About Madagascar

The mission is coming to a close tomorrow, and I am quite exhausted after preaching a total of sixteen messages since last Sunday. My guess is that there has been a total of seven hundred or so gatherings where AE staff have preached this week. I’m astonished to see how hungry these people are to hear the Word. I preached at a church service this morning that began at 9am. I left the service at 11am while it was still going. Another member from our team went to preach at the same church directly after me at 11:30. Then, I came back to preach there once again at 3:00pm and the same service was still going. I was finished by 5:00 and the service still had not ended. This Baptist Church had a service today that began at 8:00am and finished at sometime around 6:00pm. There were five different worship bands, a worship-through-dance group, three sermons, and a testimony all in one day. Unbelievable.

I have a new friend, David Chigamba from Malawi, whose on the AE staff and is in charge of writing the reports about the trip to all the AE staff, family, friends, and supporters. So I thought I would include below a portion of his first report regarding Madagascar and its people (I also helped him creat a blog for his reports. Check it out. www.aecomms.blogspot.com):

“What a joy again to write to you from the Island not exactly of Patmos but Madagascar. Yes! The long awaited mission has arrived. It has arrived in this far off Island to the south west of the Indian Ocean. Indeed to this special land visited and inhabited by people from all four corners, far and wide since the earliest times by the descendants of Semitic and Asian traders. Oh Madagascar, what a beautiful Island you are with your city placed strategically on a hill. Loved and chosen by God with 16 million people and 1,4 to 1,6 million people in the capital city of Antananarivo. Others say the island is almost one and a half times the size of California.

Beloved friends, I know you may be asking, why Antananarivo? I thought you guys were there last May/June? Yes you’re right we were here last May/June. But remember that was a mission to the leadership. It was about those who are influential in decision making in different sectors of life. But this time it is for everyone. We realize that the gospel is for everyone and so we will go to where we will find the people (stratified evangelism) - in working places, in homes, in churches, in market places and open places.

Madagascar needs the gospel just like the rest of the world needs it. If you read through the little booklet that we were given in the Aircraft called the “Madagascar Passport,” you will be baffled to read what the editor had to say on the customs and traditions of the Malagasy people. I guess it will be good if I quote some of it:

“…. There is first of all the circumcision ceremony of small boys practiced during the winter months: It is carried out individually by the families and is not a subject of great popular ceremonies.
….then there is the “fijoroana” starting with the organization of a gathering of the entire population of a village. During the meeting, incantations are addressed to Zanahary, the creator of the feet and hands and to his intermediaries among men who are the spirits of the ancestors to ask them for their blessings and their protection.
…..in addition to these two widely practiced traditions there is that of the exhumation of the dead common on the central areas of the mainland. The bodies are exhumed and wrapped in fresh shrouds. In Sainte Marie, the bones are unearthed, cleaned and then placed in small boxes. All this takes place against a background of the consumption of sizable quantities of betsabetsa (country spirits) and drink offerings. The reason for this ceremony, which takes place three to seven years after the death of a person, is to request the blessings of the ancestors and of God.
…Lastly, there is the “tromba” or the ceremony of the possession of the living by the spirits of the crowned ancestors of the former Sakalava kings from the west and the north of the mainland. During these trances these spellbound people transmit the royal messages from the dead to the living.”

I know you are asking is this true David? My friends, it is very true, in fact these are just some of the things that these people in this beloved Island are bound with. The funny part of it is that even most of the guys who are considered to be educated and are staying here in the city are so much into the worship of the dead. Talking to one of the pastors, he told me that one of the tragedy’s of Madagascar is that people are still blind and are so much into ancestral worship. He added that this has contributed so much to their poverty because most people would work very hard only to give the proceeds to the dead. He said to many people the dead are a higher priority and more important and honored than the living!”—By David Chigamba