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Letter from the Morgan Family in
Bangladesh |
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August 2003
Rajshahi, Bangladesh
Dear Friends and Family,
It’s been over 13 years since we first came to Bangladesh
to serve as PC(USA) missionaries. Based at Christian Mission Hospital,
one of two hospitals run by the Church of Bangladesh (our sister
denomination), we have been seeing patients in the hospital outpatient
clinic and wards, and serving as advisors to the Primary Health
Care Program for the last ten years. While a paramedic and four
nurses have been providing village-based treatment, over the past
few months Les and I have expanded our personal outreach to include
weekly mobile clinics to villages in the three districts surrounding
the hospital to serve better those who are too sick or too poor
to come to the hospital.
A senior nurse and registrar accompany us as we travel to these
villages, which are anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours away.
Traveling to Jhinafulbari this week, I was moved by the beauty
amidst the harsh realities of Bangladesh and want to share some
of what I saw along the way.
At the edge of town, clusters of men sit and wait with their
hoes and baskets, hoping to be hired to work in someone’s
field for the day. Other men sit in wooden tea stalls, talking
and sharing a morning cup of tea, lifting their gaze in curiosity
as our jeep passes by. In the shop just next door, others are
lathered up for their morning shave. |
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Drs. Les and Cindy Morgan in front of Christian Mission Hospital
preparing to leave for a mobile clinic with senior nurse, Rina,
and driver, Rintu. |
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Cows lounge lazily on the side of the narrow,
pot-holed and tree-canopied road, while chickens race across it,
barely escaping the passing wheels. As we pass small homesteads,
the bright colors of women’s saris catch my eye, and every
so often a child darts by, stark naked, save for a black string
with a medicinal charm around his waist. Men in straw hats herd
water buffalo in pairs along the roadside as buses blare their horns
and ride the curb as they pass us. |
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The fields are especially verdant
now with rice in all stages of splendor. There’s an occasional
brilliant green rice seed-bed, but most seedlings have already been
hand-transplanted into fields of all shapes and sizes, like a quilt
made of random scraps of fabric. Once in a while I see the top of
someone’s head pop up as he thins and weeds a field. Adding
to the texture of the quilt are crowded patches of tall lanky jute,
bushy fields of sugar cane, groves of banana and papaya trees, and
sporadic palms bearing coconuts and dates. |
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As we approach Jhinafulbari, most
of the houses are made of clay with bars and shutters in the windows.
Cow dung is drying, either pressed around sticks leaning against
walls, or as patties plastered directly onto the walls of homes,
to be used later as fuel for cooking. Other homes are made of
jute sticks and bamboo with roofs of straw or tin, often covered
with clambering vines of pumpkin.
Upon our arrival, the village leader greets us and ushers us
to the verandah of his home where we are to see patients. Hearing
of our arrival, patients begin to drift out of their homes, and
gradually a crowd of about 50 assembles. Men squat and chat as
children play and mothers quietly nurse their infants. Some patients
have tuberculosis, others have diarrhea, many have gastritis,
and some have either ear or lung infections. |
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Cynthia Morgan examining 6-year-old Daniel at a mobile clinic in
Paitapukur. |
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Almost everyone has the stinging,
sandpaper-like skin of heat rash. Several of the children are
covered with scabbed and oozing lesions, while others’ bellies
are distended with worms. Most of the women are weakened by anemia.
The toll of working long hours bent over rice fields leaves both
men and women alike with back pain and fungal infections on their
feet. One woman was still suffering from the physical trauma of
the home delivery of her first child over a year ago.
Among the crowd of patients who came to one of our clinics last
month was a boy named Daniel. He had been sick for months but
the family was unable to afford treatment. Just before Daniel
came to see me, his father had died and the 6-year-old boy was
sent to live with relatives. Daniel was miserable. He had not
only severe anemia and malnutrition causing his ankles to swell,
but a serious infectious disease as well. After coming back to
the hospital with us for a few weeks of treatment, he was soon
laughing and playing.
Living here isn’t easy. The heat and humidity, the mold
on our books and pictures, the erratic electric supply, the ants,
the inefficient institutional systems, the political unrest, and
the distance from our children all make life difficult. But life
in Bangladesh forces us to grow in new dimensions, and deepens
us in ways that a life without hardships never could. What we
seek in the midst of all of these challenges are hidden pearls
of great price. In patients like Daniel, we discover the kingdom
of God in our midst.
Shalom,
Cynthia Morgan
The 2003 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 159
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