wow we can hardly believe its coming to the second week that we've been in Madagascar and what a week it's been, below we've tried to capture some of the highlights which include having the opportunity to visit the poor people who had lost everything in a recent fire, engaging with the dear children the weekly homeless feeding programme, attending a 5.30am church service with over 700 people, sharing with the prisoners at their sunday service, being taken to the police station because we weren't carrying our passports, watching a local football match in the bush which was birthed out of the sports coach training we led two years ago, preparing and then sharing with over 70 people the Leadership training programme at a local church and making contact and working on further opportunities to share the Certificate in Community Leadership programme throughout Madagascar.
it's really hard to put down in word all the experiences that we have had during the last week, obviously the reason we are in Madagascar is to share the Emerging Leaders programme with as many people as we can so to have delivered the training of module one to a group of 78 people is a real mile stone in our lives. the training is really built on seeing peoples lives transformed by introducing leadership mind sets that are simple enough to put into practice. we'd seen how effective it had been in South Africa when Trevor and Jane Waldock came to share a version of this training with some of our community in Grabouw, but for us to deliver this training was going to be a different story. we worked together well, sharing the three hour session between us and to see the eyes of those we were teaching open up and engage with us during that first session was a real privilege and we are confident that those people will be applying this training into their lives right now.
we have further opportunities to share, the first of those starts tomorrow morning, where we will gather the teaching and key leaders of both Love'nCare (LNC) ministries and another wonderful NGO called Mercy Ministries together for module one, we are then going to be sharing the training in the local prison with further opportunities to share with other NGO's and even the prison guards which would be an great connector to encourage the prisoners thus completing a circle that will benefit the whole of that prison community.
outside of the training our hearts were once again broken by the plight of the thirty or so families who's homes had been lost to a huge fire that ripped through one of the informal settlements on the northern edge of Toamasina. Cho and Deborah from Love'ncare had raised funds via their connections in South Korea to purchase some large cooking pots, blankets and foam mattresses which we distributed via another NGO called Help Madagascar, representatives from the 30 families gathered together where they were given the provisions and we had the opportunity to see the devastating effect of the fire first hand. the homes made of a timber frame covered with a beautifully woven leaf cladding with palm leaf roofing which stand side by side along the banks of a small mosquito infested stream were overwhelmed by flames so quickly that everything was lost, however to stand in that place of devastation a few weeks after the fire and see new timber frames, some of the timber reclaimed and blackened by the fire, rising up like a phoenix was humbling to say the least.
our visit to the weekly street people meal on Saturday afternoon was yet another humbling experience and to spend time with the dear mothers and children, so skinny and malnourished was at times hard but to just be friends to these people, show them the love and care that so oft they are denied, taking up a child in your arms, playing simple sitting games and taking time to treat these people, especially the children with respect is all we could do and we're so glad of the heart that Love'ncare have for these dear people that are also blessed by the night shelter that has recently been opened by LNC.
we were wide awake at 4am on sunday morning readying ourselves for Pastor Fidi who was going to pick us up to share at his 5.30am service, we were once again amazed at the amount of people up and about at that time on a sunday morning and by the time the service had started over 750 people had joined us, filling all the ground floor and balcony seating of this large church with late comers joining outside (under cover of the early morning sun) with a video link!.....and this was the first of three services that would be held, the second starting at 7.30am with the late risers given the option of attending the one at 9.30am!we were able to encourage the congregation to attend our first leadership training session that we were going to host at the church on the Wednesday afternoon.
after a short trip home to freshen up we were soon making our way to the prison to join the inmates for our second service of the day which started at 9am, over 100 men, women and even their children joined us to offer up their thanks giving to God in both prayer and song and listen to me (Tim) deliver a 'message' of hope based around the feeding of the 5000. this was yet again another time were we felt so humbled, one by the joy that filled these peoples hearts, looking and knowing of the incredibly tough living conditions where their families and friends have to visit to provide the food for their loved one. remember this is a country where over 85% of the population live in rural areas where transport is so limited and what with those family members living on less that $2 a day they are expected to provide for those on the inside. we will share more about this when we have the chance to spend four mornings next week encouraging those very same prisoners with the leadership training!
we were due to meet up with Cho and some of the other LNC team for lunch but a spanner was thrown in the works when our car was stopped by the police who were running routine spot checks on the drivers and the vehicles paperwork. once we'd been pulled over our two Malagasy friends who were in the front seat were questioned about their credentials, and the credentials of the two white people sitting in the back of the vehicle, those being myself and Maz, where were our Visa documents? after a few minutes explaining that we didn't have them on us, mainly to do with the fact that we had just been sharing a service in the prison and that perhaps wasn't the best place to take vital documents the police man was not too cooperative and informed us that we needed to follow him to the police station to explain ourselves!..........in the end I was held there with Maz being allowed to return to our home/accommodation to pick up the documents. everything ended up ok, but our friends were so embarrassed about the situation, we had wasted over an hour of our time, for what, to prove something that the police already knew?
after a wonderful lunch with some of cho's South Korean friends at a restaurant on the beach, the Indian ocean lapping against a white sand beach where local fisherman's boats made from dugout logs sat waiting for their owners to return on Monday morning to go out searching for the wonderful selection of seafood that lays beneath the surface and which adorned our plates (this is where poverty and plenty meet), we were off into the bush with two of the LNC staff to watch their local football team take on a team from the town in a friendly match that was to take place on a flatish piece of ground set amongst the palm trees and rice paddy fields. this team had been set up as a result of the sports outreach programme which we came to share with around 20 local youth leaders two years ago. it was fantastic to see the team, adorned in their South Korean sponsored kit play some amazing football on what was a very challenging sandy pitch sparsely covered in long tufty grass. the boys encouraged each other and whilst we had to leave at half time we did get chance to see the only goal of the game scored by a very tricky left winger who finished off a well worked team move with aplomb.
the rest of our week was taken up by the long and tedious translation of the key story boards that we use to engage people with the leadership training, Maz has done an incredible job, ably assisted by young brother Theo. we go into this next week with thoughts of the training tomorrow morning, the four day training in the prison and a trip into the remote bush via helicopter with Mercy Ministries on Monday morning, but those stories will have to wait until next week!sorry about the lack of photos but our internet allowance has run out so you'll have to visit our facebook pages to see some of the photos we'd uploaded during the week, click here to see Tim's page!
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