Salama!
I’m beginning to see that it’s hard to put words into the experiences I have on the worldrace. Most of the time the race seems like a blur, and it’s hard to really believe that you are in the places that you currently are. Sometimes it feels like a dream, but I’m starting to get used to being on the race. I’m currently in Madagascar. It’s an island off of Africa. This is my third country, in three months ( 4 with our debrief in South Africa).
Each month we go into the country not knowing much about what we will be doing or where we will be staying. When we arrived in Madagascar we stayed at a hostel our first night. The hostel was surrounded by a rice field and a city. It was beautiful, but it was quite different than the previous two months I experienced on the race. The past two months I was in the bush of Swaziland and Mozambique. We had to walk or drive to the village/cities that surrounded us. The business of Madgagascar was a lot to take in the first few days we were here.
The host has a home that my entire squad gets to stay at this month. I was surprised to find that our teams had their own rooms with a bathroom, beds, and even our own shower and toilet! Toilets and showers are luxuries on the race. The showers even have warm water! Typically each month there are 2 showers for an entire group to share. Where we are staying there is also a large dinning hall where we eat everyday. We have cooks that cook for us. For the past two months on the field we have cooked our own food. It was fun cooking, but this month having cooks to cook for us is a huge blessing. One that I didn’t expect. The blessing of having our own cooks is that they cook us traditional Malagasy foods so that we can experience the culture in which we are living. They even make us french fries (that are commonly called chips around the world).
This month for ministry, we are partnered with a church in Antananarivo, Madagascar. The church is called Rhefi. This week we went to visit members of the congregation at their homes. During this time, we would sing songs, share a word that God laid on our heart, hear their prayer requests, and pray with them.
It has been hard to hear some of their stories. One family we went to had four children. Two of the children were around my age. One was 21 and the other 22. They explained that their father had left them 8 years ago. They asked if we could pray for their father. They wanted us to pray that their father would repent and come home for them. They were abandoned by their father, yet they spent time in prayer for him.
We visited another home where we prayed over a women who had been paralyzed in her legs from heart conditions. Another lady had been bitten by a dog and the skin around her bite was dying. It was a deep wound that was hard for me to look at without cringing. She hadn’t gone to the hospital for her wound. One home we went to a mother explained that she had an argument with her husband and that he had left. When we are at the homes, we ask the families what they need prayer for, and spend time praying with them.
March 18th and 19th we have been doing ministry with the youth at our church. The first day we shared about our experiences on the race and how the Lord called each of us. The second day we did a class about praise and worship. We shared about how worship is a lifestyle; not just music we hear at church on Sunday. We also taught them songs and bible verses in English. We even taught them the game Simon says and danced to a popular Malagasy dance that we learned at the Pastors home. I even got to share my testimony at one of their main services. Teaching the youth has been a lot of fun and also very stretching for me.
In my free time this month, I have enjoyed spending time at a local pastry shop trying their yummy pastries. On my off days I got to see one of the Queen’s Palaces and to the zoo! At the zoo I got to hold a lemur. I’m so thankful that the Lord gave me that opportunity. I even got to have chicken nuggets at a local fast food place!
The Lord has been teaching me this month the power of prayer and listening to the Holy Spirit when you don’t feel as if you have words to say. Ministry left me exhausted a few times this month, but the Lord called me to continue doing ministry even when I didn’t feel like I could continue doing ministry.
