Progress Report on Church Planting ,Evangelism and the Upcoming Youth Confrence

September 4th

It has now been one year and four months since I left Kenya to come to Madagascar to serve as a missionary.

I am busy organizing a three-day crusade in a place called Anketraka from the 24th to 26th of this month and the plans are advancing well.


In July I preached on two different Sundays in one of our churches in Andaromena and due to that, plans are underway to launch a new church this year that is to be under the Andaromena church as well as to organize an evangelistic mission in Andaromena in November since a temporal church structure is presently being built there which should be ready by November.

I need your prayers because I intend to be very aggressive in church-planting and evangelism. The lack of a public address system is a challenge since where I need to do evangelism is far and thus I need to rent the P. A system

Lack of personnel is still a big problem. I was telling the Bishop here that I want to do at least two church- plants this year but he told me to only do one partly because we do not have people to take care of the new churches!

Last but not least Reverend Alfred Apela should be landing in the capital of Madagascar next Monday to later embark on a 900km journey by matatu to Toliara where he will be the guest speaker in a youth conference that Victor has organized. Pray for his safe journey and especially that God may use him to make an impact on the youth here. He will be a ground- breaker.

I hope many others from Kenya will come to minister here in Toliara in future.

Shalom.
Duncan

One year and Three months long and still going strong.

19th August

It is now one year and three months since I came to Madagascar. I am presently organizing a crusade in an area known as Anketraka.
We have a church there but it has few members and my hope is that this crusade will enable the church to grow numerically. So pray the planning goes well.

The crusade is scheduled for 24-26 September. Two weeks after that I am preparing to go to a place called Betaola. We have a church there. Indeed it is the only church in the area. Most men of the area do not go to church but engage in social vices and crime such as cattle rustling and murder. The evangelist in charge of that area wants a crusade to reach these men and this is scheduled to take place from 8-11 October.

I am still looking for a public address system to hire so pray that the Lord provides. My bishop here went to Fort Dauphin two weeks ago. This is the place I went in April/May for five weeks and a church was planted there. He reported that 125 people attended the Sunday service and he baptized around 50 people! It is proving to be an extremely successful church-plant.
Pray that we will be able to start many churches in the province of Toliara.

The problem is we do not have personnel to handle new churches so if the Lord is calling you here you are welcome since the work is vast but the workers are few. Lastly, I am very excited because we are expecting Reverend Alfred Apela here in Toliara, Madagascar to be the key-note speaker in a youth conference from 7-11 September. Victor is the main organizer of this conference.

Pray that the ministry of Reverend Apela may have a great impact among the youth here.

Duncan.

Victor’s Prayer Update.

August 11th

Greetings

We are fine in the Lord and covet your prayer for the work going on in Madagascar.
Pray for:
• The upcoming first youth conference in September that the Lord may minister in the lives of the young people in Toliara.
• Safe journey mercies for the conference speakers including Capt. Apela from Kenya.
• Duncan's health - he has been having a problem at his nape.
• Madagascar's political direction that the reached agreement may be kept.
• Thank God that Toliara recently became a new diocese and hence the electoral process is in place so pray that it may go well.


Thanks for standing in the gap.
Victor.

Youth Conference Update.

August 4th

I hope this finds you well.
The youth conference planning is now at an advanced stage now that we only have 5weeks to go and we are waiting to receive Capt. Apela as well. So far we have 80 youths who have registered and we are hoping the number to shoot by 15th August 2009 which is the deadline of registration. We are expecting to have at least 200 young people from Toliara.
I am afraid we may just have to lock out other people.

Victor.

Independence Day in style!

June 23rd

Hello, I trust that the Lord has kept you safe and his mercies are falling afresh upon your life. The Lord has been good to me and I rejoice in the greatness of his grace and his unfailing love.

June 26 is a national holiday here in Madagascar-Commemoration of the departure of the French from this land as colonialists. It seems it is a day that is taken very seriously by the majority of the citizens. People are painting their houses nicely and doing big time purchases both in clothing and foodstuff. For businessmen it is a big money making time.

On the eve of the Independence Day there are normally fireworks displays and dances throughout the night at the beach and many people gather there for the shows.

"Vorotsiloza" the turkey's meat is one of the best meals to cook during a festivity like this. So everyone is trying their best to have one and at worst if a turkey seems hard to come-by then a chicken will do. People travel from far just to be with their families for the celebration.

Once again, thanks for your continual support and prayer.

Have a great week.
Victor.

Adventerous Church Planting Mission.

15th June Update

I do believe that the Lord is giving you new energy even as you begin this new week with its challenges, setbacks and of course victories!
I am well kept of the Lord and continue to abide in his love and faithfulness that are new every morning.
To describe our church planting mission at Fort Dauphin in one word I would say it was adventurous! This is because from the start to the end of the mission the devil has been fighting and opposing the work but we saw the Lord winning every battle. That describes who He is - mighty in battle. Well, our journey that was scheduled for Friday was postponed to Saturday because they had few passengers traveling on that day (and this being only a few hours before departure time!) During the journey we had 6-breakdowns! We had four tyre bursts, one around 100km from Toliara and on one occasion we ran out of fuel in the middle of the jungle. Normally the journey takes 2-3 days due to the deplorable state of the road. During rainy seasons it takes up to a week or 2 on the way! And so in most cases there are no vehicles traveling to Fort Dauphin at that time.
On arrival we were well received and we set for work. It was indeed a busy week of door to door, open air preaching and films. The message was well received and we had people making commitments to walk with Jesus. It was evident that Duncan and Rev Donne who worked on the ground work did a wonderful job. As at now there is a church at Fort Dauphin with around 40 congregants, most of who were Anglicans who had 'no church.' the town is growing fast mostly because there are a lot of South Africans and Canadians due to the big mining company that is there.

Thanks so much for your prayers and continual support.

Blessings,
Victor.

May Flashback

Duncan – June 6th Update

May was a fantastic monthly since first and foremost I celebrated my first anniversary of serving as a missionary in Madagascar; this was on 1st May. At that time I was in Fort dauphin doing church-planting from19th April to 25th May.

Generally, the first two weeks of May, Rev Donne and I were looking for church-land almost daily but the pieces of land that we saw were too small and so up to this moment the search continues and I request for prayers for land. We were also looking for a house for over 10 evangelists that we were to host for a week from 19th May as well as trying to furnish it.

We were advertising almost every week in a local radio station about the new church as well as the evangelism week slated for 19th to 23rd May. On the Sundays of 2nd, 9th and 16th May we had 24, 22 and 31 adults respectively attending the new church. The church had an international angle with me as a Kenyan there and I befriended an American who also came, one of those Sundays. I preached on Sunday 16th May on why the Church evangelizes to prepare the Christians for the week of evangelism that was to begin on 19th May. We managed in those two or so weeks to get a house for the evangelists as well as bedding and utensils.

We got authorization from the local government to preach and show the Jesus film every evening from 19th to 23rd May and also secured a public address system. The evangelists arrived on Monday 18th May having traveled 619km from Toliara where I live and a Christian fetched them from the bus station and drove them to their residence.

From 19th to 23rd we did house to house evangelism in the mornings and ministered and showed the Jesus film in the evenings. I preached on the 19th which was the first day of the evening program and it went well. Many people came to listen to this fazaha from Kenya. Fazaha is the word here for a foreigner. Many people prayed the prayer of salvation.

I deliberately preached on that first day because many of the evangelists who were there had never done mass evangelism before and needed to learn how to do it. It was not easy for me and Victor during this mission because the Bishop entrusted the mission funds to us yet there were three Reverends with us but the evangelism week went well. On Sunday 24th, 49 people were in the Sunday service which was a big disappointment to me since many people were gathering daily for the evening program and there was lunch provided by one of the Christians for all who came for the service.

So pray for that new church that it may grow in every way.

I am still developing an evangelism program for the year and continue to ask for prayer. I am now back in Toliara and reveling in what God did in fort dauphin. We have an evangelist in charge of that new church temporarily, since we have only four priests and they are tied-up. The evangelists are also few. The evangelist that was sent there serves in another church. We need new evangelists and missionaries to come here. Is God calling you?