May 20 - May 26, 2024

 Please excuse the lack of a post this past week. We were out with a bad case of the stomach flu. It totally zapped all our energy for several days and we are still recovering. I won’t go into details. 😂 (you’re welcome!) 

Monday 5/20: No clinic today. Dr Elizabeth had some exams she needed to take. She is trying to get a physicians license in the UK as well. Shania was up with the birds this morning. It starts to get light around 5 so she likes to be up early.😳 By 8:30 I had most of my mornings work done. Still working on getting caught up with laundry after last weeks flu bug. Shania still seems to be fighting abit of it. She was up for several hours during the night. Seemed like she was having stomach cramps. Jared and Layton went on a long bike ride this morning. They have started riding bike together every day at some point. Layton loves being with his dad like this. Layton spent time in his pool like usual😀 While we were sick last week the water turned green and disgusting. One day when he was bored I told him to go clean it out and put fresh water it so that the next time he wanted to swim it would be ready. He wouldn’t listen, so I decided he was going to learn the lesson of consequences. Well the next time he went to play in it guess what greeted him: a green slimy mossy mess. I said “next time you will listen and clean it out when I tell you right?” He readily agreed. This evening around 5 we headed to the clinic. I stopped at the tailor and dropped off some more fabric for some new dresses. Of course he wanted to know how we liked our new house! He said he could have them done in a week so I was happy. Want to have them for fellowship In a few weeks. Jared and Nathon had a visit with Sumita. Sumita really opened up and shared her mind which was really appreciated. The sisters appear to be in a season of growth. They are very comfortable talking in front of Nathon and he understands them very well. We are feel so lucky to have him with us to interpret. He often has a lot of insights on this culture. It was late by the time we got done. We had brought ice cream to have with everyone but we kinda forgot until we were walking out the door. We told them we would have it Friday after church. Nathon got a big smile on his face and said “Brianna do you have a chocolate dessert to go with it?”😂 that boy….💙 

Tuesday 5/21: we all slept like kings. We were so tired by the time we got home last night that we just all crashed. Guess we are still working on getting our strength back. Both the children slept all night. Shania even slept until 7. Felt so so good. Jared went to Shidabaugh clinic to take them some tracts. They have been calling asking for more so he had some free time today and took them some. It’s about an hour drive there and an hour drive back. The children and I stayed home. Worked on some more laundry. It’s gotten more humid here and been having random little rain showers off and on. So if I forget my laundry up on the roof when a shower comes through it takes even longer to get laundry accomplished. I’ve been trying to get it all hung up later morning so the afternoon heat will have it dried quicker. The afternoon was the usual. Naps and making food for my people for supper. Jared took the children on scootie rides. I went out and picked some flowers from the median and put them on the table and lit one of my candles from home. Gave the house some cozy vibes🩷 A candle and some flowers turns any place from a house to a home. I think this week is the most relaxed our schedule has been for months! I told Jared I almost felt restless today because it’s been so long since we just had a slow relaxing week. 

Wednesday 5/22: Didn’t do much other than go to the clinic for lunch. Played games with Layton, tried to keep Shania from climbing up the bars on the windows, and the usual. Shania has started climbing half way up the steps and sits there and talks to anyone who cares to listen. She is a girl of many words just like her mother. Sometimes her jabber sounds like a call to repentance and other times it’s quite joyful! I love hearing her jabber. 🥰 Lunch was chicken curry at the clinic. I still don’t feel like eating much so I left most of the rice on my plate at the clinic. Shania ate a lot of rice and dal so hoping it stops her diarrhea. We gave her some dewormer to see if that was the issue but Miriam says she pretty sure that it’s because she is getting her two top front teeth at once. She eats and drinks and makes a joyful noise like usual. Stopped and bought her some electrolyte juice. It rained off and on so no laundry got done today. Later afternoon Jared started working in Shana’s room. We want to give it a fresh coat of paint and some places needed to be replastered and sanded first! Nathon came over later evening and stayed for a while and visited. 

Thursday 5/23: Shania woke up on the wrong side of bed. Didn’t  help that she was feverish. Gave her some Tylenol and that seemed to help some. She got so mad because I was holding Layton and she kept trying to shove him away so that she could have mama all to herself! Finally I just put her down for her morning nap because she was being such a bear. Went to the clinic around 5 for singing. Oh my… I’m not sure why I even went as my children were a total mess. It was enjoyable singing though. Got home and Jared held Shania. She just wept and wept because mama wasn’t holding her. Supper was chicken nuggets and boxed Mac n cheese because we are real healthy like that on days like today. Shania went to bed around 8 and the rest of us just sat and did nothing. 

Friday 5/24: Layton and I were both smitten with the bathroom bug AGAIN. Dewormer for all was tried. Church was so enjoyable! Beeti, Miriam, Sumita, Ang, our friend that I still don’t know her name, then us and Nathon. I had promised Nathon and Sumita that we would have ice cream after church since we forgot to after our Monday evening visit. As soon we got to the clinic  I went to the dokan and bought some biscuits for Shania to eat during church. When I was walking back to the clinic, Nathon came flying up behind me on his motorcycle and laid on the horn. He yelled “Brianna! ICECREAM!” 😂 Jared preached on wisdom. He had no sooner had the closing prayer and Sumita came and asked me if we could eat the icecream now?😂 I dished it out. Jared bought a lot so even the visitors could participate in our ice cream party. It was so fun! It was so hot today. I think the real feel mid afternoon was 111*. So the ice cream really hit the spot. We stayed for quite awhile afterwards visiting. Before we left Jared had to dig a birds nest out of the vent by Sumita and Ang’s room. The birds have been keeping them awake with all their chirping. Nathon caught the one baby bird that was in the nest and carefully sat it outside. Had lunch and went and got groceries. Was out of almost everything and Layton was quite disturbed that all his snacks were gone. Oreos, popcorn, biscuits, etc. In the car Layton informed me that “mom, sometimes you have to keep your eyes on the prize.” I asked him what the prize was but he wasn’t sure.😂 Spent the afternoon and evening doing usual things… both the children played in the pool for quite awhile. Tidied up the upstairs. After people settled for the night I swept and mopped the downstairs. The floors were disgusting. Shania is in her food throwing era so you can imagine. It’s going to feel good to come down to shiny clean floors in the morning.🥰

Saturday 5/25: Jared worked quite abit in Shana’s room. Sanded and puttied the walls. A lot of paint was so loose it just flaked off. Wish we would have tiled that room but oh well. Maybe our replacements can have that joy💪🏻😃 I finally remembered to wash the sheets from the clinic. Need to go get some more made. A patient recently stole some. Sumita was in such a tizzy about it and I told her that it wasn’t a big deal they aren’t that expensive to go and get. The children played in the pool for quite awhile. I am so thankful for that pool! We have to clean it out every three days but on beastly hot days like today when it’s 115* it’s so nice for them to just go plop in there for awhile to cool off. Our water tanks are under a roof so the water stays nice and cool so we add cold water so it doesn’t feel like a bathtub! Midafternoon we went to the American coffee shop down the road and got some iced coffees. Layton always gets hot cocoa no matter the weather! he likes it because they put a fancy deisgn on the top in the whipped cream! This coffee shop has a play area so the kids played for abit. Lucky came to clean the guesthouse. She’s been coming from 10:30 until 4:30. She’s been slowly making her way around the house cleaning up all the construction grit and grime! We just got the top layer off right before we moved over there. The guards always hassle her when she comes in Pink City gate. Last time I told her if they bugged her again to call me. Sure enough the guard called and asked me where she was going. I told him she was my “Baburcie.” Gave him my house number and then he was ok letting go her in. They never give Nathon one ounce of trouble so I can’t figure this out. Of course he just comes flying in on his motorcycle… Lucky looks quite classy compared to the other maids here. I’ve started walking her out the gate then when she is done so that they see me with her and quit bugging her. 

Sunday 5/26: Jared had clinic this morning. While Shania napped this morning Layton and I cleaned the house upstairs and downstairs. Gave everything a good disinfecting which satisfied my nurse heart. Layton said his legs hurt from all the chores I gave him. Today was cooler and really cloudy! A cyclone is supposed to hit Coxs Bazaar this evening. Trevors have already been having wind and rain. Curious to see what we will get from it. Last year when a cyclone hit it cooled things off for a week or two. This cyclone is considered “severe.” Set up my big laundry rack upstairs and washed some clothes. I’m not going to lie I cannot wait to use my dryer at home😂 I feel bad saying that when we have it so good here but sometimes all this laundry just gets frustrating that I can’t dry it in an hour and put it away right away. Jared got another layer of putty on the walls in Shana’s room. Made homemade pizza and chocolate smoothies for supper. The children and the hubster voiced their approval which made me feel good. Just at home this evening. The wind is picking up so won’t be surprised if the power goes out during the night. 

May 6 - May 12, 2024

 

I’m not sure what to write. Seems like the past week was quite a blur. In the evenings I never got around to sitting down and writing anything so it will be an overall summary. Lots of fun times were had. Trevors and Doyle’s plus Nathon were in and out of our house for several days. I have learned to enjoy being hospitable. At home I got such anxiety over having company. I worried my food wasn’t quite good enough, and would people look behind my couch or even worse behind the shower curtain? or would there be long awkward pauses in the conversation and on and on. Here I have learned to just relax and let it go. I still have frantic conversations with God about my food but I am thankful for this wee bit of personal growth and hope it continues when we go home. Brandi and Whitney watched the children a lot which was so nice. The kids played themselves to utter exhaustion. Played at the sand court, rode bike, played soccer, played in Layton’s pool, swung on our swing, went to the Dokan for chips, pop and ice cream etc. It is so much easier to host people in Dhaka now that the kids have a safe place to run and play. Layton says “no one yells at me anymore and tells me to stop!” We are slowly accumulating bikes trikes and soccer balls for all the kids to play with. Our meals were pretty simple… Jared and I made a big fajita meal Sunday evening and then we had sandwiches, Pizza Hut and Herfeys for the other meals. Trevor got the RO system running again at the guesthouse and some outdoor plumbing issues fixed. The men had several hours of CSI meeting. Our roof was the meeting room. They updated some computer things and lots of discussion was had about numerous things. So many changes have and are happening that it was high time to get together and work through a few things. The crazy thing is is that we have not gone looking for things to change. Trust me any missionary from anywhere can tell you how change isn’t exactly easy in the mission! But all these things that are changing are things that just suddenly quit working after how many years, or things that just fell in our lap. So far the changes have been mostly enthusing. Nathon helped us with a conversation with Lucky. Sounds like she will come to Pink city one day a week to clean. Her daughter might come as well. The maids here in Pink City are not very trustworthy and Jared and I would have to go sit at the guesthouse while the new maid cleaned until she could prove herself trustworthy. Anyways… we are going to do a trial run of her coming to clean for a few months and then re evaluate. She very badly wanted to keep cleaning and to stay in touch with CSI. Jared and I would almost prefer that she cleans the guesthouse instead of cooking for us. We will still let her cook occasionally just because we do enjoy her food but we are kinda burned out on rice right now.😂 She has been coming to every singing evening since we changed it to Thursday evening. 

It’s been raining at night lately! It cooled things off so wonderfully! Instead of it being 100-106* everyday, it’s been 84-90*. We were so glad it was cooler now while we had our CSI get together because I’m not sure how well it would have went with 8 children cooped up inside because of the heat! Two days we didn’t even run our downstairs AC. No one is complaining about the cooler weather. The evenings are gorgeous. We bought a bunch of plastic chairs for sitting up on the roof. I love sitting up there in the evenings. No apartments in sight and from that high perch just lots of coconut and mango trees🥰 One evening when we were sitting up there Jared said “It’s going to be harder to leave this place than we think.” 

Feels like things are slowly getting settled at the guesthouse. Still a lot of little projects to do. Some things have come up that we had no idea that we needed to do. One day the neighbor said we needed to hire someone to scrub out the underground water tank… so random new things pop up but nothing crazy. Jared and Nathon hired a truck and had all the new shelving brought over here to our house and the guesthouse. So nice. Now Layton’s toys have a place to go instead of being all in the living room and the bathroom towels and washcloths and toilet paper have a shelf instead of being piled in our bedroom. 

For Layton’s birthday he chose steak, finger jello, Mac n cheese and pie! The steak was ok, definitely had better😂  He really enjoyed his day which made me happy. Got to talk to both his papas and Grampys! 

April 29 - May 5, 2024

Monday 4/29: Jared had clinic today. He said it was slow. I decided to start wiping down all the tile walls. They still have a lot of dust on them from when the boys sanded the ceilings. I started upstairs, and  had high expectations that I could do the whole house in one day because how hard is wiping down walls I ask you? Well clearly it is harder than I thought. I had to drag Jared’s huge ladder around to reach all the way up. Every time the ladder was stationary for a split second Shania made a mad dash for the ladder and climbed up as far as she could. Then I forgot there was a ceiling fan above me and I climbed up the ladder and suddenly my head was being wacked by the fan blades. I can assure it you it was painful. Layton gave up helping and went and sat in his pool to cool off. Finally I just quit. Later afternoon Nathon messaged Jared and wondered what I was cooking and could he come for supper because he was hot and hungry. We said “of course.” He said “Plan on me eating enough for two people.” Awhile later he came flying in the door and said “I’m hot where’s the AC?”😀 problem was the power was out so we were on generator so the AC wasn’t on. We can run it for short amounts of time on generator but then the breaker flips. At supper time the generator shut off so we hung Jared’s headlamp flashlight from the ceiling fan so that it shone down on the table. Between that and several cellphone lights we enjoyed our feast! I made chicken and gravy over rice, cabbage salad, roasted apples and then chocolate cake and ice cream. Nathon literally squealed when he saw I had made rice and cabbage salad and chocolate cake. Bless that boy’s heart he has had to eat alot of burgers and pizza the last three months. Him and Jared ate and ate and ate. It made my heart very happy. I had had a frantic conversation beforehand in the kitchen with the Lord about my rice and please help it turn out. I have never been good at making rice. How hard is to dump rice and water together? Apparently very hard. Nathon ate until he was stuffed and went and laid on the couch and said “blessed are those who feed those that are hungry!”😂 Him and Jared visited for several hours. Jared just loves when Nathon comes over and visits with him!

Tuesday 4/30: Jared headed off to clinic. I went over to the guesthouse and swept and mopped and got a few things in order. Doyle’s are coming into town today! Enthused for them to see the guesthouse. The last time they saw it was the first time we did the walk through. Went home and put Shania down for a nap. She slept for quite awhile so while she napped and Layton entertained himself I swept and mopped our house and cleaned some bathrooms. I have long given up the idea that my whole house will be clean at once.

Wednesday 5/1: Went to the travelers clinic for Shania’s vaccines but they were closed so went to Aarongs to get some things and they were closed too. Apparently it is “Labor Day” today. Finally took the kids to the new UniMart and let them play for awhile at the play place. It didn’t pay to drive back to pink city! They burned off some energy while Jared and I looked around at the food court. Found a place that makes sushi! It looked clean and they said their sushi is fried so I might hafta give it a try. I get so hungry for sushi from Keisha and I’s sushi joint: Hibachi Boy in Wichita. After awhile we headed to the clinic for lunch. Lunch did not fail to disappoint. Just the usual chicken curry but it is always so good! 

Thursday 5/2: Headed out to the travelers clinic first thing. Yesterday when we were there we noticed parking was available right inside the gate to the campus. I thought maybe it was for the workers or VIPs but we asked if it was public parking and they said it was. There was only 15 parking spots and they were all full but the guard moved some “no parking” cones and told us to park anyway! That was really nice. We gave him some money for letting us park there. Otherwise Jared was just going to drop me off at the curb and go drive around until we were finished. The other option is go by CNG, however Jared and I will do most anything to avoid riding in one of those. Got Shania’s shots and headed off to Aarongs. Came home and took it easy until singing at 5. It was so enjoyable. We are getting quite a little crowd of ladies that come and sing! Lucky and Josna have came every evening to singing now that we have it on Thursdays! One of our local friends comes too. Tonight Beeti (an expelled sister) came as well. It was a jolly bunch. Singing evenings are always our favorite evenings. Stopped for a bite to eat at Herfeys on the way home. When we were on the elevated expressway we noticed the most beautiful thunderheads! Almost Kansas style… 

Friday 5/3: During the night quite a thunderstorm came crashing through. Krystal wondered if Dhaka always had these types of storms. Jared says he thinks the thunder sounds so loud here because it just echoes and echoes from all the cement and buildings. “Echoes down the canyons of cement.” The power was at half voltage which was so bizarre. The fans turned slowly no matter how high they were turned up and the lights were on but the ACs blew hot air. Doyle said the same thing happened at the guesthouse. All of a sudden the power went off completely and then it came on and all the fans went up to high speed and just roared. I told Jared “Houston we have lift off.” Needless to say we did finally get some sleep. I’ve learned to always have battery powered lights on in the children’s room. That way they don’t suddenly wake up to utter darkness. Luci sent some for Layton when my folks came and he loves having them on! Had church as usual. Jared was thankful for Doyle because he didn’t feel very inspired with a message but was able to come up with something for an opening. Nathon wanted us to go with him to one of his friend’s weddings in the afternoon. I would have loved to go just to people watch! However we were all tired and I wasn’t sure about having the children outside in that heat for several hours. The wedding was a Christian wedding. Nathon said they mixed tumeric and cumin together and had to take turns rubbing it on the bride’s hand and face. This is a traditional thing to do. Doyle’s and us went to Farmhouse Burger for lunch. Sat and visited for quite awhile. Came home and did the usual. Napped😂 I remember this from last summer, how much we sleep in the afternoons. In the afternoon Jared ran some errands and I went on a long scootie ride. I’m getting better at driving it. I was driving along trying to swerve around the CNGs and rickshaws  and a man came flying around me and hollered “good job!” Whether he did it because I was a white lady or because he actually meant it  I do not know but it made me smile😀 My goal is to be able to drive to the coffee shop and Herfeys. Because that’s what a girl needs to give her a boost sometimes is a good ole burger and a coffee. Jared and I decided to defrost the freezer when I got home. I have never defrosted a freezer so many times as I have here. The seal is bad on the lid so Jared thinks that’s why frost builds up so much. 

Saturday 5/4: Shania was up at 6:30 this morning. I decided to just get up and get some things done. Got some chicken marinading for Jared to grill this evening. Trevors come tomorrow afternoon into Dhaka so the men can have a CSI meeting. Restocked some things since everyone will be over off and on for the next few days. Jared gave Lucky money for CNG at singing Thursday evening so she came and cooked for us all! Jared bought some beef for her to cook. He loves beef curry! Krystal had randomly mentioned that she was so hungry for it too. Her maid is Hindu and Hindus won’t cook beef so they mostly eat chicken and fish curry. Lucky is Christian so I’m thankful I don’t have to worry about not having pork or beef around. Jared did bookwork all morning. In the afternoon he had a meeting with Mr Kahn (the old guesthouse caretaker) and I worked on making food for the next few days. Lisa messaged and said “those creampuffs you made would taste so good again.” In the background Trevor yelled “no I want your bars.” So I made both.🥰 Figure they will all get eaten in the next several days. Making food for people is my love language these days! 

Sunday 5/5: No clinic today. Jared scrubbed the rest of the cement off the floor in the children’s room. Bless his heart he ended up cleaning the room and bathroom for me while he was at it! Whitney and Brandi are going to spend nights here since Trevor’s came into town this afternoon. Spent the day getting ready for company for supper. I enjoy making food for company if I’m not rushed so was glad I don’t have much else planned for the day. Jared helped me so much too! He took the kids on a scootie ride. Made chicken and shrimp fajitas, fresh salsa, Lisa brought watermelon and Krystal made cabbage cilantro slaw. It was so yummy if I may say so! Had a CSI meeting after supper. The men will continue their meeting tomorrow afternoon. Later evening a rainstorm came through and cooled things off! The cool is such a nice feeling.😀