The Remote Sundarban Bangladesh Hears The Gospel
This month, 3 of our team members update from Bangladesh in their own words below as they returned from an evangelical outreach to the Sundarban mangrove. A remote and dangerous area:
GMFC reached at Mangrove Forest (Sundarban)
Praise the Lord, Greetings from GMFC Bangladesh. All Glory to God, His blessing with us. We are thankful to Him because of His Mercy and Blessing. He is our Living God.
This the update of outreach mission of Sundarban. Every month and time I (Hilton) say my word, my experience, but this time I encouraged to my brethren to write their experience and share that how my God working in them. But one thing I surely want to say; God really amazing and He can do everything in my/our life, Praise the Lord.
Update from Brother Dyaniel
Praise the Lord-
I’m (Dyaniel Biswas) and I am really thankful to my Almighty Lord, He gives me strength for His Heavenly work. Really it’s my heart’s manifestation, God always with me and blesses me as I obey Him. God always carries me to remote and adventurous places for spreading the Gospel to unreached people. Therefore, I am being witnessed of “GMFC reached at Mangrove Forest” (Sundarban).
God loves me as I abide in Him, henceforth, He brings me from Dhaka for being a witness of His Heavenly work. When I first heard we are going to “Sundarban” (the largest Mangrove forest of the world) as we have the last 2 years; I was so excited as we were praying for another outreach there this year. We arranged everything the day before and God helped our whole work. The next morning, we prayed to God before we set out on the journey. We got into the boat and started the journey from Botiaghata. Everyone was happy and the atmosphere was good. We prepared everything to cook in the boat on the way for a fellowship meal. After a 3 hour boat ride, we reached our destination. We know a person who is living just opposite the Sundarban, in the middle of a small canal. He was nice to give us a place to cook. Silton and I cooked for lunch. Before lunch, we worshiped the Lord and also played a game that was very fun for everyone. They enjoyed us sharing with them Jesus and also spending time with them. When they were eating, we asked how the food was. Everyone said good but chicken curry was so spicy. So we are not good chef anymore, just joking. We did try our best. They actually enjoyed the food because they were hungry. We then went out to the villagers and as we entered the village, we saw villagers in tea stall so we gave them Bible tracts. We preached the gospel and gave the Bible tracts to the crowds that gathered. Open air evangelism in one of the most remote places on earth, praise Jesus! We also gave the tracts to children who can read. Two local men were along with us and also Brother Hilton, Samir, Ashis, Ashim (Ashis brother) and Pastor Taopn. Brother Hilton led us and he preached to the crowds. Villagers were Muslim and Hindu so we preached in them by group. For time limitation, we could not enter in some villages because we had to come back before sunset from jungle side. Actually, we got most of villagers at one place. We took some information about that village and we noticed few families are living in that village because that village situated beside the jungle and is very dangerous for them because of fierce animals and jungle bandit. Just a narrow canal divides them between their lives and death. Afterward, one forest office called us, actually the forest office was just on the other side of that narrow canal. Brother Hilton and I went there and they asked us what we are doing there with the village people. We were bold to give them the gospel tracts and also we spent some time with them. They invited us to enter in jungle but we simply did not have the time, so, we did not enter the deep jungle, for this time anyway. Fortunately, we didn’t see any tiger because they don’t come outside of the jungle all the time until they are hungry, but, we saw some monkeys. We came out from jungle because we had to start our journey back to home in Khulna.
Since we were coming in the middle of the big river, it was getting dark and everyone was feeling a bit afraid. Glory to God we arrived safe and sound and got off the boat. We praised God for our safe mission tour. But we realized, only one day was not sufficient time for that remote area to outreach and prayerfully start a fellowship there someday. So, we are planning again for next year, for two or three days.
Whatever we do or think and wherever we go, first of all we praise God and pray to Him. For this reason, God blesses our whole work. And I also thank all the brethren, who are praying for us and Bangladesh Mission and those financially supporting us. We could not do it without you! God bless you all. Amen
Update from Brother Silton
Praise the Lord-
I am very grateful to the Lord because of his abundant blessings in my life. He brings me out from all bad condition and leads me for His Heavenly work.
The last three months I have been working for God with this ministry on a part-time basis through Brother Hilton. Often time I went out along with Brother Hilton for preaching the Gospel to people. God really loves me as I am obedient to Him so He gave me the opportunity to work this ministry through Brother Hilton. I am working this ministry as a volunteer. I joined this ministry in 18th February, 2018. As a new volunteer, I got a big responsibility. Brother Hilton gave me opportunity to make a budget for the Sundarban mission tour and to cook during the tour. I was very happy for that. And this is first time I went to Sundarban through this mission tour. I was anxious, how would I do that? But God gave me strength to do this. I cooked on this tour with success however everyone said chicken curry was so spicy. I also noticed one thing, Brother Hilton always praising God. He said; Nothing to have worry about, because, God is with us. We worshiped there and after lunch, we went to the village. We gave Bible tracts and preached gospel to village people. They eagerly listened God’s word and were very happy. I now truly understand God’s plan, to live holy and righteous and to go make disciples. Some of them invited me to come next time for preaching the gospel to them. Please pray that we can spread gospel to them again next year, or sooner. After that, we started our journey back to home. God brought us safely and I praise God for that. He protects us and got us home safe. He gave me knowledge and strength for his Heavenly work.
Please pray for me, so that I can work for God and preach gospel to people until my last breath here on earth. God bless you. Amen
***Translated by Dyaniel Biswas
Update from Brother Samir
First of all, all glory belongs to God for everything. I am a GMFC school teacher and my name is Samir. I give thanks to God because He is using me continually for His work. This year, we went to Sundarban and preached the Gospel to villages nearby Sundarban as like last year.
Conducted by brother Hilton, we made a decision to visit Sundarban and preach God’s word to villagers who are living nearby Sundarban (the largest mangrove forest of the world). For mission trip, various duties were distributed among of us. Arranging and promoting were my duties. Brother Hilton, Dyaniel and Silton helped me.
On the 23rd of February, we started our journey at 7:30am to the selected place. Everyone was happy to go to sundarban by boat as it’s very remote and needs to hear the gospel. About 9:00am, we finished our breakfast. Weather and whole environment around the river was beautiful that made everyone blissful as we love God’s creation. When we first saw Sundarban, we were very happy and going by a narrow canal is not something we do often at all, it was dangerous. After a long time in the boat, we reached our destination at 11:30am. A person who is known to Brother Hilton received us. Then, Brother Hilton gave us some instruction. After that, Brother Silton and Dyaniel started to cook. That time we worshiped God and played a fun game. After lunch, some of brethren went to village to preach gospel. We also gave Bible tracts to villagers with a 48 page gospel message. We talked with them and got some information about that village. The lack of daylight limited us to go deep into the Sundarban but we pray next time to stay 2-3 days. I saw brother Hilton talked with some police officers that were actually forest police. He gave them Bible tracts and God words. They invited us for next time, Praise Jesus. Please pray for us that next time we can go to that village and spread God’s word to them again with time to visit house to house. We started our journey back home before it got dark as the sun was going down. God brought us to Home Safe and sound. We gave thanks to our Almighty God for His blessing. He always protects us.
God bless you all. Amen
***Translated by Dyaniel Biswas