Sabbath Adventures

10/12/14

Sabbath morning Katie, Nicole and I woke up early to go on a walk lead by Mr. Waid but we didn't get up early enough and got left behind. But that was okay because the older girls immediately found us, took us to their room and did our hair. They also dressed us in saris for church. It was fun to wear the traditional clothing, but it was HOT. All the SMs went to the older kids Sabbath school. We sang lots of songs. They wanted us to teach them new songs but they knew them all. Then we went to Church in the cafeteria. Some girls sang “It only takes a spark” for special music, it was lovely.

After lunch the SMs went on a hike with the older Pathfinders to SAMS, the Seventh-day Adventist boarding school about 5 miles away. We started out walking through the rice fields. Green everywhere! It was so pretty! Then we got to a road and walked/ran through several villages until we got to SAMS. Everywhere we went the villagers would stare at us. One lady asked, “How are you doing?” in English, I responded in English. You could tell that she was very proud that I could understand her. SAMS is a big campus surrounded by a wall. They also have security guards. However, it is not as clean as Banglahope. Once the kids reach class 7 they have to go to SAMS for school. We got to meet some of the kids at SAMS that went to Banglahope, and we’ll get to see them again during Christmas break when they come home for a month.

After we toured the campus, we had a small worship, said our goodbyes and headed out. It was starting to get dark so the pathfinder leader, Litton, found us some rickshaws to ride to the nearest town in. We couldn't all fit in one so we split up in three. Litton was in the back; Nathan, Caleb and Nicole where in the middle, and Katie and I were in the front with kids sprinkled in between. It was fun riding with the kids, bouncing up and down as we went down the road. Our vehicle was motorized while the others were pedal driven, so we got to the town way before the others did. As we sat in the rickshaw waiting for the others to come, the villagers were getting closer and asking the kids lots of questions. They were curious to see two white girls with a bunch of Bengali children. They asked the kids if we were their mothers. We had three boys with us and they stood guard to protect us. They were so cute. Finally the others showed up. Litton didn't have change to pay the driver so we all took the kids to a side road to wait for him to figure things out. As we waited the villagers kept crowding us. I could tell the kids were getting nervous. They had us stand in the middle of the group. I had my hands on two of the girls and kept tabs on all the kids. One man came to my side and starting talking to Jenny. It made me uncomfortable, so I slowly reached out my hand and graded her arm. No one was going to take these kids. Litton finally came and we hurried out of there. These are situations that I dread for but I felt very calm and confident that I could handle the situation. We still had a long ways to walk. The kids were tired and it was getting dark. With some brute force we made it back.

As soon as we got back the kids that weren't on the hike wanted to play. I was overwhelmed with the amount of bodies grabbing me. It is so hard to say no to those precious faces but I was exhausted. So I mustered up my remaining energy, played with them for at least an hour, and then went home and crashed. Sabbath was a good day.