Mission Bangladesh

Normandale Lutheran Church History and Involvement in Mission Bangladesh

In 1993, Normandale Lutheran Church joined a consortium of Lutheran churches formed to support―in partnership with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s Division for Global Mission―a new mission endeavor in southern Bangladesh.  Named Lutheran Health Care Bangladesh (LHCB), this mission originated from the strategic direction of the ELCA to engage the Islamic world.  It focuses on women and children.  A team surveyed southern Bangladesh for an appropriate location, selecting the small town of Dumki in Patuakhali District.

Two dynamic ministries flow out of Lutheran Health Care Bangladesh: health care, centered in the Dumki Hospital, and community development, occurring in villages scattered across the rice fields of southern Bangladesh.  The hospital shows its thoughtful design every day, as patients gather in the waiting area to receive numbers indicating the order in which they’ll be seen, pay their small entry fee (if they can), and proceed to examining rooms, laboratory, and in-patient beds, depending on their needs.  A staff of 36 provides mothers and children with good prenatal, birth, and afterbirth care, and medical education.

A surgical wing offers labor and delivery rooms, a small surgery with preparatory and recovery patient rooms, a doctors’ lounge, and record-keeping areas.  A Maternity Waiting Home houses up to ten women with problem pregnancies.  Clean, airy, inviting, functional, the hospital serves an increasing number of patients (averaging over 1400 outpatients a month).  In addition, we reach out to the surrounding villages with mobile clinics.  Our Women’s Savings Groups (see below) receive basic education in nutrition, hygiene, sanitation, neonatal care, and functional literacy.  We also train Traditional Birth Attendants (village midwives) and provide them with sanitary supplies to reach out to many, many other women in countless villages. 

About 50 development organizers, including 6 Program Supervisors and 38 Program Organizers, fan out into the countryside by van, rickshaw, motorbike, boat, and foot to meet with village women.  Organized into some 300 groups of 15 to 20 women each, the groups function as savings groups, deciding how many thaka each member will contribute each week.  The group president, cashier, and secretary receive the money, and with the program organizer, carefully account for it in individual member passbooks and group accounts.  They deposit each week’s gatherings in a bank, where it earns interest.  After a year of organizing and saving, group members can apply for loans. The group decides who will get them and what the repayment schedule and interest will be.

“How do you decide who gets the loans?” we asked during a recent visit.

“We know who needs the money most,” we were told.  Women have used their loans to buy rickshaws, fishing boats, cows and goats, sewing machines, and small businesses, whatever they felt could improve their economic well-being.  We heard only of success.  We saw improved conditions, self-esteem, and ability to function in the world.

“But,” we asked, “from where did you first get the thaka for the group funds?”

“Each night when I make the family meal,” answered one woman, “I put one handful of rice aside, into a jar.  Each week I take the full jar to the bazaar and sell the rice.  That’s where I get the money for the group.  Two or three handfuls of rice into the family pot; one handful saved.”

Out of the family meal have come solid village economic growth and a new appreciation for the status of women in this male-dominated society.

In November 2003, a team of doctors and medical specialists provided two-weeks of medical training, practice, and support for our Dumki staff . . . as they in turn learned about medicine in a developing country.  In October 2004, a team of specialists in water purification, financial planning, obstetrics and gynecology, and related fields, spent two weeks in Dumki.  A team of youth, parents, and staff celebrated Christmas 2004 with the Dumki Lutheran Church while developing relationships between our Sunday Schools, Preschools, and congregations.  (A youth-and-parent Christmas team had previously visited in 2002.)  Several medical teams have provided on-site care and instruction in 2005.  Each team presents their experiences to the congregation during worship services and seminars as well as at Mission Bangladesh! events.  Mission Bangladesh! takes responsibility for helping to fund these visits.

We invite you to join us in this challenging mission.  Become a member of Mission Bangladesh!  You’ll be challenged, inspired, and perhaps transformed!

History Of Bangladesh:

The area which is now Bangladesh has a rich historical and cultural past, the product of the repeated influx of varied peoples, bringing with them the Dravidian, Indo-Aryan, Mongol-Mughul, Arab, Persian, Turkic, and European cultures. All of these influences created a distinctive Bengali culture with which Bangladeshis strongly identify. About 1200 A.D., Muslim invaders under Sufi influence, supplanted Hindu and Buddhist dynasties, and converted most of the population of the eastern areas of Bengal to Islam. Since then, Islam has played a crucial role in the region's history and politics. 

When the British agreed, granting the Indian subcontinent independence in 1947, to partition it into predominately Hindu India and predominantly Muslim Pakistan, what is now Bangladesh became East Pakistan. Over 1,000 miles separated the four provinces of West Pakistan from East Pakistan. More than that, cultural, linguistic, and historical differences created major problems. West Pakistan treated their eastern province as a colony, and even tried to ban the Bengali language and impose Urdu. University students poured out of their classrooms in protest, to be met by gunfire. Bangladesh celebrates their courage, patriotism, and martyrdom on Shaheed Day (21 February).

The uneasy union reached the breaking point in 1971, when Sheik Mujibur Rahman and his Bengali Awami League won a majority in the Pakistan Assembly. West Pakistan authorities refused to recognize the election, jailed Rahman, and imposed harsh martial law on East Pakistan. Bangladeshis responded with open rebellion and a declaration of independence (26 March). In November, the Indian army entered the war, and with the Bangladesh freedom fighters quickly overcame the Pakistan army, which surrendered on 16 December (Victory Day).

Bangladesh became a parliamentary democracy dedicated to four basic principles: nationalism, secularism, socialism, and democracy. (A later government declared it an Islamic State.) Political instability has plagued the nation, however, which has seen a series of military and civilian governments along with assassinations, coups, demonstrations and boycotts by the party out of power, and charges and counter-charges of corruption and vote-rigging. Throughout, however, the Bangladeshis have retained their cultural and national identity.

For more information on these local missionaries contact Pastor Dale Howard at Normandale 952-929-1697.