Gospel progress and baptisms in villages around Mandritsara
by Julian Hardyman
‘All authority is given to me in heaven and earth, therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit....’ Matthew 28:16
Mission reports are often full of reports of conversions. If they aren’t, then their authors and readers wish they were. I offer here a report on a number of baptisms.
Berton, the leader of the Evangelism Department in the Hospital has been teaching me that it is better to celebrate baptisms than initial professions of faith. There are too many initial professions that are like the second and third kinds of soil in the Parable of the Sower (Mark 4: 1-20). There is an initial enthusiasm for the gospel message which is not sustained, either because there are no roots to speak of, or an apparently sincere profession of faith is choked out by the opportunities or cares of life.
Berton argues for not rushing to baptise new Malagasy believers. Time is taken to assess the credibility of the profession through initial discipleship. That implies that if someone is being baptised, there is a higher chance that the seed has fallen on the good soil.
Which make this report, I guess, all the more encouraging.
A Helimission trip in early April took me to a couple of villages NW of Mandritsara. I leapt at the chance to stay on for the weekend for the first monthly weekend conference of 2025 for Baptist churches in the area.
The informal leader of this sector is Pastor Mahefa of Antsomika 1. He remembers the gospel coming to his village back in 1998 through David Mann and Dr Adrien and others. All these years on, the church has grown. It was his church which hosted the weekend conference, attended by folk from six or seven other churches. Maybe 200 people in all.
Churches in this sector have faced some severe challenges over the last couple of years and I was wondering what the mood would be. But the conference was full of joy and spiritual seriousness, with a hunger for God’s word. On the Sunday came the highlight: the baptisms! We marched down the hill, pausing for songs and dancing, and along the track to the river.
Pastor Mahefa baptising
People elbowed themselves forward, climbed trees and jumped to the other bank to get a good view. Seventeen people were baptised, of all ages, all gladly testifying to their belief in the Christ who died for them and was raised again.
We marched joyfully back to the village for a splendid lunch of goat meat from Pastor Mahefa’s flock (he looks after goats as well as people!) before Berton and I set off on Berton’s motorbike for a happy but muddy journey home.
Happy from seeing seventeen baptisms one weekend, I found myself, not long afterwards, at the first weekend church conference of the year for Baptist Churches around and in Mandritsara, at a village called Antsahameloka, a couple of hours walk north of here.
Pastor Leonce baptising
Again, a group of churches that have faced severe challenges in the last three years. Another very happy time. The Saturday teaching centred on the thief on the cross and the Roman centurion. Having learned and practised the story, groups went round the village sharing this story in dozens of households.
On the Sunday, we celebrated the resurrection of Christ and then set off for the river, as usual stopping every now and then for a song and a dance. Seven folk were baptised by Pastor Leonce from Ambodilengo, who had been instrumental in planting the church in Antsahameloka, not so many years ago.
River baptism
A month passed before the next Helimission week which took a team of us north-east from Mandritsara, right to the edge of the rain forest to a village called Antsahandampy. It is high and damp and cold there but the work is flourishing. Being mountainous and wet, the slippery walk down to the river carried some dangers but I made it in one piece and was delighted to witness Pastor Mahefa, one of our visiting team, baptising another eight folk, literally right on the edge of the forest
One of the new believers with Pastor Mahefa
Then last week, my phone pinged and I saw that it was a call from a friend called Alfredo. He is the Community Health officer in a village called Antsomanga, a day’s walk north of Mandritsara. His father is the main leader of the Baptist church in the village and is very active in church planting in the surrounding area.
They had had their first inter-church conference of the year the previous week. It had included eight baptisms, six of them being three married couples, and all from his village. The population cannot be much more than three hundred in all.
One of them was a young man who had joined in with a game of boules with church folk and some of the team on a Helimission visit in early March. He had started coming to church again and was, in Alfredo’s words ‘Not lazy’ which being turned around means ‘full of spiritual zeal.’
Playing boules in Antsomanga
Just a couple of caveats! I should add that churches tend to ‘store up’ baptisms for special occasions like the first weekend conference of the year, especially with its proximity to Easter (a traditional baptism time). And, as always in the work of the Lord, converts and congregations should be weighed as much as they are counted!
But even with these and other cautions, I find it tremendously exciting to report these events and to give the Lord the glory and honour. It is thrilling to be able to tell you that despite extraordinary difficulties in recent years, His work continues in the villages, work with eternal consequences and lasting joy for those who find Christ and follow him.
And how we need your prayers!
For those baptised recently that they may press on in discipleship and holy living
For the many village churches and their leaders
For the monthly inter-church conferences during the dry season (until December).
For outreach and support, to restart existing churches that may have shrunk or dwindled or suffered splits.
For the annual, Big Meeting in late July for all the Bible Baptist churches of the region, to be held this year in Mandritsara.
Julian Hardyman