AMAZING STORY - ONLY GOD!

Dear LHFC Family

As I type this letter I am struggling to keep back the tears of joy. We have so much to be thankful for but ultimately I want to express my gratefulness in as best as possible English. I wanted to stand up in the 9am service and say how thankful I am, but I realised I was going to struggle to stay composed. To have M in the church on Sunday was a miracle and I felt so fortunate.

When M collapsed it was just God that allowed it to happen in the room where S, C (senior) and I was busy setting up the wardrobe. If it happened a minute earlier or later she would have been in the kitchen. S is the lifesaver that realised she wasn’t breathing as I was under the impression at the time that she had a stroke and I put her in the recovery position. We had to put her back on the ground to do CPR.  1^st responder arrived within 5 minutes! And applied the heart shock thing. They knew she had a heart attack because S called 999 straight away and the emergency services work in a flash. When the ambulance arrived 15 minutes later M had her heart started again. So her heart stopped 25 minutes in total. Ambulance then sped off to the QA and C and I followed.  When we arrived at 4pm they huddled us into a room and I thought ‘this is not good’ the first time we saw M was about 8pm. C could not stand seeing her like that and he left the trauma unit and I received a hug from Lisa D who was there working. They advised us she is going to ICU and we stayed there till about 11pm when we saw her again and I remarked to C that she looks better than with her make up on!
 

She stayed in the ICU till the next Monday so we dealt with a number of ICU staff including Magriet Du T on Wednesday.  The consultant advised us on Tuesday night that we should not even think of anything positive till she came out of the drug induced coma when they would let her body temperature back to normal. So the doctor wasn’t positive and even the nursing staff was very stand offish.

On Sunday we had M back almost 90% as she could talk and recognise people.

One nurse from Zimbabwe told us the hospital was talking about us and how the church is praying for M. She remarked that ‘M has a direct line to God’ When M was in the heart ward we also saw Abi and when we left the heart ward on Friday one of the nursing staff told me that that side of the hospital was abuzz about M and how the church was praying for her.

All the way through the week we had no stress. No doubts. No concerns. The only negative thing that popped in to my mind on Sunday was the cost. The consultant in charge of ICU informed me on Monday that he would make sure they don’t charge us the ICU costs as M stayed there because of no fault of her own. God is good

And I can’t thank you enough for all your prayers and thoughts over the last 2 weeks. 

Praise the Lord, SHALOM,

CJVR

THE DIFFERENCE DHAKA SHOULD MAKE TO ME

With the news of the latest tragedy from Bangladesh, is it time for us to do more than nothing about the appalling conditions that garment workers have to face producing clothes that we can buy cheaply on our high streets? It’s always good to get a bargain but there has to be a limit to our appetite for more.

Whilst most of us don’t even look at the labels that workers sew inside our clothes that might tell us where they have been made, preferring instead to be persuaded by the labels sewn on the outside, we have become cruelly aware once again that the conditions many workers endure, poor pay, long hours and unsafe buildings, should not be tolerated any longer.

But what should we do?

If we stop buying the clothes many people will lose their jobs, fragile as they are. There are 4 million workers dependent on this industry in Bangladesh alone. If we stop buying the clothes then conditions could get even worse in unregulated sweatshops. Hard to imagine, but at least there is hope that western companies will have a little conscience when it comes to employment practices. If we stop buying the clothes then poverty will deepen and the repercussions will be devastating for too any families.

But we have to do something! Don’t we?

Try and buy clothing that you know has been made in places where people are treated with fairness, enjoying good working conditions and getting paid a proper wage for the work they do.

Take some time to get informed about where your clothes come from and the ethical promises from the companies who source them and sell them.

Write to the companies you buy your clothes from and ask them about what they are doing to ensure that the people who make your clothes are looked after in every way, including the conditions they work under.

There is something all of us can do.

We all want a bargain, but at what cost? Unfortunately the people in Bangladesh have paid the ultimate price. Let’s begin to make sure that it is the last time someone dies so that we can buy a £2 t-shirt.