Merry Christmas!

Dear Friends and Family,
I hope you are having a wonderful Christmas season!  I'm enjoying my first Christmas in Bangladesh.  There have been lots of fun events to keep me busy, so I haven't had a chance to be too homesick.  We had several Christmas Tea's for the hospital employees in the last two weeks leading up to Christmas.  On the 23rd, we had a candlelight service/caroling with all the American/European workers, so that was fun to sing Christmas carols in English.  Today (the 24th), we celebrated Christmas with a yummy brunch.  Later on we'll have a Christmas dinner and gift exchange!  Tomorrow, the 25th, there is a big celebration at church and then I will be going to several of my Bengali coworkers homes for tea.  It will be a very different Christmas experience, but I'm looking forward to it.

Please pray for all those who are hearing for the first time about the true reason for Christmas!  Please pray for me as I will be sharing this with my coworkers and patients this Christmas season.
Thank you all for your continued prayers and support!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Here are some more pictures:

 This is at one of the hospital employee Christmas Teas.  These are several of the nurses and midwives that I work with at the hospital.

This is me serving at the Christmas Tea.  I knew those waitressing skills would come in handy some day!

I had the chance to go to the wedding celebration of this couple at one of the local churches two weeks ago.  It was really cool to see the different traditions.  Isn't the bride beautiful? (You are not supposed to smile in pictures here).

Leaving Chittagong

Hi, friends and family!  Hope you are having a wonderful beginning to this Christmas season.  I'm listening to Christmas music as I write this, but I also have the fan on and am in short sleeves, so it doesn't quite feel like it should be Christmastime. But anyway, I'm looking forward to lots of new experiences here in Bangladesh this Advent season.
This is my last night in Chittagong since I've now finished my 2 weeks of intense Bangla language study.  So I wanted to take this opportunity to update my blog one more time while I still have a faster internet service.  I've had a really busy, but productive 2 weeks of study.  I feel like I have a lot of the basics of the language down.  I still can't put a sentence together and don't know the vocab, but I know the alphabet and can say the basic phrases.  When I go back to Malumghat, I will work with a tutor to continue studying.  And hopefully be able to communicate with my patients without always relying on a translator.
I'm really looking forward to going back to the hospital tomorrow.  I'll be jumping right back into the work there and start taking overnight call.  That's a little intimidating because it is for the whole hospital, so I would definitely appreciate your prayers for me.  Fortunately, I will have one of the other doctors on back up for the first couple of months. But I would still love your prayers for wisdom during the next couple of months.
Today in church, we studied 1 Cor 13, which is the classic chapter about love.  Verse 3 really struck me, because it says even if I give all I have to the poor, but do not love, then I gain nothing.  As I go back to the hospital, I can give my all to helping these people, but if I do not do it with love (our Father's love), then it is pointless.  Please pray that I will be a good reflection of that love to all the patients I meet this next week. 
Thanks again for all your prayers and support,
Christel

Here are some more pictures:

This is Dipa, she has been my language tutor while I have been in Chittagong.  This was taken from the roof of her apartment building.  The clothes we are wearing is very common.  It's a long tunic (camiz) with shalwar pants and an orna (scarf).  Also in the background you can see long pieces of fabric hanging off the balconies, those are saris.

This is my first mehendi (henna) experience!  It won't last long when I go back to the hospital and start scrubbing again, but it was fun for now.

This is the children's choir performing at on of the local churches.