getting a Bang out of Bangladesh....

October 4th 2009

We arrived here in Dhaka, Bangladesh yesterday on Biman Air, the national airlines held together with string and baling wire. After putting my backpack in the overhead I turned around and was bonked on the forehead as the unit flopped down to greet me once again. Local hospitality.

Once thru customs, we were met by the country leader of Interserve. The initial impression of country on our drive here to the Viator Guesthouse was that of high density & pressured need. Beggars crowded against the car’s window pane at intersections, tapping the windows of your conscience with their stumpy imploring. Do I give or turn the other way?

I was met with two internal extremities and tried to skate the razor’s icy edge between them. On the one hand I could embrace the Scylla of insulation and ignore the crushing need in order to save myself. On the other, I could let the leeching of Charybdis thin my boundaries and bleed me white of all my compassion’s life force. Either way seemed sure death.

Lord, give me your own ongoing interior Life like a quiet tsunami. Sweep me onward into the perfect circle of your own embrace, my Trinity. Teach me to mind the checks, the waits, the impelling. All three.

We were handed off by the country leader to a lovely family for dinner at their home. This couple, in their thirties, with their hired help, served us a gracious meal with their two children also at the table. Both were bright delights who departed soon for bedtime while we adults adjourned to their living room for conversation and tea. This Swiss family has a strong sense of calling to do business here as well as a flinty resiliency and flexibility to survive here for the past six years. They manage to wrap mobile boundaries around their calling and family life. They manage a factory for an American owner and provide hundreds of jobs for the country. They join hands in a select circle of peers and practice the ‘one another’s’ of the New Testament church.

This family finds time to play on Fridays while working six days a week. They use wisdom in trading off smaller evils for greater ones; they bring Jesus Light into the country while smudging the Pharisaic lines of right and wrong that would and could corrupt monastics. Thank you Lord for this family and their obedience to your calling. Teach me by their example not only how to survive such a hard place as this, but to do it joyfully and with a servant's heart.