Prayer News

Weekly prayer updates are available here.

The last extended prayer letter follows:

Prayer letter 20th December 2008

Dear Friends

"When you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place;.and when you pray, do not use vain repetitions .for your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him." (Matt 6:6-8)

The Lord Jesus, in teaching His followers, stresses to us the central importance of the "secret place" and the "quiet time". We are to come to our "Father", not to bring Him information - He already knows much better than we do - but to bring our hearts to Him, knowing that He will do the very best for us. What confidence this should give us in prayer - and what a joy and privilege to come to our heavenly Father.

Could we ask you, as the first item of prayer, to pray for us and our colleagues in Mandritsara, that we might really make this our daily priority? We are conscious that for some of us it is much easier to be a busy Martha than to be a praying Mary (Luke 10:38-42).

ECOLE/COLLEGE BONNE NOUVELLE (GOOD NEWS PRIMARY/SECONDARY SCHOOLS)

What a privilege it is to be teaching 280 children in a Christian school! This year an extra class has been added to the secondary section, so it now covers the first 3 years. It has been a challenge to find adequate committed Christian teachers, and there is still a need so we appreciate your prayers for that. One of the two school buildings is a rented house and the owner is under pressure from her family to move us on. We have decided to convert the "Maison Tsiranana" into classrooms. This is the large old house in town that our whole missionary team first lived in and other missionary families have used since then. We bought the house a number of years ago, but would appreciate prayers now for the funding for the conversion, and for wisdom in making the plans.

SUNDAY SCHOOL

For the past 12 years, Jane has been producing Sunday school lessons in Malagasy. She has had extra help in a number of ways recently. Miriam, our English nurse, is a good artist and has helped by drawing excellent pictures for certain stories where Jane has been unable to find suitable ones hitherto. Bako has been going systematically through past lessons, together with Jane, correcting or improving the Malagasy. Others have done this in the past, but for some years Jane has been increasingly aware that the Malagasy qualities of politeness, gentleness and respect for foreigners meant that colleagues who checked the early lessons still left a lot to be desired! With the pressure of the weekly demands of Sunday School she has had little time available for getting these old lessons into shape. Now Jane is very happy to find that Bako understands the need and shares the vision for providing lessons that are faithful to the Bible and in good Malagasy. Lucia has spent time (and computer skills) converting old lessons from WordPerfect to Word - a real time-saver for Jane! This year Jane has completed lessons on Acts, and is currently producing lessons on the last part of the Old Testament narrative (Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and Job). By this time next year we hope the lessons on the whole Bible will be near to completion, with pictures. Our aim then will be to make these widely available for churches throughout the country (on CD).

UPDATES

Adrien and Gis謥 very much appreciated their Europe trip and we understand that they were a blessing and a challenge to many that they met as they visited churches and prayer groups.
Jimmy and Marlis are safely settled at Emmaus Bible School in Switzerland. Marlis is working part time - please pray for their support, and that the Lord would be preparing them for future ministry in Madagascar. - Since September our team has been much encouraged by five new short-termers from England. Ted Watts, a surgeon, has found his niche in the operating theatre where he is being a big help. Rachel, his wife, is now our children's doctor and has had lots to do both in the ward and in outpatients. Anna Jones and Miriam Scothern are two nurses working in the ward/theatre - and everywhere else in the hospital! Their coming doubled the number of trained nurses we have! Lucia Chaplin is working as David's secretary and assisting in many different ways. All of them have become involved in helping to lead the large Sunday afternoon youth meeting at the church.
Mat and Katy Linley, with Phoebe and Jonah are due to arrive in Madagascar in January. They will be doing language study in Antananarivo initially. Long term Mat will be particularly involved in Bible training and helping the emerging churches, and Katy (a doctor) will be working in the hospital. Please pray for their final preparations for leaving the UK. - Bako (previously teacher at the Good News School and then Lab technician) is doing very well in teaching Malagasy language and culture to 10 of our missionaries. Everyone is really appreciating the lessons. - Elke, from Belgium, is once more our only midwife. Doreth, our Malagasy midwife, left for a government post. So the opening of the maternity unit is still not in sight. Please pray for the Lord to send us midwives.
The Oasis house for visitors and short-termers is progressing well - having had a team from Belgium and another team from Northern Ireland working on it. It is expected that the first block will be finished and ready for occupation by the end of January and the rest by the end of March. - The Voice of the Good News radio station is broadcasting every day, bringing gospel messages and Bible teaching. But it is not reaching as far as we would like. Please pray for wisdom for Robert, our Belgian maintenance man, and Diamondra, who is in overall charge of the station, as they seek to find solutions. In the long-term our hope is to create a studio in town on top of one of the hills, or use one of the mobile phone masts for our antenna.
The outreach to the neighbouring town of Befandriana (116 km) continues each fortnight. About a dozen women and 50 children are now attending regularly. Please pray for men to join the group.
On 20 January, our "Accord de Si觥" will expire. This is the registration of "Friends of Mandritsara" as a charity with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Fianarana from our Tana office has been very busy with the paperwork for the renewal, and the application, reports and supporting documents are now all with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Our visas all depend on this - at present they expire on 20 January, so the renewal affects each one of the foreign missionaries here. This "Accord" also helps enormously with the customs procedures when we import equipment, medicines, vehicles etc for the project.
Our annual shipment of drugs from Holland is due to arrive in the port of Mahajanga next week. We placed our order in mid-June and were told it would be sent late August arriving at the end of September. So now it arrives right in the middle of the Christmas holidays when the port and customs workers will not be working normally. It is also the start of the rainy season with potential problems on the road. We appreciate your prayers that this might get through to us safely - we are already running out of a number of key items.

STATISTICS 2008

(approximate!):

Malagasy workers at the Good News Hospital, school etc: Permanent 108; Temporary 20.
Foreign Missionaries: Long term 7; Short term 5
Hospital admissions: 2,400
Out patient consultations: 24,000
General Surgical Operations: 1,000
Cataract operations: 360
Children in the Good News School: pre-primary 98; primary 142; secondary 40
Hours per week broadcast by the Good News radio station: 105
Student nurses in training: 11
Number attending Sunday school: 400 or more
Villages where cell groups or small churches have developed in the past 10 years: 35 or more
Total costs of the whole project in 2008: ?328,000
Funds raised locally from patients, school fees etc: ?76,000
Funds given by Friends of Mandritsara Trust: ?120,000
Funds from TEAR Fund UK: ?112,000
Funds from other sources: ?20,000 plus many gifts in kind, including a surgical autoclave from Belgium, a container full of surgical supplies from the USA, and ophthalmic supplies and equipment from Germany.

FINANCES

Though we know that we are safe in the Lord's hands, we are not immune from some of the pressures that have produced the current world financial crisis. During the past two years the value of pound sterling against the Malagasy currency has fallen by a third. That means that we now need ?3 to receive the same amount of Malagasy money as ?2 previously. This, added to inflation and the constant need to keep our services "affordable" by our local population of subsistence farmers, means that we find ourselves under considerable pressure. In addition to that, we have now been informed by TEAR Fund UK that they may be withdrawing from Madagascar. Our Community Health work has been almost entirely funded by them, but it is TEAR Fund's only project in Madagascar. We have 12 workers in the Community Health team, doing vaccination and health education in many villages, clean water projects, latrine building projects and much more. In 2008 we received ?72,000 support from TEAR Fund, plus an extra ?40,000 for relief after the devastating cyclone "Ivan" in February. TEAR Fund are still thinking about what to do in 2009 (they will tell us in the New Year), but it looks like we shall have a severely curtailed budget from them, and probably nothing in the future. Please pray that the Lord will give us faith and wisdom to know where we should cut back. Support for the whole project by friends and churches giving to Friends of Mandritsara Trust was around ?120,000 in 2008, which is amazing, but will still not be enough to keep the work at the present level in 2009. Our own personal support is well covered, so if the Lord leads you to give more, please indicate that it is for the project.

TRIP TO UK 2009

We are planning to visit the UK from 26 March to 28 May 2009. Jane is due for her annual "Systemic Lupus" check-up and David needs his second cataract operation. We have booked the annual "Mandritsara Prayer Day" for Saturday April 26th at Trinity Road Chapel, 205 Trinity Road, London SW17 7HW. This will start with a snack lunch at 12.30 followed by a meeting for prayer and information from 2.15pm to 5.15pm. We do hope to see many of you at that. Previous years have been a great encouragement to us.

FAMILY

We are most grateful for your prayers for us personally and for our family. Jane is much better now, but tires easily. We are finding the hot season (37degC in the shade, and humid, as we write) more difficult to cope with.

Rebecca, Chris and David in Cambridge are busy in all their responsibilities at Eden Baptist Church.

Ruth, Neil, Ginny, and Willow praise the Lord that Neil is so much better from his Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. They are about to move to the USA where Neil has a post with Zondervan, helping them to find ways to better distribute the Bible over there. Then in October he will start theological training at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando. They are urgently asking for prayer that they may get visas and work permits for the USA, and tenants for their house in Raynes Park

Rachel is working at St George's Hospital in Tooting and doing the Tropical Nursing course part time. She is seeking the Lord's way for her future.

Reuben and Hannah are in north London where Reuben is studying at Oak Hill College. In the summer they will be moving down to Hampshire where Reuben will be the assistant minister in a church. They have an interest in possible long-term ministry in Ireland.

We do wish you all a very Happy Christmas! May we have the same enthusiasm as the shepherds, to encourage others to come to Jesus - "Let US go and see!" Luke 2:15

Thank you for your continuing prayers and interest,

With our love,

David and Jane

PS This prayer letter is rather overdue and we apologise! In addition to this longer email, we are now sending a weekly update by email each Sunday evening. You can see old ones on the website: www.mandritsara.org.uk

If you would like to receive the weekly email directly, please let us know and we will add you to the list.

PPS Gifts for the project: please send them to:

Bryan Lumb, "The Potters House", 7 Hythe Road, Worthing, West Sussex, BN11 5DA Tel: 01903 602727

Please make out cheques to: "Friends of Mandritsara Trust" (F.O.M.T.) Gift Aid forms are available.

Gifts for the project should be sent to:

Mr Derek Alcock
Friends of Mandritsara Trust
244 Obelisk Rise
Northampton
NN2 8TW

email: derek@mandritsara.org.uk

Please make out cheques to "Friends of Mandritsara Trust" (F.O.M.T.) Gift Aid forms are available.

Previous Prayer News