For those who didnt know (or forgot), NCS sponsored me to go as a missionary to Bangladesh for a month over January. I have been asked to write a short summary of the trip.
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We did two main things over there, evangelism and contextualisation (helping pastors out with practices in their church community). Evangelism was probably my favourite and most rewarding experience. We told stories from the bible, about creation and about Jesus to the villages in the mountains. The villages couldnt get enough of these stories, they had never heard anything like them before. The village elders would even come to our camp to try and get more stories out of us that they could relay back to their people. When we were in the villages, the children would all sit down the front with their mouths agape. Everyone was excited by these stories, and soon forgot their fears that we were trying to convert them to christianity (which we were), and became lost in the stories.
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So yea, the evangelism was hella rewarding. Aparently – most of the people who come to Christ in BD come through the stories they hear about Christ (rather than through proposition, which is something we put alot of emphasis on in western evangelism).
One thing i noticed is that over there they have evangelism as a job. I dont think i have ever heard of anyone in western civilisation who evangelises for a living (save Smith Wigglesworth, but he’s in heaven now).
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The second thing we did over there was contextualisation. My group focused on the christian marriage ceremony that the marma people group undertook. Our aim was to reduce syncratism (where they have mixed in their cultural beliefs with christian beliefs). I will give you an example of one practice that we asked that they remove from their practice. They strangle a chicken, then boil it. When the marriage ceremony is complete, they remove a main artery from the neck of the chicken. A straight artery means a good omen for the marriage – a curly one means a bad one. We did research on this and found that divination is an abomination to the LORD. Also that strangling causes blood to seep into the flesh and in acts 15 (i think) it says that we must not eat blood. We strongly recommended to the pastors that they remove this ritual from the marriage ceremony.
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So that is a brief few examples of what we got up to over in the big BD (no really its the size of tazmania – with 156 million people). Of course there is a month worth of experience for me to talk about, but i will keep this post short.
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Bless you all, go in peace
David
