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His Work Go ... and make disciples of all nations Matthew 28:19 |
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Volume
22, Number 11 |
November 2008 |
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The Barry Rosie family
have worked on the mission field in Africa for more than 23 years under the
oversight of the: |
Fraley’s Chapel |
Elders Mike Whitehurst -
662-287-7631 |
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Being
Tested “Watch
therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. But know this,
that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would
come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be
broken up. Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not
the Son of man cometh.” (Matthew 24:42-44 KJVA)
John and Esther Ratovohery left for Europe and the United States on
November 8th to visit their family and to report to congregations. The
Ratovohery’s will be returning on January 20, 2009. The person that was
picked in February of this year to take care of the Betikara finances and
everyday responsibilities was recently released from his position. Thus,
returning the position to me for the foreseeable future. Due to John and
Esther leaving I now need to be more involved in the board decisions for
Betikara and the new school at Betikara. I thought I was starting to get
out from under some of my responsibilities only to find them all coming
back to me.
Then, there is our concern for our son Kit who is studying at Faulkner
University. We are so far away. We are trying to support him and encourage
him, yet, is it enough? Please be sure to read the “Miniature Missionary”
section of this months newsletter.
I am reminded of the expression, “taking one step forward and two steps
back”. We realize that if the church in Madagascar is to grow, the growth
needs to come from the spiritual advancements that are taking place in the
lives of the Malagasy Christians. The missionary needs to step back and
take a guiding role, instead of always being in the front leading. We are
seeing spiritual growth in some of the Christians we work with from day to
day, but is it enough? How long do we need to be present in Madagascar
before the church sees Christ, His example, and follows
Him?
Needless to say, we are questioning what good we are doing in Madagascar
these days. Are we being the examples that we need to be? Are we reaching
out spiritually to the people? We often think that what we are doing will
never be enough. There will always be “the lost”. There will always be
“sin”. These things were already foretold in the Bible. These things will
not end until our Savior returns to gather His flock to Him in Heaven. So,
where is our place in all of this?
Maybe I need to explain some more. We are having feelings, that in 23
years of living in Kenya and Madagascar we are just experiencing for the
first time. We know of other missionaries that have been down this path in
their ministries. So, we are not alone, and can gain strength from this
knowledge. We realize that God is in control of our lives. We see His
guiding hand in all the things we endeavor. But we must ask, “Why then do
we feel so vulnerable”? After all, what recently happened to us has
happened to many missionaries and many of you in the past. Let me say that
we feel closer to God now than before, just highly inconvenienced. We are
praising God right now because Stacy, Havilah, and myself were not
harmed.
On Saturday night, November 1, 2008, we went to bed as usual. I turned in
about 11:30 p.m. and awoke at 2:15 a.m. to head down the hall to the
bathroom. I normally would not have passed by the office until I woke up
on Sunday morning about 5:00 a.m.. However, I was in the process of
downloading a file on my laptop computer and wanted to check on the
download status. We do not have high speed Internet access, and the file I
was downloading was started on Friday night at 6:15 p.m. (more than 30
hours earlier). So, the download should have completed or been close to
completion when I woke up at 2:15 a.m. Sunday morning. I went into the
dark office, only to find that my laptop computer, as well as Stacy’s
laptop computer were missing. I woke up Havilah, praying that she had for
some reason moved the computers. However, we soon found a hole in the
downstairs shower room grating that was used to enter and exit the
house.
Needless to say, we have not slept well since. Our office, as many of you
know, is upstairs between our two bedrooms. Stacy and I had our bedroom
door open and did not hear anything. We continue to think and rethink
about things that we should have done or could have done in order to stop
this event. As I said before, it is really just an inconvenience for us.
We had the computers backed up onto external hard drives. I was soon able
to get online via a desktop computer and change all of our passwords and
user information in several accounts. We will survive!!! So, why do we
feel so vulnerable? After all we are God’s chosen people. We are to put
our trust in Him. Things or possessions of this world should not phase or
concern us. But right now we are struggling to be able to reach out and
serve others. Needless to say, we are struggling with our emotions and are
trying to “keep level heads” during this time of
vulnerability.
The two laptop computers that were taken were not even “our possessions”.
My laptop was purchased out of work fund money and Stacy’s laptop was
mostly paid for by the American School of Antananarivo. We are alive and
unharmed. So, why all of the worry or concern? We are deeply reminded of
just how much Christ and His teachings are needed in the lives of the
Malagasy people. Our hearts ache and reach out to these people that so
much need a better way of life. We feel even more determined to teach and
realize that God will give the increase.
We realize that it is God who is comforting us. Please lift us up in
prayer to the Father as we continue to deal with the struggles that Satan
is putting before us in our spiritual journey. Please pray that we will
not be distracted from the spiritual needs of the Malagasy people.
Sunday morning, November 2, 2008, Stacy and I had already discussed the
break in and decided that we would not mention it to the congregation at
Ambohimarina. Upon arriving at the center we soon found that our decision
was appropriate. There were several items of business that needed our
attention. We thank the Lord for giving us the wisdom and strength to
counsel and encourage some of the Christians that were struggling with
their own issues that day.
We pray that His will be done in heaven and on earth. More so, we pray
that we are ready to follow His will for us as he uses us to spread his
message to this island country of over 18,000,000 needy people. Pray that
we can stay focused on the task at hand and not be overcome by the
everyday worldly struggles that face all of us from time to time. We are
being tested and we pray that we can come out of this time of testing more
worthy to serve Christ. Please continue to lift us up in prayer before the
Father.
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Did You Know. . . .
. . that the new songbook for two of the Antananarivo congregations is at
the printers? With help from several of the Betikara Lambs we finally
finished collating the songbooks. I took them to the printers this last
week to be stapled and covered. Lord willing we will soon be in possession
of these songbooks. We thought about several ways of taking care of the
need for new songbooks. We decided that the original spiral binding was
not durable enough. Pages from many of the old songbooks came out and made
it impossible to use the books. Having the books stapled at the binding
should make them more durable this time around. We will still need to
remind the congregation to take care of them, just as many of you have to
do from time to time. |
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this and that Vehicle
Update
Well, the Daihatsu Rocky is in the garage. However, there was an
“11th hour” reprieve from the Malagasy government concerning the right
hand drive vehicles presently in Madagascar. The original law, stating
that right hand drive vehicles can no longer be legally on the roads of
Madagascar after the end of October 2008, was repealed. Now the law states
that any new vehicles coming into Madagascar have to be left hand drive
vehicles. You can imagine the great sigh of relief
that 1,000 + vehicle owners in Madagascar let out. So, you ask, “Why is
the Daihatsu in the garage?” I had already made arrangements for the
vehicle to undergo all necessary body work and get a new paint job. The
vehicle should be finished by the end of November. I still have to decide
on the color of the vehicle. I am leaning towards changing the color after
17 years of having a cream or light yellow vehicle. How about Canary
Yellow, Florescent Orange, or Cartouche Green? :-) Songbook
update I called the
printers this last week and found that our order for songbooks was only
partially completed. One hundred twenty out of the three hundred songbooks
are ready. The company did say that I could take delivery of the books
already completed so we are going to be blessed by actually having
songbooks that contain all of their pages for a change. The remaining
songbooks should be done sometime this coming week. Inconvenienced
Due to technical difficulties brought on by the theft of our laptop
computers, the October newsletters will only be sent out via post office
and the http://www.madagascar-mission.org website. This is due to the fact
that I have yet to retrieve my e-mail messages and contacts (Vista
terminology) or address book (XP terminology) that was in Microsoft Vista
Windows Mail format. I am using our old desktop computer with Windows XP
right now and do not currently see how to retrieve these messages and
contacts.
My parents, who faithfully copy, prepare, and mail out the hard copies of
the monthly newsletters, have the postal addresses for the monthly
newsletter mail outs, so those newsletters will be mailed as usual. I am
the webmaster for the www.madagascar-misson.org website, so I will be able
to upload the newsletters to the website. Lord willing, once I get my
messages and address book back I will be able to send out the October
newsletters via e-mail.
I had to download the compatibility package for Microsoft Office 2007
since this computer is only running Microsoft Office 2003. I could not
even open my Excel spreadsheets for the work fund expenses and Betikara
expenses when I first sat down to the computer this morning. I am also
having problems with Quicken 2009 being able to access our financial files
at the present time. The program keeps crashing. Some computer programs
are not very good at backward compatibility. I guess I need to be thanking
the Lord that I have been able to get this much accomplished. |
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Miniature Missionaries
Recently we
heard news of Kit via my parents who passed by Faulkner University on
their way south to Florida. It appears that Kit is healthy, however, he
expressed to his grandparents that he wants to take a one year break from
his studies at Faulkner University. Kit stated that he wants to get a job
and make some money. (Kit is already working Friday's and Saturday's at
Pizza Hut.) Upon calling Kit and talking with him Kit said that he no
longer wants to study at all, not just for one year, rather he wants to
look for a job and no longer be a student.
With the current worldwide financial situation being such as it is, I
tried to encourage Kit to stay at Faulkner and finish what he started. I
expressed to Kit that many businesses are laying off workers right now and
that the chances of him finding a decent job are almost impossible. Please
pray with us, for Kit, and the decisions that he is facing right
now. We are praying that he will finish his
studies. By that time the financial outlook should be better and Kit will
have a greater chance for good employment with a university diploma in
hand. |
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What can you do?
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Pray that we
can continue to be of service to Christ during this present time of
inconvenience. This theft has not only caused us numerous hours trying to
recover computer data, but it has also entailed several hours with the
national police and the court system in Madagascar. ¨
Pray that Kit
can settle in and continue to study at Faulkner University. Kit stated
that he often sits down to the computer to write papers for classes, but
he has a mental block about what to write. I am sure that many of us have
experienced that problem from time to time. ¨
Pray for His
church in Madagascar. Pray that they can see Him and be ready to serve Him
in their daily walk. |
We welcome you to join us in this work for Him . . .
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Barry,
Stacy, Kit and Havilah Rosie Tel. 011-261-32-02-081-14 |