Thanks for the prayers for the flooding! And importance of World Breastfeeding Week in the midst of Floods

 Greetings from Bangladesh!

We have the joy of preparing this blog post from our home in Bangladesh!

The camps inundated (IRC report)

We got our new visas (good for 6 months!) a week ago. The passports got to us on Tuesday and Thursday  we began our trip back to Bangladesh from Albania. We appreciate your prayers.

As we write to you, we are watching it rain outside our window. The rains have not stopped, but mercifully they have slowed down. This really made a big difference in the camps (though the emergency is not over). This graphic from an International Rescue Committee impact reports gives a good summary of what some of the impacts have been: 

It is just heart-breaking that 1432 Rohingya shelters have been affected. And it is truly unfortunate that there have already been 11 deaths because of the rains (admittedly, this is not an unusual problem in Bangladesh during the monsoon season - but that makes it no less acceptable). 6 of the deaths are Rohingya and 5 are among Bangladeshi in the area. Most of the 6 Rohingya deaths are from landslides (the water-logged soil on hillsides in the camps giving way and crushing shelters). There was also at least one drowning of a child during the flooding. All the Bangladeshi deaths were children living in areas that they share with refugees. 

This is a heavy toll on the Rohingya! And this certainly only adds more misery to the daily challenges of the refugees. But the news isn't all bad either. We are truly thankful for the fact that the rains have slowed in the camps, or it could have been worse (with greater loss of life and more shelters affected). In the last blog post we also posted a picture of nutrition staff and volunteers working to keep the food commodities from getting wet. Everyone working together meant that they were able to get the food out of the way of the water! This is a huge win! We thank the Lord for these victories!

In the midst of persistent rain and floods the work goes on. This past week was 'World Breastfeeding Week (WBW)'. We'd love to know how many of you knew this was going on over the past week! Probably missed in the country you are living in. During WBW an emphasis is put on the key messages surrounding the importance of breastfeeding. One of the messages is: Infants should be exclusively breastfed until 6 months of age. When mothers follow this recommendation thousands of infants' lives are saved yearly. Bottle feeding has a high risk of causing diarrhea which often leads to death. Diarrhea comes from using unsafe water to prepare formula and/or wash bottles. One of the highest disease risks currently from the flooding is from contaminated drinking water and surface contact with contaminated water. Imagine trying to ensure your baby has safe water to prepare formula. The benefits of breastfeeding in this context are indeed huge. 

Home visit to share messages with mother

Community volunteer sharing messages on
breastfeeding with mother

Praise:

• For the amazing work of volunteers in the camps during the flooding - they spent their days averting the worst and caring for their people. For our dedicated volunteers.
• That the vaccination campaign starts next week with community volunteers!
• For the miracle of 6 month visas for both Christine & Phil (we were not allowed to travel to Rome,but did this through a visa agency there)
• For access to good, affordable health care during the time that we were in Albania - Christine twisted her ankle badly, and we finally went to see a doctor who told us the bone was broken where the ligament pulled off of it. 

Prayer:

• For ongoing dissipation of the rains across Bangladesh! Today it rained pretty hard again and there was flooding in at least one camp. 
• For the death toll of COVID-19 currently in Bangladesh. We have a number of colleagues who have fallen ill with the virus, others who have lost parents to the virus, and the virus is ravaging the camps as well. We pray that the limited vaccination in the camps will nonetheless have a huge impact - the Rohingya remain dependent upon the Lord to spare them from the worst. 
• For prevention of diarrhea - this was already a problem in the camps before this recent flooding (which risks making it much worse! Most concerning have been cases of cholera which can escalate rapidly following flooding.