Hello everyone!
It has been a very quick few days since I have last written. I am often up very late (like now), attempting to complete everything before the sun rises the next day. I am quite exhausted and could require some prayers! I haven't had internet or power these last few days so I haven't had a chance to write to you. I have some interesting updates I would love to post soon so please stay tuned for this weekend where I will hopefully have a chance to tell you some more "Only in Bangladesh" stories and post more pictures.
Thank you for all your prayers, I am doing well, just very tired and working very hard.

In Christ,
Corinne
Psalm 29:11

Many of you asked me “Why are you going to Bangladesh” and I hopefully answered that I felt God wanted me to learn something here, maybe that I wasn’t really sure what it was, but that I had felt God showing me a direction or ‘vision’, and that I was willing to be a part of it. I was excited to grow and to learn; yet I was also willing to give and to serve others.

In complete truth I often wonder what I am doing here and how a young Canadian woman can have an impact in a society of millions. I am reminded of something I used to think about years ago; that it is not the big things that you didn’t do, but the small things that you did do.

Perhaps no one will ever remember that I didn’t teach all of Bangladesh to know Christ as their Savior, and perhaps I won’t feed all the hungry, and clothe all the poor…but perhaps, Lord willing, I will change one life, impact one heart, and show love to one person who figured that the world had forgotten them...and I can tell you truthfully, it would make my entire year worth every moment.

I am really not sure how all of this will add up here in Bangladesh…how do I cope when I walk by a woman who has been cast out of her family and burned with acid begging on the street…or when I say “na na’ to the children that bombard me in the markets in order to avoid being completely mulled if I only give to one…how can I gather the courage and strength I need to change the world for one person when I struggle in my days to understand the society and language and find my own place in it?

These are the questions I pose to God in submission to His will for my life while trying to remind myself that really, honestly, and truthfully, we never do know where we are going in life do we? I mean, sure, even back there in the West, back in Edmonton, do you really know where you are going to be tomorrow? Can you really say that for sure? What control do we really have in life?

We like to think we have a direction, perhaps a vision or a dream, yet really, even in the strongest of times do we really ever know what is best for us? As I am sitting here reflecting on why I thought I came here, what I thought I would be doing and how I thought things would go. I have to be honest in saying that I am excited to find out how wrong I really was! I hope you are following me. What I am trying to say, God puts concisely in Isaiah 55:8-9: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord, For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” I still don’t know where I am going, or what I am doing, as none of us do. But I do know one thing, whatever it is that God has in store for me, I am willing, ready, and will give it all that I have in me.

When it comes down to it, we really are much the same aren’t we? We all feel sorrow and pain, regret and joy, happiness and peace. We all have a sense of desire to understand a greater picture. Perhaps if we all started our days realizing this there would be a lot more love and grace in the world today.

-- Corinne Olson, Aug 29/09

The first day went well, I only went to the wrong classroom once, and the worst of the day was teaching my year 8’s my year 9 introductory lesson! The students here are quite forgiving though and I am therefore enjoying my time so far. As for quirks you will only find in Bangladesh…I have learned the hard way that you are never to leave your cup of tea unattended for even a moment! Even worse is your biscuits or bread that you planned on having…it may just have a cockroach in it when you go to take a second sip! Yes you learn the hard way around here to always SLAM the toilet seat before you sit on it, always shake the toaster before you put your toast in, and be sure to turn on the light in a room before you enter it, wait a moment, let the roaches hide, and then proceed to enter. I have only been violently ill once, and have managed to find my way around the city a bit more. Most of the time I walk home from school despite the constant heckling and people literally staring at me, (I mean they come up to your face, about 4 inches away and look at you, this is usually right before they take a photograph or run to tell their friends). Apparently here it is not rude to stare!

So around 3 weeks ago before school started, a group of the teachers headed out to explore the canals of Old Dhaka. We also visited the Armenian Church and the Lalbagh Fort. Since then, we had our first staff retreat out at the Hope Center, which I will tell you more about next time, and now I am finally able to say that I have survived a month!

Firstly, the fishing ports! Well, quite the experience really. We hired boat to ride up and down the main river and I got some wonderful pictures of how the people live by the water; washing their clothes with children playing, which was really a blessing. One rather interesting thing is that they did have a small motor on the boat that they would use from time to time, however, it was right in the center of the boat which allowed water to come in! So about every 20 minutes or so we would be asked to move off to the sides so they could scoop out the water!

The smell of garbage is definitely obvious, and the people still stop and stare, even from their boats! Poverty and pollution are everywhere juxtaposed rather seamlessly with well built “rich” apartment blocks and beautiful gardens. I have managed to capture a few pictures of this in my long walks through the city. I am enjoying my time here, and am getting surprisingly used to how things are.

The Armenian church is the oldest standing church in Bangladesh and was erected in 1781 by Orthodox American Christians who started entering the country for trading in the 12^th century. The church seats about 100 people as well as a choir in an old fashioned wooden choir loft. Within the walls of the church that there was a unique sense of tranquility, something that is a rare gem here. The church is still used today and has services on Sundays, which is rare here since the holy day is Friday.

The Lalbagh Fort was started by Prince Muhammad Azam during his 15 month reign in 1678. He was recalled to Aurangzeb and the Fort was left to Shaista Khan, who reigned until 1688, yet did not finish the Fort due to the death of his daughter Bibi in 1684. A tomb was made specifically for her.

We were not permitted to take photographs, yet the inside is beautifully covered in floral tablets and white marble. The Department of Agriculture has taken over the Fort as a historic site as they are still discovering many underground passageways and tunnels. It is uncertain where all of them lead. The mosque, the museum, and the gardens were well kept and housed beautiful flowers. It is interesting to see how many couples come here to sit in the gardens. You don’t usually see men and women holding hands in public, but in gardens and parks they do and it’s quite cute!

On the way home from the trip the roads were flooded! Not something that happens often in Canada but during monsoon season here it is a regular occurrence, and people just embrace it the same way they do a lot of things here that we would find to be quite appalling! Notice how the child is sitting on the corner of the back of the rickshaw, the man riding on top of the bus, and the child hanging out the window! Certainly different here!

Ok so I am definitely having an issue with Bangladesh right now! It can be expected... I have been here just about a month! :) Ok so I have been sick with the flu for two days (+ chrone's disease is never fun...even in Canada), and I'm pulling through that but am now up late (it's midnight right now) preparing for my lessons tomorrow as I haven't been able to for the last few days...and that is fine, but I just walked into my room to grab a different colored pencil to keep working on paper since the power and internet have been down (making lesson planning quite difficult) when I reached for a pen and a cockroach skittles across my desk! Lovely! So I screamed and grabbed my trusty bug-spray that advertises "Instant death!" and begin to spray this thing since it is larger than most miniature cucumbers and I figure if I hit it with anything I end up with roach-juice and body parts all over my desk and proceed to empty nearly half the can of this "death spray" before the thing falls to the floor and begins to twitch for nearly 20 minutes! Meanwhile, I now have a sore throat from ingesting enough of this toxic chemical that I figure I will be twitching by the time I leave this country and now my items on my desk are also covered. Even more lovely! So I proceed to "get over it" because this is Bangladesh after all, realize that I still have at least 2 hours worth of work to do even though it is midnight and the bus comes at 6 am, and decide I should wash my hands, grab my pen that I first went in there for, and get back to work. Alas, go to my sink...no water. Lovely. So anyhow, I finally decided that the roach, now laying dead on my floor next to my desk (although his legs still twitching.... silly death spray...), should probably be removed from my room or I know I will never sleep.... so I went hunting for a stick, managed to find one in the broom closet (praise the Lord there were no more roaches), and slowly managed to push his corpse out of my room into the laundry area for our housekeeper to take care of tomorrow. Alas, now I am back to work... a typical night in Bangladesh that sometimes really just makes me want to go home! :)
Just thought I would share that with you... :) Much prayers for sanity needed...