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
So, Madagascar has now fully closed all its borders, and yesterday they just confirmed the first three cases of COVID-19 here. We're still here (now "stuck" here) and we've expected this to be a great time for moving forward in ministry. However, with news of the first three cases here (all international tourists, so we hope the government quarantined them before they had a chance to spread it to anyone else), and a bit of a rough sickness that has just passed through our family this week (well, still hasn't finished with Lora and myself)... we're having to reconsider things a bit.
If the coronavirus spreads through the general Malagasy population, it will be *devastating*. Not only is access to decent medical treatment completely out of reach for most people, but for most those within reach they certainly can't afford it. On top of that, the local lifestyle (an absolute necessity for the majority) makes spreading a highly contagious disease like COVID-19 much more likely. Social distancing is literally impossible for most.
We don't have any grocery stores around here, we have the crowded market. There are no delivery-to-home services - to acquire anything requires a social interaction in person. The vast majority of people don't have any form of refrigeration and so there are very few food choices that could be sustained indefinitely (rice and beans are thankfully both plentiful in towns/cities, but beans would run out VERY quickly if people tried to stock up here like they've been doing in the US). Very few people have a bank account, and most have very meager cash savings. Not working isn't an option for most (because between the risk of dying from coronavirus and dying from starvation, the choice is obvious)... and most people's work means being crowded together with many other people. Having running water is very rare, but thankfully, most (in our area) do have access to wells.
If something like coronavirus arrived and spread here, there'd be very little that could even possibly be done to stop its devastation.
So, we're starting to re-think our short-term ministry plans. Our own current sickness has necessitated it (which includes runny noses, so presumably it can't be the coronavirus), but right now it's helping us to also think through the implications for everything else, including how to not be vectors for the spread of disease here where basically everyone is a vulnerable population. We're here (we can't leave even if we wanted to), but we need to pray and see how God leads us to use this current time wisely. Please be praying for the third-world, for those who could potentially be infected by this virus and who would be devastated by it.
www.bbc.com/news/world-51929598
Why coronavirus advice won’t work for millions of people
www.bbc.com
The World Health Organisation's advice is difficult to follow in some developing countries.is there anything we can do on this side of the screen? We will be praying for your protection and for the people of Madagascar who are not as fortunate as we are in the US to ahve access to basic needs and healthcare. Please keep us posted. <3
Do you have malaria medication on hand? Chloroquine? That is presumably being shown to help with the virus www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32164085
We went back out to Antanamazava today (the first day in a week that had good enough weather! God prepares the way!) We weren't able to show the Jesus film yet because it was a long time before we found the head village official to discuss it with. But in the meantime we had a great talk with several people in the village, about our hopes for disciple-making in simple Holy Spirit-dependent ways. One lady really seems like she might be a "person of peace" there... she was talking about how she feels like whatever she receives from God she should freely share with others. She also said that she really felt like God called her to that village specifically (previously she lived in another area a ways from there) and that he has a specific task for her there, to help people know and follow him. As we shared more about simple reproducible discipleship methods and discipling people in their own language, she was very receptive.
Eventually we did find the head village official to speak with him and he said the door is open for us there. He showed us the place where we'll share the first part of the Jesus film (right in the center of the village). So we'll return Thursday evening to show the first part, to engage with people in discussion, and to see if anyone at that point wants to commit to meeting regularly for discipleship through Bible stories. (We should share the next part of the Jesus film the following week.)
We may not have achieved our plan for today, but I don't doubt that God has directed our paths! Pray that the person(s) of peace (if this lady or others) will become clear, that they'll take a strong leadership in the work there, and that they'll be able to spread it far and wide!
Exciting...praying for those who need to hear God’s Word will be there Thursday!
Thanks to those of you who've been praying about our first efforts to reach some of the rural villages here in the area around Ambilobe. We had a good time going with our good friend and ministry partner out to the nearby village of Antanamazava this morning. We mainly just walked through the village greeting people, and they seemed very happy to have visitors. We also spent time speaking with one of the headmen of the village and discussed our intentions. Next week (Tues evening) we'll return to the village to show the Jesus film in the local language and then invite anyone who's interested to join us for regular Bible story discipleship groups going forward.
So please keep praying for the Holy Spirit to work on the hearts of the people there, for those who are eager for the truth and a relationship with their Creator - that they would be prepared to hear and believe. Pray also that we'll find several persons of peace, whoever God has prepared there to be the leaders in a disciple-making movement that will reach the Antakarana far and wide!
The photo is from the path walking back from the village towards Ambilobe, and the person in the photo is our good friend and ministry partner.
It's International Women's Day here in Madagascar! We enjoyed seeing some of the opening festivities in the center of town here yesterday. This year women from all the major cities in the region are gathering here in Ambilobe to celebrate. Here's a video taken of some of the women's dances that opened the festivities yesterday.
The first group in the video is a group from Tulear in the south of Madagascar (not sure which tribal group particularly because they didn't say). They had a fun and exciting dance. The second group in the video is of the Antakarana (the main people group here in the north of Madagascar). So the two dances brought the two sides of the big island together! The style of "dance" exhibited by the Antakarana here in the video is honestly pretty authentic of many of their traditional ceremonies, though to be honest it's fairly boring, haha! It's basically what they use to call their ancestors forward for those sort of traditional ceremonies.
Unfortunately, all the dances were basically being performed for the few government officials and prominent community members sitting on the platform, and not for the large audience also gathered to watch. That meant that the dancers' backs were to us most of the time. Still, it can be fun to watch - particularly the group from Tulear!
youtu.be/2YagEa2ieEg
Had a good time again today with the discipleship group at the prison. It had been a couple weeks since we'd been able to meet due to events that had come up, but it was good to be together again and see the way some of them have grown in the meantime. One young Antakarana man in particular is becoming more and more excited about following Jesus and the way it's transforming his life. He only has 10 more months in prison, and if he continues to grow more passionate about following Jesus then maybe one day he can become a great co-worker for spreading the Gospel further. I hope so! What a powerful testimony to God's redemptive goodness it would be!
In the meantime we're hoping to gather more potential co-workers from here in town together for a "vision-casting" meeting very soon, where we hope that God will draw many of them to work together with us to see a disciple-making movement happen among the Antakarana!
We've also been praying together with another close friend for the past week, seeking where God would lead us first in outreach together to the rural villages surrounding Ambilobe. We believe that he's spoken to each of us about the same place and we hope to go there together for our first visit and prayer time there next week. Please pray that we'd be well-received, that many faithful disciples would result from our efforts there, and that the Gospel would be well-rooted and spread far from there to many other Antakarana villages!
madmissions.com/about-us/prayer-requests/
Prayer Requests | Madagascar Missions
madmissions.com
This page has several specific things you can pray for us about. We update it regularly, so please check often and keep us and Madagascar in your prayers!