The End of a Season
Early in September, we were away from home for one week. When we returned, we learned that our...
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Moving Forward
Hello everyone, Visiting the Penguins on Boulders Beach in South Africa! Sorry for the silence for...
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When Things Fall Apart
Sometimes, even in ministry, everything just falls apart. The foundation has crumbled, the walls have collapsed, the seed has rotted, and the sprouts are choked by weeds and burnt by the sun. Sometimes by the end, there’s nothing to show for our years of efforts.
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Our Double Lives
Where we are now is about as close as we can come to being on the exact opposite side of the world from where we were just a month ago. Sometimes that’s what it can feel like, going from one side of the planet to the other – like we’re standing upside down…
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Treasure
How could I take a 9-month-old, and a 2 ½-year-old and a 4-year-old to a place where they could get sick or hurt and be days away from medical care? A place with no schools, where my wife and I would have to struggle to educate them, where they would be exposed to demonic activity and where child trafficking happens? I was ashamed of myself that I was not strong enough to pay that price.
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Visiting the US Next Year!
That’s what our last few years have been like here on Nosy Mitsio: exciting! Challenging! Full of promise, hope, struggles, loss, and gain. In it all we see God at work. He’s maintained us, given us strength and perseverance when we’ve needed it most, and he’s opened our eyes to see…
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As a Child
Can you imagine being born again? Everything you see is for the first time. The world is bright and the sights are strange. Everyone’s talking at you and they’re clearly excited to see you, but none of it makes sense: it all just sounds like gibberish…
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The Faithful Foreigner
The past year and a half has been a life of transience for us. During this time we’ve traveled over 40,000 miles! We’ve stayed for over a week in 11 different places including 5 different countries, traveled in 15 planes, 4 boats, hiked probably a hundred kilometers, and have…
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Back and Forth
We stepped off the taxi, three of us this time, back in our village in South Africa. We began...
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Transition to Madagascar Photos
Pictures from our move to Madagascar. They’re mostly from South Africa, in Pretoria, Dumphries, and Kruger, where we stopped for a few weeks along the way to visit friends and “family”. But the last 10-15 are from our arrival in Madagascar. 139 photos
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Latest News
We heard again from Nuckiline - in Antanamazava they shared the Jesus film in Antakarana language this week. A *whole* lot of people were there to watch it, and they will finish the last bit of the film and do follow-up next week.
Nuckiline also had the opportunity to coach the regular discipleship group members into how to share their testimonies (big or small) with lots of people on a regular basis. And she'll be preparing them for leading new simple discipleship groups of those interested in joining once the Jesus film is finished.
Praise God for all the great testimonies coming from northern Madagascar, even after we left! God knows the right timing and the right methods in all things! And while we would love to still be there participating directly with Nuckiline in all of this, and to be able to see firsthand all these great results that we worked towards for so many years, but we know that God's ways are better than ours, and this is a situation where "it's better that we should go" because the works God wants to do through them there in our absence are greater than he could do with our presence. We simply praise God that his Kingdom is coming to the Antakarana people, and the foundation for his Church, a strong and multiplying one, is being built among them!
We fly out of Madagascar tomorrow (Saturday) and arrive in the US on Sunday. We don't know what the future holds for us, nor even if it's in God's plans for us ever to return to Madagascar in the future (though it's still very much in our hearts to do that). But we praise God for the time he gave us here, and for the small pioneering part he privileged us to play in seeing many future generations of Antakarana people have the opportunity to know Jesus and to serve him and his Kingdom!
Please pray for us as we transition to the next season God has for us: that God would protect us and our loved ones as we return to the US during the height of the covid-19 spread; that God would make it clear to us what our next steps are - whether a season of waiting or active pursuit of whatever task/role he has for us next; and pray for our two boys as they leave the country of their childhood to go live in a new country and new culture that they're almost totally unfamiliar with.
Thank you to everyone for your prayers and support for many years now. Once we leave Madagascar, I will probably only provide infrequent updates in the future. But please always keep in your prayers the Antakarana people, Nuckiline in her leadership role in the work, and the future generations of disciples being made there - that they would have the strength and wisdom of the Holy Spirit to persevere and grow, and multiply the reach of God's Kingdom until everyone in northern Madagascar has an opportunity to know Jesus and be discipled together in following him.
May God continue to bless the work in Madagascar for His glory!
Praise God almighty! His wisdom is perfect! Glory to His kingdom.
God bless you lavishly Thanks so much
Y es good my friend
We just spoke with Nuckiline about the ongoing ministry in Antanamazava. She said they're very motivated and it's still going well. Tomorrow night in Antanamazava they'll share the "Jesus" film in Antakarana language. Please pray that all the equipment works well, that the people God is leading to himself show up and are attentive, and that more disciples would be made in Antanamazava and beyond.
In the following weeks, Nuckiline plans to share more stories about the coming of the Holy Spirit and the formation of the early Church. She also plans to train some of the discipleship group members to start leading other discipleship groups regularly (the same way we've done for them). Possibly some who come to see the Jesus film tomorrow night will join new discipleship groups led by those that Nuckiline and we have discipled. Please pray for Nuckiline as she leads this work on her own right now, and please pray for more fruit and multiplication of disciple-making that spreads far and wide through the work in Antanamazava!
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Awesome!!! We will pray!
🙏🙏❤
I need help here, Do anyone know where deeper life Bible Church is in Madagascar.
Here's our latest news from Madagascar, and it's BIG news. It turns out that our time in Madagascar is now finished, and soon we'll be heading back to the US to begin an entirely new season of our lives there. Read our story below to find out how God communicated all of this to us.
madmissions.com/2020/10/the-end-of-a-season/
The End of a Season | Madagascar Missions
madmissions.com
This is what God was telling us: that our time here is finished. Now we enter into a new season in life, both unanticipated and unknown...I just spoke with Nuckiline on the phone about how the discipleship group went in Antanamazava yesterday, and it was SO encouraging! She said the group is growing a little with some new very motivated members. Nuckiline is also making plans to start a specific training for the key members to begin to lead their own regular discipleship groups made up of other people in their communities (or in other villages, if they commit to carrying the Bible story discipleship groups further). She also is wanting to start some really small-scale skills training with them soon that many are eager to participate in, with the possibility of seeing it grow to become an economic development project. And she's considering what Bible stories to translate and share next, as very soon the group will be finished with the first evangelistic/church-planting story set that we translated together with her. So, it was SO encouraging for us to hear this great news and how Nuckiline is stepping forward to prepare for the next steps! We encouraged her in all of these things and she seemed to really appreciate it, but really, it was just SO encouraging to us to hear all of this! I do really believe that God is starting to grow these works through her in ways that could not or would not have happened were we still around. It's always hard for us to set aside ourselves and our own feelings of self-importance, but when it comes to God's Kingdom we are *not* the key players - it's always him and the way his Holy Spirit empowers those considered the "least" or "last" in society; through them he grows and multiplies the goodness of his Kingdom, until one day it will reach every people on earth! Praise God for this great report from today!
So exciting. Dr Skinner and I will be praying!
DEUTERONOMY 31:8 The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”🙏
God is wonderful!
Please I need help,do anyone else know where deeper life Bible Church is in Madagascar
Today was our last day with the discipleship group in Antanamazava, so we finally got some group photos! It was a really nice time today but also bittersweet. After our regular time of sharing a Bible story and discussing it, we had time to lay our hands on each member of the group and to pray for them personally. Afterwards they prayed for us.
They told us that since we've begun to meet regularly with them in their village, that God has really transformed their lives and empowered them to seek him personally. They also said they'll really miss us and asked if there's some way we could contact them in the future, but unfortunately still none of them have cell phones. But we'll definitely stay in touch through Nuckiline, who will be continuing the work in our absence.
Nuckiline is also committed to training some of the group members to take a stronger leadership role just like hers and to find ways to be more personally involved in their lives and thus disciple them at a deeper level as well. Earlier this morning when we prayed together with Nuckiline, she prayed that there would be an opportunity in the future for us to pass by again, or even just to call her on the phone, and that she'd have the privilege of sharing with us the news of so much fruitfulness that God has done through her and the people of Antanamazava. Please join us in prayer for this to come true one day! And please pray that God would continue to strengthen and encourage Nuckiline, that she would grow stronger, more passionate, and more committed to this work even in our absence than she has in our presence. And pray that God would give her wisdom and insight for any new efforts (in the Ambilobe area or in other places) that she should begin in the future.
Jean-Luc (on the far right - the man who's been driving us to and from the village for several months now) is going to visit his family this weekend in Nosy Be, and he's very excited to gather all of them together and share with them all of the Bible stories that he's been learning in our discipleship group for months now. We made sure to provide him with a full copy of our Antakarana story set before he left.
We plan to share a fuller update soon with more details on the transition time ahead of us. But for now we can say that our leaving is definitely God's leading and we're excited to see what lies ahead!
TO GOD BE ALL THE GLORY! "The joy of the LORD is your strength." GOD WILL CERTAINLY PERFECT ALL THAT CONCERNS your lives and ministry, to HIS GLORY!
God bless these people as they learn to trust Jesus!
Just in case anyone sees (or has seen) this update, but not our most recent one, here is our newsletter where we share the news about this transition time ahead of us, how we're leaving Madagascar and preparing to return to the US: madmissions.com/2020/10/the-end-of-a-season/
God bless🤗🤗🙌🙌🙏
God bless y’all
We were able to go back to Antanamazava today after being away for several weeks! We had a good time with the group there, though several regular members of our discipleship group had traveled to another village for a local meeting.
One thing that was very exciting was hearing how a couple of the group members have already begun leading others in discipleship group meetings on their own over the last month! This is a huge answer to prayer and the sort of "reproduction" (that can lead to multiplication) that we've been hoping to see for a very long time now! It was funny because these two ladies were very nonchalant about it, like of course they were leading others in discipleship groups (the same kind we've been modeling for them), since it's simple and effective for helping them know God better and draw closer in relationship with him. They took it as a matter of fact that they could and should be doing that. So we then encouraged them to encourage those in their new group that they can also start sharing with others and leading others in discipleship groups as well. We hope and pray that God will bring multiplication through these new and faithful disciples of his in Antanamazava! Thank you to all of you who've also been praying for this with us for many months now!
Also, one of the ladies was able to share a praise report that her home life has become very peaceful now. Another lady in the group wanted to clarify that before they've always been fighting constantly and struggling very significantly in their home. But after praying together in our last meeting together, and after being convicted to work on that area of her life based on the last Bible story we shared, she said that since then they've smoothed things out and she's now had a very peaceful home life thanks to God's help. It was exciting to hear that!
We also discussed with the group some of the things that's happened in our life recently, and told them it's possible that Lora and I will be moving somewhere else very soon. They were all very sad about that possibility, but we pledged to be together with them at least one more time, next week. Nuckiline also pledged to continue to visit them regularly and to continue the work with them going forward.
It's been so exciting to see what God has done through this small group of faithful disciples over the last five months or so. He's answered many of our prayers in regards to them! And though God seems to have reduced our own direct involvement significantly, nonetheless, I believe he's been happy to use us as a catalyst to begin what we trust will be a very fruitful group of disciples that will multiply the work even further and reach more people than we ever could.
This picture is from near sunset time on the main bridge over the Mahavavy River on the way back to Ambilobe this evening. There was a nice (though short-lived) rainbow, and people went about their normal business washing clothes and bathing in the river.
Great news, glad the spirit is working in the lives of those you have been discipling and they are listening.
🙌🙌🙏🙏