Lessons from Africa Evangelical Fellowship's outreach to the Tsimihety people of Madagascar.
Welsh missionaries of the London Missionary Society (LMS) first brought the gospel to Madagascar in 1818. Despite disease and persecution there was a glorious beginning. By the 1830s the Bible was translated into Malagasy and churches were planted. In the 1960s the churches founded by the LMS fused with other groups to form the Church of Jesus Christ of Madagascar (FJKM). Sadly, today many of these churches are formal in practice and liberal in theology.
Africa Evangelical Fellowship (AEF), having worked in southern Africa for more than a century, has long had a burden for Madagascar. A visit in 1986 by AEF's Dr. Bob Foster found enormous spiritual and social need, and a striking openness to the gospel. In particular he noted the need for church-planting in the remoter areas and among the Muslim peoples in the North West province.
Dr. Foster met leaders of the Association of Bible Baptist Churches (FFBBM), a group of 60 churches which grew from a work begun in 1932 by an independent Welsh missionary, Brynlee Evans. They discussed the possibility of a medical outreach targeting Muslims in the north.
New clinic
In 1988 AEF and FFBBM drew up an 'Agreement to set up a Clinic'. The aim was 'The evangelisation of the people in the area and the planting of churches.'
The FFBBM appointed an experienced doctor, Dr. Adrien Ralaimiarison, an elder in one of their churches, to work alongside AEF's team leader. Dr. Adrien had recently organised the Association's evangelistic outreach at the Indian Ocean Islands Games.
Dr. Adrien visited the Director of health for the province, who urged us to go to Mandritsara - the most remote, yet most heavily populated district in the province, with hopelessly inadequate government medical facilities.
If this advice was to be followed then the original vision of reaching Muslims would have to be modified. Mandritsara has a small population of Indian traders, but the main Muslim coastal peoples live 200km away.
Mandritsara is the centre of the 900,000 Tsimihety people, Madagascar's fourth largest ethnic group. They are largely peasant farmers growing rice and keeping cattle. Their lives are controlled by ancestor worship, the fear of evil spirits and endless taboos. Though not previously considered 'unreached', this group had no evangelical churches or missionaries working among them.
The LMS worked for a while among the Tsimihety. Graeme Smith* worked at Mandritsara from 1960-1964 and wrote in 1992: 'You will find more and more what a pagan area Tsimihety is. The area, so needy, never had a chance, due mostly to the chronic shortage of personnel, and perhaps also to the fact that the LMS in London never really grasped the magnitude of the task ... It was a hopeless task ... The general and pervading paganism seemed not to be dented at all by the gospel message' (extract of personal letter).
The few Protestant (FJKM) churches there now are not known for preaching new birth. There are several small Pentecostal churches, including 'Jesus Only' (Branhamism) and 'Rhema' (Prosperity Gospel), and also Seventh Day Adventists and Roman Catholics, but most villages have no church at all.
AEF and FFBBM took this as guidance from the Lord. At the same time an FFBBM church member from Antananarivo had been appointed to Mandritsara as government Land Surveyor. Not only did he start a small meeting in his home which formed the nucleus of a church, but he was also the ideal man for making initial contacts with government officials, enabling FFBBM to find and purchase a suitable site for the hospital.
Early in 1991 an AEF planning team visited Madagascar to assess the situation before the first AEF workers moved there. The team recommended 'that AEF proceed with the project at Mandritsara' and re-emphasised that 'the evangelisation of the unreached and establishment of local churches will be the overall goal of the project. Every phase and part of the programme should contribute to this goal.'
Amazing providence
In 1990 AEF's work in Gabon had closed, releasing a doctor, nurse and an engineer, already fluent in French, for reallocation to Madagascar at just the right time - an amazing providence. The team of six began to arrive in Madagascar in late 1992.
A building project in a remote area of Madagascar was quite daunting to a team with no local knowledge. Another singular providence, however, was the discovery of an American architect working for a non-governmental charitable agency (MSAADA) with experience of similar projects in Madagascar, willing to design and supervise the construction.
We approached various Christian and government developmental agencies for financial help. They all refused ('too hospital-based', 'too evangelical', etc.). So a 'Buy-a-Brick for Mandritsara' leaflet was produced and distributed with AEF publicity.
The first person to reply was the mother of a 14 year-old boy. Her son had been given some money with which he was going to buy something for himself. But just then the leaflet arrived and he decided to give the money for the project! We learned that if we cannot persuade governments and large organisations to help us, God can use children to fulfil his purposes! We have gone ahead conscious of the need to pray and trust God, believing that he will supply in his time - and he has continued to do so.
Sending a team has been an important factor in the development of the work and all team members have worked hard at maintaining a team spirit. Missionaries have also been encouraged to develop their own spiritual ministry in addition to the medical work.
The importance of language learning has been stressed. All staff except one (who has a hearing disability) were already fluent in French and have spent nine months in full-time Malagasy study on arrival in Madagascar, followed by ongoing study of the Tsimihety dialect.
The period of Malagasy study in the capital has also permitted the missionaries to get to know several of the Bible Baptist churches, which has made for good relationships with the Bible Baptist Association and its leadership.
Adequate training of Malagasy staff has also been important. Dr. Adrien spent some months in England improving his English, followed by a year at Nyankunde hospital in Zaire, gaining surgical experience as well as helping in a primary Health Care training scheme.
Lessons to be learned
1. The importance of vision, faith, prayer and perseverance. Looking back serves to remind us that this is God's work. Jesus said, 'I will build my church.' No plans, strategies, techniques or even hard work can take the place of looking to God in faith.
2. The need for a defined strategy. AEF has always had goals and objectives and these have been re-emphasised in the recent past. We need to apply general principles carefully to a given situation. Time taken doing this is not wasted.
3. Flexibility of implementation. Without merely reacting to circumstances it is important to be flexible and sensitive to God's leading as Paul was to the Macedonian call. Had we stuck hard to the initial objective of a Muslim emphasis, we would have missed the need and opportunity among the Tsimihety. Also a willingness to listen to advice from the government health authorities has been very helpful in promoting good relations.
4. A team approach. Many missionaries are individualists! But in a new ministry there is much value in a team approach - for support, for wisdom, for decision-making. Care must be taken in selecting staff for a team ministry, taking into account compatibility and a team commitment.
5. National colleagues. Since our goal should be to start ministries which are self-supporting and self-sustaining, it is important that the national church 'own' the project. There needs to be active involvement by the national church in both decision-making and the running of the project. This is not achieved so much by committees as by individuals. There is no doubt that the 'owning' of the Mandritsara project by the FFBBM has much to do with the presence, from the beginning, of senior staff commended by their churches to the project.
6. Language learning. A pattern for this should be set at the start. If this is sacrificed in the interest of getting the work going, it may be very difficult to recover at a later stage. Later missionaries tend to copy what the earlier ones did!
7. Individual ministries. The frequent cry of those involved in medical projects is the lack of time for direct spiritual ministry. Constant encouragement should be given to missionary and national workers to cultivate spiritual ministries according to gifts and training. This is another area where a pattern set at the beginning is much easier to maintain than seeking to implement it later.
Postscript
It is 18 months since medical work was started. We have now moved into our new hospital buildings. Evangelism in the hospital is bringing new folk to the church and providing contacts in surrounding villages. The church has grown from 12 to 50 baptised members in three years and called a pastor. Small groups meet in six villages to read the Bible and receive monthly visits from teams from the Mandritsara church.
God has led and provided. AEF's prayer is that souls may be saved and churches established throughout the Tsimihety area. And to God will be all the praise!
* Graeme Smith, author of Triumph in death: the story of the Malagasy Martyrs (Evangelical Press 1987).
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