Macro to micro--What's up in Bangladesh

Dear friends,

I have heard from so many that it has been a long time since I communicated, so I apologize (as is not unusual at the beginning of these things).  It is nice to know you want to know what's up over here, and what to be praying for.

So I will try to update a bit on some key things I have been involved in just this week:

• Finalizing the contract for an extension of a UNICEF project called 'Maternal-newborn-child survival' which helps us reach about a quarter of a million households with basic health teaching, facilitating groups of women to meet and talk about how they can help women and families in their neighborhoods, groups of informal leaders discussing how to overcome barriers to health, and advocating with local government to encourage partnership so our community midwives can work in government facilities:  now THAT is a challenge.
• Tutoring a group of 4 men (all chaplains) and 1 woman (our Spiritual Development head) in a 'Practical Church Life' (which followed a book on Ethics).  Both of these books have been interesting in that both revealed a very common element of Bangladesh Christian life:  the cultural expectations of behavior are extremely hard to overcome.  Training people in seeking Biblical and godly reasons for choices is a challenge, but please pray for Tushar, Shanu, Pranojit, Babu, and Flora!
• Working on simplifying the documentation done by our field workers--this means helping them spend less time with filling out forms, more time treating and teaching patients and families (sound familiar to anyone in health care??).
• Planning a mission, vision, values workshop for all LAMB staff, including Muslims and Hindus and Christians.  We pray it will be a time to encourage discussion among staff about how we don't seek God's favor through good behavior; rather we show we are His, empowered to new life by belonging to Him.  The workshop will be Oct. 12, 13th, so please pray for planning, and especially for the opening and closing discussions of how our Christian organization seeks to be salt, light, and hope for the poor around us.
• I have been reviewing submissions (of which I have 2 very short ones) for a proposed book on discipleship being put together by Interserve.  It is exceedingly humbling to be invited to participate in this, especially when most elements of the book are longer theologic reflections, and mine are basically stories (case studies).  But God encouraged me in my current monthly devotions from 2 Samuel: that God tells HIS story through human stories, collected into the Bible.  So pray I can revise and adapt my material to fit with the others at a workshop scheduled for Sept. 17-19 in Cairo.
• Finally, I just spent awhile writing an email explaining to the rest of my family the medical jargon contained in a CT scan report of my mom's lungs.  She has an abnormality in her left upper lung for which she will have a biopsy sometime in the next few days.  PLEASE PLEASE PRAY for it to be benign.  I have considered whether I would have to go to the States directly from Egypt, since I'll be half-way home.  Pray for peace and clarity from medical testing.

So the macro is funding, training, teaching, discipling...while the micro is what exactly is going on in those cells of my mom's lungs.  Thanks for your ongoing support for my work here in Bangladesh, and especially for your prayers!

Kris