"That is a ROYAL BENGAL TIGER!"

Hello faithful prayers and followers at home! Or should I say Emmanuel! God has truly been with us and faithfully sustaining us so far. Jen here, enjoying my role as leader and having the privilege of watching these girls shine. I'd like to write this blog with some of highlights of our experience so far and especially of the events of the last few days.
1. Yesterday Albert and Metali took the day to give us a tour of our city, Khulna. I enjoyed seeing them both have a day to relax and all the laughter we shared. The day included ice cream, a boat ride, a trip to their large bridge (building bridges to change the world!), getting caught outside in a HUGE rainstorm and ending up sopping wet, our second meal out with fried chicken, rice, and "thai" soup, and lastly a trip to the Khulna zoo! When we came upon the cage of the tiger, Casey bounds up and exclaims "hey kitty!" and Metali quickly corrected her, "that is a ROYAL BENGAL TIGER!" Albert pipes in "That is the national beast!" We all rolled with laughter.
2. Metali's brother, Dolon, has been such a wonderful friend to us. He frequently meets us in the evening at Metali's mom's house with fried treats from the street vendors, and is always eager to take time to spend with us, taking us around town and doing anything we need. We have all commented that his provision, generosity and love for us has been something we've really cherished.
3. As a group of girls, we've had some great late-night conversations about all that is happening in the ministry here and all that God is doing in us. All the good conversations happen late at night, right? I've enjoyed catching the subtle comments of insights and changes the girls are already looking forward to making when they come home. We even have a few praying about being missionaries in the future. Pray with them about what this trip will mean in the journey God is taking them on.
4. Metali and Albert's two sons have been our greatest joy here. Anik is a clever witty 10 year old always eager to come over and play "the uno" with us. And by uno we mean crazy slap uno where Anik always seems to have less cards than the rest of us. Their other son is Ayon, a one and a half year old bounding with energy non-stop, always looking to make us laugh with his antics. Most evenings we end up at Metali's mother Roma's house for tea and that's when Ayon is in his prime awake time dancing around and singing and screaming and copying everything Anik does. They both have taken to calling us "Jennifer Auntie" or "Felicia Auntie" which is adorable. We've also loved helping Metali out a few times during the day so she can go out by watching the boys in our apartment. Always an exciting adventure of what Ayon is getting into and life in a world without diapers :)
5. One last village trip that we haven't written about yet was a trip to a Hindu village where we again acted out our now well-rehearsed Good Samaritan skit (Andrea plays a great robber and Kristin always falls with such grace) complete with a few great renditions of our Bangla children's songs (we now have 2 fully under our belt). The village was so grateful for our presence that they climbed up the tree and picked us guavas (granted not quite ripe and Metali helped us later descretely discard what we didn't finish) Though these experiences may sound similar, each day we most enjoy going out and meeting people in the villages and sharing God's love. Albert will tell us to plan for 10 children and easily 75 people show up when we arrive! For many of us its our first time in a culture with very little to no context about Christianity continues to be challenging and inspiring. In other news, that day we saw a 4 foot long water snake.
6. Everyone is handling the heat and the occasional stomach pains really well. Attitudes have been great and considering all the cooking, cleaning, washing, babysitting, and lesson planning we're doing, everyone's been a champ. One food we all collectively decided we do not like is Betel nut. They chew it wrapped in leaves and it turns your mouth red (and it upset our stomachs) but like good missionaries we ate what was offered to us! They all cracked up at our expressions.
7. Lastly, we could use your prayer for tomorrow. On our Friday (which is their Sunday day off from work holiday) we are leading a Sunday School Teachers Training. Albert and Metali were so impressed with our teaching in the sunday school our first sunday that they asks us to create a training day for teachers from all our churches. Danielle's leading crafts, I'm leading games, Kristin is teaching on different methods of teaching, Casey's doing a few lessons, Andrea's doing songs and Felicia's doing memory verses and we're all ending with a complete sunday lesson all thematically arranged (if you're wondering, We're going to recreate Moses and the plagues with crystal light packets and roaring renditions of "Pharoah Pharoah" complete with motions) It feels like a big responsibility and we've all been busily working all day today (Thursday) on our parts of the training. Pray that this is a helpful day for their children's workers and God uses our skills of years in children's ministry to help their churches here.

We feel your prayers, always appreciate and read your comments, and miss you all a lot at home. Homesickness has kicked in a bit so definitely pray that we are all present here for the last 10 days in the Desh! We love you all.
-jen