Three more souls for the Savior

              It was a beautiful day on June 28, 2009 in more ways than one. Even though it was cold first thing in the morning, the sun was shining bright and the day promised to be warm in the afternoon. There were very few clouds in the sky. What really made the day beautiful, however, was the desire of three individuals to be baptized into their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Three Baptized - June 28, 2009

            We had announced the week before that we would all be meeting at the Ambohimarina building at our regularly scheduled time for Sunday morning bible study at 9:30 a.m..  However, instead of meeting for our regularly scheduled classes, we were all going to walk down to the lake at the foot of the Betikara property. At about 9:45 a.m. the entire congregation had arrived beside the lake and we bowed for an opening prayer.

            The three people who had expressed their desire to be baptized were present, and stood in front of the congregation. ZOENTSOA Kanty Barrimond (a 30 year old male, and the son of Martin and Claudette), RAZAFINARIVO Clara (a 17 year old Betikara Lamb) and RADOARIJON Ny Ony Malala Colombe Josea Nicka Michelle (a 14 year old Betikara Lamb, with quite a long name) came forward and were asked to confess their faith in Christ in front of the congregation. After, we sang several songs and prayed. Solofo went down into the water with these three new souls for the Savior and immersed each of them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. 

Barrimond

            It was a special day in more ways than one for Clara. June 28, 2009 was exactly 17 years to the day of Clara’s entry into this world. Clara’s baptism touched me deeply. Clara, if you ask Stacy is the one Betikara Lamb that has the most, by far, pictures taken of her. Clara and I hit it off from the start upon Clara’s arrival at Betikara back in October of 1998. Clara at the time was only the third child to be accepted into Betikara after it’s conception and official registration with the Malagasy government on July 29, 1998. It has really been a joy to be able to help Clara all of these years and to see her finally accept Jesus as her Savior.

Clara

            Clara has already lived at Betikara for more than ten and one half years. Colombe, on the other hand, has only been at Betikara for just under three years. Colombe has proved to be a bright student at school, always excelling in her studies. Recently we have seen that Colombe is also excelling in her studies of the word of God. She has been eager to learn more about His will for her life, and she finally decided to dedicate herself to Him through baptism. Colombe was so excited about her joining the Savior that she called some of her extended family and they rented a bus and came out to Betikara for the day. We are sorry to say that they had vehicle problems and did not arrive in time to witness Colombe’s baptism, but they were there to worship with us, and to spend the day with Colombe and help her celebrate her new birth in Christ.

Colombe 

            We ask that you lift up these three new Christians to the Father. Please pray that they can continue to seek and serve Him throughout the rest of their physical lives on earth. Pray that they can grow to be strong, willing servants for Him and to be able to bring others to Him through their examples and daily walks.

Did You Know . . .

. . . that the temperature is getting colder as we head into winter. As the temperature gets colder some of Malagasy traditional rites start to come out into the open. These rites are performed during the winter months, in part, to take advantage of the cold weather that helps inhibit the spread of diseases. We are starting to see two of these rites performed. One of these rites is the “circumcision” rite that is performed on young boys that are two or three years old. According to Malagasy law all male students must be circumcised before they can start attending school. The other rite is the “turning of the bones” that is a time for the Malagasy families to congregate at the family tombs and exhume the bodies of past loved ones.

Miniature Missionaries

This and That

Tiana's Father’s Funeral

              On June 24, 2009 I attended the funeral of Tiana’s father (one of the caregivers at Betikara). Tiana’s father has been sick for several years now. Just last week Tiana said that his father was improving and doing well. And then just three days later Tiana receive a phone call that his father was dead. Because of this quick change of events, and the shattering of hope that Tiana had for his father’s well being, this event has taken its toll on Tiana. Please pray for Tiana so that he can feel the comfort that only God can provide for His children.

Struggling in Madagascar

            Water, Electricity, Internet connection, telephone, commodities, etc.. You name it, and Madagascar is having trouble providing the services that most American’s take for granted. We do not have enough electricity most days to even cause our fluorescent lights to work properly. They just keep blinking and trying to come on. We have UPS’s (Uninterruptable Power Supplies) installed on our two desk top computers. However, many days, the electricity is on, but not with a high enough voltage to keep the UPS’s operational. Before long, even with lights on in the house the batteries run out on the UPS’s and we are forced to shut down our computers. Because of vast fluctuations in the voltage we are afraid to plug our electronic equipment directly into the wall socket without the UPS that regulates the current used by the electronic equipment.

            Many days we struggle with insufficient Internet service. For the last two days the connection has been offline completely. I was told by a technician at our Internet service provider that they are having trouble with the international satellite linkup. If this is the case, all of Madagascar is suffering just like us. I wonder just how much this problem is with the technology versus the lack of knowledge to keep the technology operational which is what we have found to be the problem several times in the past.

“Google Translate”

            As technology progresses, so does the Madagascar Mission website. For those of you who frequent the Madagascar Mission website at http://www.madagscar-mission.org you will notice that I have installed a new feature on the home page of the website. Hopefully, our international readers of the monthly newsletters will find this feature useful. Just underneath the e-mail addresses, in the center of the home page, you will see a new item called “Google Translate”. The default language for the website is English. In this new feature a person can select many different languages that they might find easier to read. I realize that the translation will not be exact, however, it might help some people around the world be able to better understand the monthly newsletters. Once a different language is selected “Google Translate” automatically translates all future links that are selected to the new chosen/preferred language. For those of you who are fluent in English you do not have to do anything with “Google Translate”. Just use the website the way you would normally use the site. A language only needs to be chosen if English is not the desired language for viewing the website.

What can you do?

You can pray!

We welcome you to join us in this work for Him . . .

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