Asha

95% of Bangladeshis in this country come from one particular region of NE Bangladesh called Sylhet. There may be around 10m Sylheti people worldwide: 8m in Sylhet, 1m over the Indian border in Assam, and a further 1m around the world. Maybe a little over half that latter 1m live in UK, with around 300,000 across East London (and Tower Hamlets’ 80,000 being the largest concentration of Sylhetis outside Sylhet), and tens of thousands in Birmingham, Oldham and Luton.

In UK, more than half of people with a Sylheti background were born in here. For some of them Sylheti is their first language, but for almost all of them Sylheti will be spoken at home, among friends at school or on the football pitch shouting “encouragement” to teammates, even if English is their first language. Worldwide there are maybe as many as 5,000 Sylheti followers of Jesus, but we suspect that there is probably only a tenth of that number. We know of fewer than 10 in Tower Hamlets.

Wonderfully, we have been joined by Sylheti people at Asha every single Sunday. Usually 30-40% of people with us on Sundays are not following Jesus yet. Two weeks out three are in a Bible study discussion format rather than a sermon, and this seems to have helped people to engage a lot more with what they are reading and hearing. It has also enabled good conversations over food afterwards. We are not really sure why people come(!), but we can look back and see that God has started something which was not there before. And, we trust that he can bring spiritual life in people’s hearts where there is none.