A letter from Les Morgan serving in Bangladesh
March 27, 2016 - The Gospel of Caring
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples... (John 13:3).
Dear Friends,
When I first met Minoti she was squatting in front of her one-room bamboo hut in the village of Bajpukur in rural northwest Bangladesh. She was so weak she could hardly stand, so I squatted down beside her to listen to her story and try to figure out why she was sick. Upon seeing her extreme pallor and the rapidly throbbing blood vessels in her neck and then asking a few key questions and listening to her heart and lungs, I understood what was going on. She was so profoundly anemic from a gynecologic bleed that very little of the oxygen in the air she was breathing was getting to the rest of her body. Her heart, pumping furiously in response, was about to wear out.
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PC(USA) Mission co-worker Les Morgan accompanies Church of Bangladesh congregational leaders to the homes of the sick
Minoti’s family is among several in Bajpukur who a few years ago professed their faith in Jesus Christ and established a congregation under the Church of Bangladesh, a sister church of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Everyone in the village struggles under the weight of poverty and suffers from the lack of proper health care. So to help this young congregation I was accompanying its leaders to the homes of the sick in their congregation and the surrounding community. Having taken a three-wheeled autorickshaw as far as it could go, I had gotten out and walked through a rice field to reach the village homes nestled amidst tall bamboo plants and mango trees.
Because transportation options for a poor sick person in the rural areas of Bangladesh are all so difficult, I decided to take Minoti back with me to the city. Her daughter escorted her slowly to the road, then all three of us got in the back of my reserved autorickshaw and shared the jolts and jerks of every pothole between Bajpukur and Rajshahi. There I admitted Minoti to Christian Mission Hospital, where I knew she would get prompt, reliable care as well as assistance with her hospital bill. Before leaving on the train to Dhaka the next morning, I made sure she was getting blood transfusions and that an evaluation was under way to determine the exact cause of her bleeding. Once home, I wrote a prayer for her and sent it to the congregations and individuals in the U.S. who join Cindy and me each week in praying for people in need in Bangladesh.
We have been ministering to the sick in northwest Bangladesh for 23 years—for the first 13 while living in the city of Rajshahi and then for the past 10 while living in Dhaka and making periodic visits to the area. Upon the request of the Church of Bangladesh, next week we will move back to Rajshahi to help the church more closely in its outreach among poor rural communities in the area. We will continue doing what we have always done there—nurturing the various aspects of the church’s ministry of healing—but now in more intensive ways. We will train and support the field staff of the church’s social development program, so that they can work with communities to address the root causes of local health problems and advocate for patients seeking treatment in the government health care system. We will also help Christian Mission Hospital provide high-quality, compassionate medical care that is accessible to poor people from the rural areas. And at the congregational level, we will continue the fundamental task of promoting the health of churches and supporting them in their calling as disciples of Jesus Christ to care sacrificially for the sick among themselves and in their broader communities.
Because we have been ministering in the Rajshahi area for so long, people in the congregations there know us well. Indeed, last month they invited me to preach at an evening Healing Service during their annual, three-day Fellowship Gathering, an event that attracts about a thousand people from all the Church of Bangladesh parishes in the area. During a tea break, a woman sought me out in the crowd and with a radiant smile said, “Do you recognize me?” “Minoti!” I exclaimed. I had not seen her since the day I said good-bye at her hospital bedside. Then with a serious look she said, “You know, I would not have lived, if you had not helped take care of me.” I told her we were moving back to Rajshahi and that I would visit her again soon. This time I hope she will be one of the leaders in Bajpukur who will visit the sick, both within their congregation and beyond, and work for their healing.
Your prayers for those in need, your generous gifts and your personal letters give us and our brothers and sisters in faith in Bangladesh much encouragement and hope. Thank you for joining the Church of Bangladesh in caring for the sick, a ministry that is fundamental to the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ, who gave everything for our healing.
Your fellow servant,
Les
Leslie Y. Morgan
The 2015 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 232
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