Church send off last Sunday.

Last Sunday MCBC gave a us a lovely send off. We had a short question and answer time followed by them praying for us all. It was a really special time. I love how down to earth and real everyone is at MCBC. They really love people for who they are and are capable of doing things outside of the box. We really appreciate the support they have shown us and are also very grateful for the financial gift they have just told us they will be giving. It was very unexpected but we are extremely thankful. We love you guys at MCBC, let's go make a difference in this world together.

Thanks also to family and friends that came along, it means a lot to have your encouragement and support.

David sent this family photo to be used during the service...

" We're on a gangster family mission"

Packed and ready to go next Wednesday!!

The painting of walls is all done, the cupboards and drawers are cleared, our bags are packed and we are ready to go!!!

We are spending this long weekend over on Waiheke Island For DC's sisters 60th birthday. It's a nice way to end our time in NZ with his family all coming up from the South Island too. We are looking forward to a wee breather from cleaning and painting. Our youngest two boys will spend a couple of nights with my parents during this time and the older two boys are staying at home with a couple of friends coming over for a final time together.

Once home on Tuesday we will do a final cleaning of bedding at the laundromat, clean the bathrooms and vaccume the floors. We are then going to stay at a place out near the airport so we don't have such an early start and also so we can leave the house clean and tidy the day before departure.

Ropeholders

As a kid we used to have this thing at church called Ropeholders. It was run once a month for the kids during church time and I loved it. (probably because I didn't have to sit through church to be perfectly honest) During this time we would learn about various missionaries around the world, pray for them  and be taught  a little about the culture of the country they were in and occasionally someone would come with food from that country to try. I found it really intriguing but the place I was most interested in was Bangladesh. I always wanted to go there from when I was young.

Fast forward to me being married almost a year and an opportunity to go with a team to Bangladesh and India came up. DC and I both jumped at the chance. Only six of us from the team went to Bangladesh and some of the missionaries that I learned about as a child were still there. Also, the people we will be sharing a house with were there too and we had a meal at their place 24 years ago. I can't say that I fell in love with Bangladesh at that time as when we joined the team in India, our love for India was planted.  DC and I spent 2 months travelling India once the team left.

A couple of weeks before we left for Bangladesh I found out I was expecting our first child but we didn't tell anyone (apart from one friend). We eventually told Bill and Kath McGregor who were the pastors of Northcote Baptist at at the time, they had come to Bangladesh too. Their son was DC's best man at our wedding and is also a director in our company. It is through the McGregor's continued connection to Bangladesh that the request for our company to help out in Bangladesh was made.

Back to Rope Holders, I had talked about Ropeholders with Alistair Hall (pastor from MCBC, Manukau City Baptist Church) when he came to chat to us about the possibility of heading to Bangladesh. He remembered going to Ropeholders as a child too. The following day I was looking for an old nursing badge and came across my old Ropeholders badge. I didn't even know I had kept it and had never noticed it in all the years since I was a kid. It was in my little box of keepsakes all these years only to be discovered a few weeks ago. Interesting timing, Mmmm.

Our house and packing up.

Here's another fantastic piece of the puzzle that has fallen into place.

A couple of days after we first heard about the Bangladesh opportunity we got a call from a friend of ours who was in the country overnight. He was keen to catch up for dinner if possible that night. So off we went for what we thought was just a regular catch up but it turned into so much more than we could have imagined.

Here's a bit of history regarding this friendship. Ben and his wife Vinu had always said that when ever we ended going to India, they would come with us and that is exactly what they did. They and their extended family were an amazing support for us while we were over there. They are originally from India but are NZ citizens these days. They sacrificed a lot to return to India and we have always felt incredibly indebted to them, we love them so much.
After we returned to NZ they ended up in Sydney.

Back to the dinner.  Ben announced that they are returning to NZ and hoped to look for a place near us. We then let him know our news that we would be leaving NZ for Bangladesh but would have a house available. The timing is just so unbelievable.

We worked out what we needed to cover our cost of mortgage, rates, insurance etc and offered them to rent at just the cost. It works out to be the amount you would pay for a 1 to 2 bedroom unit but they would get a 7 bedroom place. They would be welcome to sublet out a room or two if they want to earn some extra cash. They agreed and planned a visit soon after. During that visit Vinu got a job opportunity so she stayed on with us and didn't return to Sydney. She's the best house guest anyone can have and has been living with us for about 7 weeks.

It also means that our married daughter can stay in our flat on the property and move out only when they are ready to get their own home.

We also only need to pack our personal stuff as they will use our furnishing. Win win! We are doing a bit of cosmetic tidying and a some repairs on things that you live with yourself but wouldn't want anyone else to have to live with. It's keeping us busy but we are getting there.

So basically, they feel like we are helping them and we feel like they are helping us. I couldn't think of a better way of dealing with our house and I couldn't think of a more fitting couple for this to have happened with. 

But that's not all, how could this get any better you might ask?..... well, their son is going to move in with them and his current lease runs out on the day we move to Bangladesh. How cool is that for timing!

Visa's approved!!

We received our passports back today from Canberra and we have been issued with the visas we applied for. I'm feeling very relieved and grateful right now. This is a huge thing for us, God is pretty amazing.

Visa's

Visa's can always be a bit of an anxiety raiser but right now we are eagerly awaiting the arrival of  them by courier. The paper work is always mind stretching and you constantly question if you have filled in the forms correctly. I got all our documents signed by the Justice of the Peace just to be safe and we had some chats with the guys in Bangladesh to check we were doing things right.

We have been told that the visa type we are applying for could be a bit tricky to get. 

We sent our application along with our passports to Canberra just over a week ago. We then received a message from an Ex internal affairs officer in Bangladesh giving us the  phone number of the Bangladesh High Commissioner in Canberra so we could call her and make sure all was in order and to let her know to ring if there were any issues. DC rang her and she said all looked good and she couldn't see an issue so far. She was a very lovely lady. The next day an email was sent to say our visa's were issued and ready for pick up.

We now wait in anticipation to see if we were issued the visa's we applied for 🙏

Leaving Family

As much as I am excited to go there are also many factors that I have had to work through and not everyone is happy we are leaving.

The last 7 years have been tough for us as a family. It was hard being back in NZ at such short notice from India. We had to work through what had happened and the disappointment we felt and work out how to pick up and carry on. I'm not sure we did that particularly well but it's been a process that we've all journeyed through individually. We've had 5 family deaths, both my Grandmothers, my Father in law, my brother (age 48) and my cousin (age 46). My Father in law, cousin and brother all passed away within 3 months of each other.

We've also had family and extended family situations arise that we have had to work through and all this had an effect on us.

It was hard telling my parents about the opportunity to head to Bangladesh, it seems callous to be leaving them when my brother hasn't even been gone for 2 years. It's been a hard few years for them too. I know some people will be judging us for leaving them and wondering how I could do this to them, however, as much as  they would love us to be staying they are also being extremely supportive and are already planning a trip to see us.

It's hard leaving our three daughters, one is working in Australia, one is married and working/studying in Auckland and our third is studying in Wellington. It's strange not having them with us this time and it's hard for them not having a home base here in NZ. There have been some frank discussions about unresolved issues for some of them on their return from India. It's been about listening and learning from past experiences and has begun an honest discussion on how it was for them. It's so important that we listen to each other and voice our concerns. They have some great insights to learn from. Two of our daughters are already planning on coming over to visit next year. Although they have concerns they are also excited for us and perhaps a little jealous not to be coming too.

Of course it's hard leaving DC's family too but it's nice to know his Mum is well looked after by the rest of his siblings.

This might all sound like doom and gloom but I just want to be honest. Decisions are never easy.  Our decision to go might appear quick and without hesitation but all these factors have been on my mind. I am so extremely excited to have this amazing opportunity but if it wasn't such a clear God orchestrated opportunity, I'm not sure I would even be considering it.

Who are we working with?

We will be working alongside the NZ Baptist Mission team and Tranzsend. We are going as independents as we can get there quicker that way. I'm not sure if I can mention names so will need to ask permission before I mention anyone. The NZ couple we will be living with have been there for about 30 years.

We are also working with Bangladesh Vision who's goal is "Meaningful work, making an impact" We have our Volunteers contract with one of the Schools. If you want to read a bit about the schools we are involved with then have a look here. There's no point in me rehashing info when it's beautifully presented by their own website and says more than I could do it justice. It's well worth a look.

Photo cred: Carley Bird

MCBC The church I attend has also been very encouraging and is sending us with their blessing. We are very grateful for the encouragement and support they have shown us.

How are we funding this?

The position DC will have is voluntary, his official role is 'IT supervisor and Trainer.'

Both DC and I have always struggled with the model of raising support and asking people for money so this was something we were not keen on doing.

Our IT company is fully behind us and I will be able to keep doing the bookkeeping for our company and DC will also be able to do some admin stuff, proposals and keeping in touch with clients etc. It works out that we will both do 8 hrs a week which will pretty much cover our expenses in Bangladesh. We still have other expenses for kids that are not coming with us but things are falling into place.

We've also set up a https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/bangladesh-e-learning-it-in-education-project page for anyone that feels they want to contribute towards what we are doing. A few people expressed an interest in financially supporting us and our brother in laws company needed to get receipts for donations so this was the easiest option. So although we will never directly ask people to financially support us we are really grateful to those that feel they want to contribute.

God has provided our finances amazingly.

How did we decide to up and go within 10 weeks?

This is a two fold story of how we got to where we are today but let me start by saying that if you'd asked me 16 weeks ago if we had any plans to go to Bangladesh, it would have been a big NO. Not because we didn't have an interest in Bangladesh or it's people but it just wasn't on our radar.

It all started for me on Sunday the 9th June while I was at church. The emphasis for the month was self denial and one of the pastors played a wee clip of his time in India and Bangladesh. While I was watching I became overwhelmed with emotion and it was a confusing emotion (I'm not a big cryer but the tears were leaking). Was I home sick for India? Sad because of how things ended in India? Or was God stirring something? At the end of the clip a guy we had met 24 years earlier in Bangladesh basically asked for people to come and help out as they are desperate for assistance. I spoke to one of the  pastors and another lady that night telling them how I was feeling but that I was confused as I was feeling a prod to go to Bangladesh which seemed odd as my husband wasn't going to church (His faith was still strong but organised church was not his thing) I wasn't sure what his reaction would be.

Anyway, I arrived home and my hubby ( I will now refer to as DC) asked how church was. I think I replied that it was interesting and shared what had happened. His response floored me. Our IT company had been sent an email request a few months back from the same guy I had seen in the clip at church and he was asking if our company could help out with IT and an e-learning platform in the schools they are running. Nothing had really come of this as the reply sent by one of the other directors had not made it to him.

Long story short, We sent off some emails to various people and within a couple of days we were preparing to head to Bangladesh. 

I think the great thing is that we both really feel this is something God wants us to do and he's made it clear to both of us in differing ways. Mine has been in more of an emotional way while in church and DC in a very practical way while not in church. 

Back story

A small recap:

Our family consisting of Mum, Dad and 6 kids (which became 7) uprooted and shifted to Bangalore and then Kollegal India from 2010 to 2012. (You can view my previous blog "Stable nomads" if you are interested but you'll need to go right back to the beginning posts for the full story.) We unexpectedly found ourselves back in New Zealand with 5 days notice due to paper work issues with the NGO we were working with. Were we disappointed? Absolutely. Are we still disappointed? Perhaps disappointed with how the situation was handled and the fact we let down 60 girls in the girls home but this blog is about picking up and carrying on. It's about taking any situation and looking at the good in it. It's about learning from mistakes. It's about learning to trust others. It's about learning to trust God again.

Here's our story as we embark on a new journey to Bangladesh.