Churches in Bangladesh face significant challenges from both poverty and tension with the majority Muslim population. Although most believers know that God’s word says to “love your neighbor as yourself,” they think this commandment is for other people—those with more resources who can afford to help others. And so many churches have been waiting and hoping for outsiders to come and help with the poverty and suffering in their communities.

One such church learned through TCT that God wanted His people to show love starting with what they had. So they began to look for who God might want them to show His love to. There was an elderly woman in their community who was very poor and unable to earn a living. An NGO had given this woman a cow, but she had no place to keep the cow to care for it. The old woman was not a Christian.

The church prayed about it and felt that God wanted them to help this woman. The whole church contributed what they could to build her a cowshed. Some collected bamboo for the frame. Someone contributed some sheet metal. Another person was able to give barbed wire. Once all the materials were collected, eight men volunteered to do the work. 

The community was immediately suspicious. They accused the church of trying to convert the woman. Undaunted, the church continued to sacrificially serve the neediest in the community. Over time, God used these Acts of Love to soften the village leaders’ hearts; now they think well of the Christians and know that the church helps and works out of love.