This past week we were down with a nasty bug for a few days. I didn’t write anything since taking care of myself and my men was the focus. After the bug passed we had some other unique challenging days (that are funny now) but now we are back to normal life! Just needed time to recover and relax and regain our dignity and our senses. The week has ended better than it started! Anyways I’ve been compiling a list of thankfuls over the past few weeks so thought I’d share them this week.
🔹 The way the guards wonder where Layton is if he goes a whole day without riding bike in the courtyard. The grin on their faces when they see him makes my heart happy. The days he was sick they asked me at least twice in one day where he was!
🔹 Layton’s enthusiasm for learning Bangla words.
🔹Seeing the other missionaries when they come into Dhaka. It’s like family has come home!
🔹Being able to tell the dokane man what I need.
🔹hanging up laundry on the veranda first thing in the morning and seeing the neighbor lady doing the same then catching her eye and waving at each other.
🔹”The God of the day is still God of the night.” This song came to me one night when I couldn’t sleep and was worrying.
🔹Our members here… they give us such a boost.
🔹Riding on rickshaws… (as long as they know where they are going.)
🔹Hearing the morning sounds when we wake up… crows cawing, roosters crowing and doves cooing, the whisk whisk of the ladies sweeping the courtyard.
🔹the hot pink flowers on this cactus thing that’s on our veranda.
🔹Sumita coming to mop our tile floors three times a week so our feet aren’t constantly black.
🔹Layton: “Do you know what I need to do as soon as we get back to Kansas? I need to go to church and school and see if the ice maker lids open and close up and down or if they slide open back and forth like the one at grandpys church.” (🫣) Honestly, this child’s brain leaves me in the dust most days but then again that doesn’t take much.
🔹the way the whole apartment complex smells in the mornings… garlic onion and turmeric cooking. (We won’t mention the awful smoke smell that permeates our apartment in the evenings when they decide to burn leaves behind our flat.🤢)
🔹On days when there’s struggles and challenges that you only would ever have in a foreign country but knowing that there are a lot of people back home praying for us. Knowing that someday we will look back on the things that stressed us out and how we will laugh because they really do make a good story once the dust settles.
🔹At church on Fridays, Layton passes the offering basket during the last song and then afterwards picks up the chairs and songbooks. He loves his church tasks and takes them quite seriously! Shurov thinks this is the funniest thing for some reason and just laughs and laughs at “Mr Layton working.” For some reason a child doing chores here must be unheard of. Layton made a hideous mud mess on both verandas one day and I told Sumita she wasn’t allowed to clean up either veranda because Jared and I don’t want Layton to think that just because we have a housekeeper that he can make a mess and then not clean it up. (Part of the reason he had to clean it himself was because there was disobedience involved in the mud making.) She laughed and laughed and thought it was funny that he had to clean it up himself. So who knows what they think of us trying to make him be responsible but with all his energy it’s not going to hurt him anytime soon to do chores.😂
🔹 Fans! Full speed… it’s been 90* for the past week or so and it’s amazing how much fans can keep things quite comfortable.
🔹 Our verandas. One has a big water spigot that Layton spends hours playing in and the back veranda has a big tub of potting soil for him to rummage in. It’s one place I can send Layton to play by himself that I don’t have to constantly keep an eye on him or be with him like I do when we go down to the courtyard.
🔹Seeing the moms and babies at the clinic. Seeing them one day and they have a bad cleft lip and then a few days later after their operation their lip is closed and it makes for the most beautiful smile you have ever seen!
🔹 the rows and rows of bright colored fruit and veggies at the dokane. No one needs to give these men any class on product presentation.
🔹a freezer full of food for after the baby is born. Simple meals but it was fun to make it all knowing that we would eat it when our baby is here. 🥰
🔹UniMart… a fun place to grocery shop on Fridays. Has pretty much any thing we need for cooking. There’s some random things that aren’t available but it’s been easy to do without!
🔹NOAH… our van… seems funny to drive such a big rig for the three of us but when we pick up visitors and suitcases it feels up fast! We haven’t broke out the cycle yet but Jared hopes to eventually. Seldom need to drive anywhere here in Dhaka unless it’s to the airport, auditors office or UniMart.
Have a good week! Our love to you all…🤍
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