DUNCAN'S JOURNAL

March 1, 2010 Update-Duncan

It's now a year and ten months since I moved to Madagascar to serve as an evangelist.

At the beginning learning Malagasy was a major challenge. Not being a linguist, I have been quite slow to pick up Malagasy, the main language here. My experience in communication has been a total comedy and disaster too. I am however, progressing on my improvement scale.Last month, I started a new service in Betania West where I have been preaching in Malagasy. It gets interestingly miraculous, when someone who has been speaking English, Swahili and Kikuyu all his life, is suddenly speaking hesitantly and haltingly in a foreign language. It is here in Madagascar, that I have come to realize how useless English is!

In February, I was trying to establish a new fellowship in Betania West and it was not butter and bread. I preached in all the services there and since I did not know the people there I focused on evangelistic messages followed by alter-calls for salvation. The responce was always good.

The fellowship is a roller-coaster I must say. One sunday the locals are ten then the next five and so on and so forth. Many are adults. We however, attract a good number of teenagers and children too.

When not too busy, the youth normally accompany me to minister. The congregation there enjoys gospel music and Bible questions. From March I intend to make the preaching open to all. Shortage of seats is a major handicap there. Yesterday I was excited when a mother there committed herslf to attend our main service in our church on Sundays. Every Friday or Saturday I, with a team, do person-to-person evangelism in the area.

In February I had been looking for a place to plant a fellowship. The task was a tough one. In this past week I have however, identified an area known as Betania Tanambao where starting 2nd of March, I will begin evangelizing in the area with a view of starting a church there. I hence ask for your prayers.

In February we also started a Sunday Service in Motombe, a fellowship I started last November.
It is a relatively stable fellowship that mainly costitutes mothers, vis-a-vis the one in Betania West.

Personally, my desire this year is that when the Christians I work with see me, they may see a church planter.