I have now been in Madagascar for four months and am increasingly convinced that God brought me here with a great purpose. Some months ago, I was invited by a priest from the Diocese I am serving here to go minister in his church and I went there on 26th August up to 16th September. This was significant because the Anglican Church in South Madagascar is desperate for evangelism to bolster church- growth and facilitate church planting. I ministered in crusades to promote growth in the local church. The profile of the church was raised in the area and scores came to Christ. Follow-up needs to be done to sustain the work, but we also did crusades in another area where we planted a new church. By the grace of God I preached in all the crusades and since the concept is new here many were attending and God was convicting them. I am now praying that God guides me on how to best do evangelism work here. Keep on praying for us.
I continue to learn Malagasy which is the language of the people here, but it has not been easy since I also now have friends who speak English. In the crusades I was preaching in English assisted by a very able Malagasy interpreter. I have also been teaching English in the church though my compatriot, Victor, is now taking a larger role of teaching. Our passports which we sent to the Ministry of interior to be stamped with the two-year visas have yet to be returned to us though we were given identity cards which are acting as our passports for the time being. Pray for us as we continue to adapt and learn about the culture here. When I went for a church-planting mission recently there were no houses, including where I stayed, that had a toilet or bathroom. For the toilet people relieved themselves either in the bush or openly, and for bathing they all went to a swamp with dirty water and I had no choice!
Victor told me when I was away that he attended a turning of bones ceremony. This is where people gather in the gravesite of a relative who has been dead for about ten years and unearth the skeleton of the dead person then they straighten the skeleton of the deceased and wrap it in a new cloth and then put it in a new coffin and rebury it. Then celebration follows right there at the gravesite. Imagine some Christians also do this claiming it is their culture! Pray that God may strengthen us to correct such practises especially by Christians. Otherwise we continue to minister in the English service on Saturdays in Toliara but pray that God may give us able interpreters so that we can also preach in Sunday services in all the churches. Remember that one priest here normally has seven to ten congregations and so they rely on evangelists to run the churches while we claim that since we cannot speak Malagasy fluently we cannot preach in the Malagasy services. Actually when I went to preach in Morondava recently the Nigerian priest there has a Malagasy interpreter that interprets for him whenever necessary. A similar arrangement will make us contribute a lot in the Malagasy services. I am informed that the long rains begin in November and so remember us in your prayers since the rains are accompanied by cyclones!
-Duncan
