Later this month, I am heading to Bangladesh! This trip has been in the works for many months. Now my plans have been finalized at last, and I am scheduled to leave on January 27. I will be going with Gerri Miller, one of my dear IGSL colleagues. We are going to visit three families of IGSL graduates in three different cities: Dhaka, the capital; Khulna, in the west; and Chittagong, in the east. We expect to stay for ten days. Since I haven't been there yet, these are borrowed photos, but I promise to take pictures when I'm there!
Bangladesh is a very densely populated country. In a moment I am going to tell you the population per square kilometer. But first I will give you some perspective, since you probably don't spend much time thinking about things like population density in your country. The population density in Canada is 3 people per square kilometer. Of course, large parts of Canada are uninhabitable, and those parts are averaged into the total. In the U.S., it's 31 people per square kilometer. That seems reasonable, averaging in the many large cities and the large rural areas too. It was a big shock for us (especially James) when we moved to the Philippines. The population density here is 282 people per square kilometer. Wow -- that's wall to wall people! But how about Bangladesh? It's a country that only has a few large cities; in fact it is 80% rural . . . and the population density is a whopping 1,045 people per square kilometer. This boggles my mind.
While we are there, Gerri and I will speak at a women's seminar in each of the three cities. Our graduates have set up these opportunities for us to minister to church women. But our main objectives are to be an encouragement to our graduates, and to learn about Bangladesh, so that we can minister more wisely to our current students from there. I've learned from our past trips that things often turn out differently than we expect. So, we are trying to be ready for anything!
Please pray that God will give us wisdom as we prepare, and that we will be faithful servants for His glory while we are there. And pray for our husbands who will be left behind in Manila.
Later this month, I am heading to Bangladesh! This trip has been in the works for many months. Now my plans have been finalized at last, and I am scheduled to leave on January 27. I will be going with Gerri Miller, one of my dear IGSL colleagues. We are going to visit three families of IGSL graduates in three different cities: Dhaka, the capital; Khulna, in the west; and Chittagong, in the east. We expect to stay for ten days. Since I haven't been there yet, these are borrowed photos, but I promise to take pictures when I'm there! 
Bangladesh is a very densely populated country. In a moment I am going to tell you the population per square kilometer. But first I will give you some perspective, since you probably don't spend much time thinking about things like population density in your country. The population density in Canada is 3 people per square kilometer. Of course, large parts of Canada are uninhabitable, and those parts are averaged into the total. In the U.S., it's 31 people per square kilometer. That seems reasonable, averaging in the many large cities and the large rural areas too. It was a big shock for us (especially James) when we moved to the Philippines. The population density here is 282 people per square kilometer. Wow -- that's wall to wall people! But how about Bangladesh? It's a country that only has a few large cities; in fact it is 80% rural . . . and the population density is a whopping 1,045 people per square kilometer. This boggles my mind.
While we are there, Gerri and I will speak at a women's seminar in each of the three cities. Our graduates have set up these opportunities for us to minister to church women. But our main objectives are to be an encouragement to our graduates, and to learn about Bangladesh, so that we can minister more wisely to our current students from there. I've learned from our past trips that things often turn out differently than we expect. So, we are trying to be ready for anything!
Please pray that God will give us wisdom as we prepare, and that we will be faithful servants for His glory while we are there. And pray for our husbands who will be left behind in Manila. 
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