weaknesses and give me the support system and the faith that have carried me through these struggles.

To put things plainly, I haven’t had an easy life.  I was emotionally hurt pretty deeply when I was a kid, but didn’t have an outlet to express that pain, so it just kept being suppressed and building up.  As I got older, my methods of dealing with this pain became more radical, and I was caught in a downward spiral of self-destruction.  Miraculously, when I was 18, I realized that this wasn’t how I was wanting to spend my life; I didn’t necessarily want more for myself, but I just felt that someone, somewhere, had something better in mind for me.  I withdrew completely from a lot of people to try and become a new person.  Then the anxiety took hold not long afterwards, and I withdrew even further.  When I was 20, I met Jesus.  It was He who saved me from my reckless lifestyle and put me on the path to freedom and righteousness.  In time, I was able to forgive myself for all the irresponsible behaviour and self-loathing—but I still had contempt for those who had hurt me.

This is where Bangladesh comes in.

One of the first nights in the country, we were studying scripture.  It was a fairly quiet evening aside from the normal traffic and hustle and bustle of Dhaka.  Suddenly, we heard a loud “bang”, like a firework, or a gunshot, that must’ve been really nearby.  All of a sudden, everything came flooding back to me—how I had been hurt so badly to the point where I came really close to losing my life at my own hands and became trapped by my own insecurities and shortcomings because they were all that were ever emphasized.  I was so angry.  I broke down, told a couple of teammates the whole story in confidence, and just wept.  I hadn’t ever had the opportunity to do that before, but here God had provided me with the support that I needed, and the opportunity to get 11 years of hurt and pain and suppressed emotions off my chest and into a loving, caring, and compassionate community.

Over the course of the month, God showed me ways that would change my way of thinking around love, community, and brotherhood (or in my and half of the rest of the world’s case, sisterhood).  Every morning, we would go to our different placements around Dhaka.  I, and 5 of my incredible sisters of the Lord, went to CUP (children’s uplift program).  It was essentially a daycare for children of destitute women, or children whose mothers were being rehabilitated out of the sex trade.  There was also a program for the mothers of these children, called Basha, where the women learned how to sew and make jewelry and other handicrafts as well as business skills, with the goal of getting them off the streets and into the workforce so that they could make better lives for themselves and their children.  When we arrived at placement every morning, we would do devotions with the women.  The sisterhood and camaraderie that exists between these women was truly something wondrous to behold; they have all experienced so much hurt, pain and marginalization under horrifying circumstances, but when they come together under God there is this unbreakable bond that is formed.  These women unite and share and learn and grow and build each other up as the body of Christ knowing that He wants something better for them and their families, and they are going to support each other, walking hand-in-hand together as they follow Him to freedom and righteousness.

Working with the children of these women was also incredible.  Their little bodies and brains had seen, heard, and experienced some really tough things that we, as middle-class Canadians, could scarcely imagine.  Still, every day they were overjoyed to see us, and loved to create artwork, play games, and sing songs with us.  During the short month we were there, we formed really profound bonds that we and these children (the older ones anyway) will really remember.  It was extremely hard to leave these kids at the end of the month—there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.  It was really difficult to grasp that we might never know what happens to these kids or how their lives turn out.  I think one of my sisters said it best: “we are very sad to leave, but at the same time, we know that Jesus is here in this place”—exactly.  Growing up in so much turbulence and uncertainty, and then being brought into the presence of this ministry, these kids are learning to depend on Jesus for their every need and concern.  As long as they can remember to turn to Him in all circumstances, they will all certainly live full and rich lives rooted in Christ.  All that we can do from here to support this is pray; pray for these women and children that they might never lose sight of Jesus, and of the community that He has provided them with at this mission.  Pray that they realize that God is in control of their situations, and even when the outcome looks bleak, we cannot take matters into our own hands, for God’s plan is supreme, and He truly does have our best interests at heart.

It was through witnessing all of this love and compassion between members of our team and between the women and children at CUP that I learned how to love.  As a child, although I was loved very much, it was never expressed in a tangible way to me, but negativity was.  I felt rejected and abandoned because I didn’t feel loved, and this translated into self-loathing over my many insecurities that I was constantly being reminded of.  It was having this love that I had so desperately craved for so long be demonstrated to me by teammates I had never met a few months before, and women and children that I might only ever interact with for five mornings a week for a month that I learned the value and importance of expressing love.

God was also very much at work in this situation as well.  During our final week at placement, we were traveling there by rickshaw through the crowded streets of Dhaka when our rickshaw hit another rickshaw.  My foot was caught between the fenders of the two rickshaws.  I screamed and we were thrown from the rickshaw into the middle of the road.  My foot was a mangled, bloody mess and I was so shaken up that I just wanted to go home and cry.  We got back on the rickshaw and I burst into tears, not understanding why God kept putting these obstacles of anxiety and physical illness and now traumatic injury in my way of serving Him.  When we got to placement, my cuts were cleaned and my foot was bandaged.  I was just so overwhelmed by the whole situation that I just didn’t want to be there.  I wanted to go back to Grace House and lie on my bed in the dark and cry myself to sleep, but God had other plans.  A couple of women and children came into the room I was in and saw me crying.  I had been so caught up in my own misery that I had forgotten about these beautiful human beings that I loved so much, and how I wanted to be strong and supportive for them.  I had trouble walking, but I went upstairs to the daycare and as soon as I hobbled in the door, a little person with a glowing smile ran up to me and hugged my thighs, nearly knocking me over.  I picked the boy up, looked into his dark, hopeful eyes, and forgot all about the accident.  Seeing God in these kids’ faces was my motivation.  They had such a hunger for God and a thirst for love that I had to do my best to quench, and they, albeit unknowingly, did the same for me.

I was able to escape that accident with nothing more than a broken toe that will eventually heal—it could’ve been much worse.  Similarly, I was able to escape my childhood with my life; I was insecure and broken, but by God’s grace I found Jesus and was saved from all the hurt and pain and anger that plagued my life before.  Although it’s not always easy to love those who have hurt us, we can remember the grace that God has extended to us, even though our sin has hurt Him deeply.  As it says in Ephesians 4:31-32: “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.  Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”