Julian Hardyman, having served for 25+ years as pastor of a church in Cambridge, England, has joined the missionary team in Mandritsara together with his wife Debbie. They sensed God’s call to a Bible teaching and church leadership training ministry there. Debbie is a dentist and will be relaunching the Good News Hospital dental department. We asked Julian to write about his first impressions.
We arrived in Mandritsara in mid-May so are very new to the town and the project. We have been in full time language learning for about eight weeks now. Our first couple of months have been full of blessings. I feeling immensely privileged and honoured to be summoned here by the Lord’s call at this point in my life (I will be 60 next March).
To give a balanced picture, I’ve been asked to list nine things – three surprises, three disappointments and three challenges in these early days. In writing all this I am very mindful of something I read recently ‘An expert on Africa [for which read ‘Madagascar’ here] has been there two weeks or thirty years.’ So I have tried to rein back the temptation to play the role of the astute pundit and anything I write needs to be read with caution!
Three surprises
1. Language
I find that I am really enjoy language learning, especially the lessons. I knew that learning the language was important but I had wondered what it would feel like. After all, the last time I started to learn a spoken language (as opposed to dead languages of which I have done a few) was in 1973! But I am loving Bako’s lessons and even find myself thinking strange thoughts like ‘When Bako gets back from the holiday, we are going to learn the Passive Voice – how exciting!’
2. Liturgy
Well, Church services. It has been a delightful pleasant surprise to discover how much one can join in and even receive in a long church service in a language you don’t understand. Knowing basically what is going on in a gospel-shaped environment makes all the difference. And often the many bits I don’t understand much if any detail in, leave some spaces to step back and give thanks for the sheer miracle of the church (as any church is a living miracle), and the very evident work of the Spirit in people’s lives - and to pray for more. It all adds to further motivation to drive the language learning.
3. Laughter
There’s lots to laugh about. Inevitably we are surrounded by things we don’t understand and having to make all sorts of adjustments. Sometimes this just leaves us puzzled or frustrated. But again and again Debbie and I have found ourselves in fits of uncontrollable laughter, generally at each other. We have laughed more than we can ever remember.
Three disappointments
To be honest there haven’t been many of these yet. I suspect I am still in a bit of a honeymoon phase where things are experienced in a kind of warm glow of excitement. However:
1. Internet
The internet is good in the mornings but pretty poor from about 4pm. However, compared with life here in recent memory, we are very blessed to have any signal at all. Thank you Lord for WhatsApp and all the other channels of connection we have to a wider world and dear ones at home.
2. Weather
It is terribly dry. It’s actually quite cool a lot of the time in the Mandritsara winter – we had wrongly thought it would be hot (as opposed to very hot in Nov-Feb) and the temperatures are really rather congenial. But the lack of rain is a serious issue. The Hospital now has new wells on stream so that has eased things on the compound. But many of the folk we know have very limited running water supplies. When I go out for a walk in the morning or late afternoon, I always meet people carrying buckets filled with water home from dried up river beds, where holes have been dug. Long-termers here observe that the climate does seem to be getting drier – if this really is a long term trend it is an alarming prospect. In Southern Madagascar (in what was always a drier region), it has been catastrophic.
3. Time
Time just seems to seep away. There is always so much more I want to do than the day has space for. We rise much earlier than in the UK but things take longer than at home. Night falls early and evening activities are limited (eg no runs after 6pm at the latest). I often get to mid-evening feeling tired out and wondering what exactly I have done all day. I have to commit this to the Lord’s compassion and wisdom.
Three challenges
1. Churches
Churches can be as affected by leadership issues as they are in the UK. People struggle as much against the flesh. To work through leadership failure in a godly and biblical way is a fraught and difficult business. All this is familiar from the British church scene. It is not necessarily any worse here but it is sobering to encounter such things in their own particular local forms – and to lament (as in the UK) the negative impact on the integrity of the church and the ongoing work of its mission. Personally it has left me without the close ministerial colleague and local mentor I had originally anticipated.
2. Language
Learning another language takes a lot of time. And it requires a lot more than the stimulus of new grammar in a congenial classroom type setting. It means getting out there, listening and then crucially being ready to make mistakes and be corrected. It means pushing myself through all sorts of comfort zones. It is the major task for me for the whole of my first year here if I am to get anywhere near the role I think the Lord wants me to have: to be able to get to know Tsimihety folk, especially church leaders, listen to them, hear about their lives and then share Christ meaningfully with them.
3. Prayer
The need for sustained, imploring, believing, zealous prayer is even greater than I realised. I am convinced that the spiritual opposition to the gospel is on a grand scale and extends to all sorts of parts of life, including the difficulties in church leadership which I mentioned above. Our weapons in this war are, simply, lives of servant-love, the gospel message and lots of prayer. I sense the Lord driving me deeper into a concern for his glory, for the integrity of the church, for purity of life in leaders (not excluding myself) and Biblically-grounded lives. I have this first year set aside for language learning but I wonder if time spent praying in love, need and hope will be at least as important.
Please pray for Julian and Debbie as they learn Malagasy and Tsimihety, and use French as well. Pray that they may not just be able to cope with daily living, but to share gospel truth at a deep and personal level.
Please pray for Julian as he relates to the leaders of the Bible Baptist churches and village cell groups, that he may be a real encouragement and spiritual help.
Please pray for Debbie as she sets up the dental department of the hospital and seeks someone she can train as dental nurse to work with her. Pray that this might open opportunities for gospel witness.