Among the Malagasy People of Madagascar
Go ... and make disciples of all nations
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Among the Malagasy People of Madagascar Go ... and make disciples of all nations |
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| Volume 20, Number 12 | December 2005 |
| The Barry Rosie family have worked on the mission field in Africa for more than 20 years under the oversight of the: |
Church of Christ c/o Phillip Young 140 C.R. 170 Corinth, MS 38834 |
Eugene Holland - 662-287-1721 Jerry Bates - 662-287-3351 |
Milk for Malagasy Children
They were 22 dedicated-to-the-Savior teens and 3 young on-fire-for-Christ
adults. They fasted beginning on Friday at noon. They met Friday
evening for a night of devotional and prayer. Bright and early on
Saturday morning with stomachs rumbling, they took to the streets, gathered
120 Malagasy street children, taught about the Good Samaritan, and then
bought lunch for the kids and passed out Milk for Malagasy children.
Each young teen donated from his or her own allowance to fund the lunches
for the kids, and everyone walked away happy for knowing that the Father
provides and that the Father uses us all in wonderful ways. Our Kit
was a part of the group. We are pretty proud of him.
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Barry runs night and day with Bible studies, counseling, preparing Bible lessons for adult classes and Sunday sermons, visits, trips taking sick Christians to the hospital, doctor’s visits for orphans, hauling building supplies, managing 25 children, 4 caregivers, 9 child support workers, and 30+ builders. Stacy teaches school full-time, does all the public relations for the orphanage, fund-raising, finding and reporting to child sponsors, translating and sending communications between orphanage lambs and their sponsors, writing Bible lessons in Malagasy for the 100+ children that attend Bible classes each Sunday, and is taking a Master’s degree online through University of Phoenix in an effort to get caught up after twenty years of not teaching in a standard school environment. Christmas is almost here and we have our own two plus twenty-five lambs to consider. By mid last week, both Barry and Stacy were near to collapse, but with God’s grace we made it to the weekend and the hope of one day in bed until 7:00 am. It was on that day that son Kit burst into the bedroom fully dressed with a grin a mile wide on his face. “Ok, it’s finally your vacation, what are we going to do together???” I groaned. Barry didn’t even bother with a verbal reply. We dragged ourselves out of bed. Kit has been home from boarding school for three weeks and has waited patiently while we worked. Now, we have to create fun for an 18 year old. I’m getting far too old for all of this, and I’m fairly sure Barry feels the same. We’ll meet again.
They are friends
and mentors. We worked under their guidance years ago at Southern
Christian Home. We watched and learned much from these servants of
Christ who loved each other deeply and loved Christ even more. When
we left for the mission field, Rachel and Carroll’s prayers and emotional
support went with us. We’ve kept in close contact all these years,
still absorbing wisdom from both of them. On our second furlough,
Carroll had a brand new bicycle in store for our Kit and that’s when they
became Grandmama and Grandpapa Trent to our children.
We love you, Grandpapa and Grandmama Trent.
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| Christmas Plans
This week, in between all the other work we do, we are trying to organize gifts for our 25 lambs at Betikara. Stacks of boxes that you have been so generous to send stand in our hallway waiting to be sorted and divided to anxiously waiting lambs. Havilah and I will work away all week at peeking into boxes and carefully dividing gifts into 25 piles. Bible teachers at church are preparing the 100+ Sunday school children to recite for the adults on Christmas day. The men at church allocated funds for special treats for the church children. Two of the women go this week to purchase cookies, candy, and decorations for making cardboard hats for the children. This is Malagasy holiday custom and as much as we try to talk them out of it is as much as we fail. The women of the church meet on Thursday afternoon for a hat making party. We will also divide the candy and cookies into small plastic bags for distribution to the children after they sing and recite memory verses for the adults of the congregation. On Friday the 23rd we have a church wedding to attend. It seems that half the country every year tries to get married as close to Christmas day as possible and before the end of the year. It’s the Malagasy way of making a new start I suppose. It will be sweltering hot and traffic is sure to slow down the process with umpteen weddings on that day, but we will have one more of our young adults safely married. Saturday the 24th is the lambs day. Fifty adults and children will gather for lunch together and Christmas treats for the lambs. I hope we get finished organizing the treats by then. On Sunday, Christmas day, we are sure to have 200+ at church for worship and for the recitation of the Sunday school classes followed by treats for the children. By late afternoon Sunday, our family will only be thinking of bed. We hope to have a family day together on Monday, December 26th. It won’t be a traditional Christmas. We are too tired for that. Instead, we will go to a local swimming pool and have pizza for lunch. Not what you expected, huh? Well, it’s not exactly what we prefer either, but we are just too tired for turkey and trimmings, and we are just too tired to pretend it’s a good ole USA Christmas in Madagascar! |
| What
can you do?
You can pray!
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Barry, Stacy, Kit and Havilah Rosie B.P. 7554 Antananarivo 101 Madagascar Tel. 011-261-32-02-081-14
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We welcome you to join us in this work for Him . . .
