Weekly prayer updates are available
here.
The last extended prayer letter follows:
Dear Friends
?The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.? Mark 10:45 NIV
Yesterday was a beautiful, still, sunny morning and a large crowd sat in the shade of the trees at the hospital entrance for the graduation of the 11 nurses who have just completed their 3-year training. Several times during those three years we have wondered how the nursing school could continue, but the Lord has wonderfully provided, and Dr Jeannine (who moved over from being our anaesthetist) and Estelle Ropp (from France) have done a great job. A number of the students seemed quite weak at various points, but in the end everyone has passed and all were radiant yesterday. After the service, and the awarding of the diplomas, several folk and invited guests had to give a ?kabary? (speech). David was given ?maximum 5 minutes? by Adrien for his! He had 3 brief questions for the new nurses, based on this verse from Mark.
Please pray for them as they come on to our staff ? it will be a big change, as we currently only have one qualified Malagasy nurse, Volololoniony our head nurse. Now we are looking forward to the next group of nursing students. This is the last week for applications to be received for the next intake ? entrance exams will be held on 1 September. Please pray for wisdom in choosing the right students.
The school year has just ended. 20 pupils in the top year of primary sat what, in our day in the UK, was called the 11 plus. For the fourth successive year we had a 100% pass rate. Not only so, but the top 3 marks out of the 1250 pupils who sat the exam in the local centre, were awarded to EBN pupils! The top mark was for Finaritra, the son of Sarindra (our mechanic) and Claudia (who teaches at EBN). Another successful pupil recently was Karin, the niece of Gisele and Adrien, who is in the Secondary section of EBN. She sat a French exam organised from France for children studying in Francophone countries. 5000 children throughout the world sat the exam, and Karin came 4th of those who sat from Madagascar, and 56th worldwide. Please continue to pray for not only academic success, but also spiritual progress among these many children in our care.
Later this year will see a big change for the school. The main building, used for the older primary classes and most of the secondary classes, is now too small. The owner of the house is also reluctant to extend the lease, so, we have begun work on converting our big old house in town, Maison Tsiranana, into the school. A building team from New Zealand, led by Dave Burrows, are due to be with us for the month of August to help in this.
Jane has just completed a CD with 94 Sunday school lessons in Malagasy for children under seven, 132 Old Testament lessons for children over seven up to adults, and 680 pictures (black and white line drawings to be coloured by the teachers) to illustrate all the lessons. We are so grateful to the Lord for the completion of this. Please pray for the use of these lessons in churches around the island. The next step for Jane is to revise and prepare the New Testament lessons.
Each of the five Saturdays in August there will be a children?s Bible club at Ambohitsara, a village a couple of miles north of here. Jane has been preparing the teaching material for the two age groups catered for - songs, illustrated Bible teaching and an illustrated and serialised story which brings to life the way of salvation.The biggest challenge has been to find teachers/leaders as so many of our regular Sunday school teachers will be away during August. This will be our first real contact with Ambohitsara so please pray for fruit. In the past the Lord has used the club to touch not only children, but also adults. One lady, for example, who is a keen member of the church, works in the Community Health team and is now herself a Sunday School teacher, was first contacted when she brought her children to the club that was being held in the next village to hers.
Behind Maison Tsiranana there are a number of small buildings. One was the garage, which, besides the space to park the car, also has several other smaller rooms. It has been decided to convert this into the radio studio ? with 4 rooms. This will be a big improvement on the present 1 roomed studio at the hospital. In addition it is on much higher ground, so that will help to reach more distant villages. We are hoping this work will be completed within the next month to allow the radio station to move over there (it is a mile from the hospital). One of those coming with the New Zealand team, Charles Dickey, is an expert on aerials and is actually bringing a new and more powerful aerial to erect there.
So far, Diamondra has been the only person working full-time in the radio station (though many others have contributed by making programmes). But with increased space it is now possible to increase the team. Two of our existing workers will be moving into the radio department. Stella has been the ?face of HVM? for the past few years. She is the hospital receptionist, the first face that most of the patients see. But she has also had quite a bit of training in radio programme production over a number of years ? attending various courses even before she came to work at HVM. She has already been making a weekly Bible programme for women, which also includes a cookery lesson and recipe! Rija, the brother of Dr Francis and Jimmy, has been working in the Community Health department, particularly doing the accounting of the funds received from Tear Fund. Now that Tear Fund are no longer going to help us, this role has gone, and we have decided his ability in computing and things electronic would best be used in the radio station. We praise the Lord for giving us these folk and ask you to pray that together with Diamondra they might become a real team.
The Linleys have been learning Malagasy in Tana, but are due to arrive in Mandritsara on 31 July. Please pray for them settling in here. Initially their main role will be to continue language learning with the help of Bako, our language teacher. Their new Land Rover, together with their personal items and a lot of stuff for the hospital, arrived in a container in Mahajanga port (375 miles from here) almost 3 weeks ago. Sarindra (our mechanic) and Olivier (our administrator) drove there last week to get it through customs and bring it back to Mandritsara. But, as often happens, there are new administrative procedures which they were not able to complete. So they will be going back again this week. Sarindra will actually drop Olivier there and go on to Tana first as he is taking our very old Land Rover ? the one that we brought out in 1993 ? for a complete overhaul. The idea is that this will be a vehicle for the use of our missionary personnel. There is a lot of work to do on it ? but as you know, Land Rovers go on..and on!
Nine ladies and seven men were baptised this morning in the church. What a joy to hear their testimonies. The majority have been converted from quite pagan backgrounds, including one lady in her 60?s or 70?s whose son, Farlin, a teacher in a nearby village, was converted a number of years ago when a patient at the hospital. She spoke of how her life had been spent worshipping worthless idols, but now she had come to know the true and only God through seeing what God had done in her son. Farlin had composed a song especially for the occasion (about the victory of Jesus over the devil) which he sang in the service! Another man spoke of first hearing the gospel when he was a patient at the hospital, and another is one of our night-watchmen who spoke of how amazed and thankful he is for all the Lord has done in his life since he came to trust Him. Previously he had a ?better? job (in the eyes of the world), lived a profligate life in the world, but found he was always miserable. How encouraging it is to see the Lord at work!
The agreement between the Association of Bible Baptist Churches of Madagascar (FFBBM) and Friends of Mandritsara Trust is due for renewal, and a meeting was planned in Tana in February to finalise and sign it. However, the insecurity and political unrest prevented that meeting. Yesterday we met with two of the FFBBM leaders here to discuss details ? and we hope to have a meeting in Tana later in the year to finalise it. We are so grateful to the Lord for this partnership in the gospel. Neither the FFBBM nor FOMT are very big affairs and it is humbling to see how the Lord allows the weak and feeble to be His servants.
Our three English doctors left last month. Ted and Rachel Watts will continue their specialist training in Nottingham, and John Whitaker is joining the British Army. Dr Hanitra (eye doctor) is away for a month ? she is at Ankavandra in mid-west Madagascar, on the border of the Maintirano district, with her team, to operate on folk there with cataracts. Dr Jeannine will be going on leave now that the nursing school is in recess, and Dr Adrien is leaving for Tana tomorrow for a number of reasons, including celebrations for his mother?s eightieth birthday! So Dr Solondraibe and David are alone for all the routine outpatient, inpatient and surgical work for the next couple of weeks, though Dr Francis is also here for the Community Health work. The hospital has been really full ? on Friday at mid-night we had to transfer some patients to the ?Bethel? relatives? accommodation to make room for patients that arrived in the evening.
Patients continue to come from far. With Dr Hanitra away, David has been seeing most of the eye cases. A boy of 8 arrived on Monday from 300km away with a tiny foreign body impacted in his cornea for a month. It only took a couple of minutes to remove it ? but such is Dr Hanitra?s reputation now that patients are coming very far for help. Lucien, a man of 25, arrived this week also from 300km away with a dislocated elbow since 6 weeks ago. He had already been to two other hospitals without getting help. David has operated on 3 such cases in the past, all women and all easier than this one ? but each time with some trepidation. The operation is written up in a large textbook we have ? but it is not very detailed, probably because the author (an American) is unlikely ever to have seen such a delayed case in real life in America! We are happy to report that Lucien?s elbow is now back in place, though regaining full use of his elbow will take many months.
Sometimes it is difficult for us to convey to you what is ?normal? here. On Tuesday evening David was driving the theatre team back home in the late evening, when we met a group of 6 or 7 people walking towards us. One was carrying a bundle of firewood and another a large pillow. ?Caesarean? said one of our team, straight away, and sure enough he was right. The lady had been in labour for 3 days with her eighth child. The village doctor then referred her to Mandritsara. She left home at 11am and walked to Mandritsara arriving about 8pm. The midwife at the government hospital immediately sent her on to us ? so here she was walking to HVM. We picked her up and headed back to the operating theatre. Sadly, although the baby still had a heartbeat it had already suffered brain damage and never breathed after delivery. On Friday we had to operate on a little boy of 4 with a cancer of the forearm ? amputationg his arm just above the elbow. It is hard to imagine the ordeal of this for him, and indeed for his parents who are with him. We are so grateful for your prayers as we seek to help folk like this for whom HVM is their ?last hope?. Pray that the love they experience and the gospel message they hear may draw them to the Saviour.
Thank you so much for your continuing prayers and support,
With our love,
David and Jane
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.