Missionary Voyage to Madagascar and Mauritius

As you may have seen in my handy sidebar calendar, our short-term missionary voyage will be March 1-18! We will be traveling to both Madagascar and Mauritius, which are pretty close neighbors. In both countries, we will be visiting former CEMistes who are now missionaries!

According to Wikipedia, Madagascar has a population of 22 million, more than 90 percent of whom live on less than $2 per day. They are a former French colony and thus most people speak French. The majority of the people adhere to christianity or traditional beliefs, or mix the two. We will be flying into the capital, Antananarivo.

For the first four days, we will be joining a 49-person medical mission team of doctors and other volunteers, mostly from the US. The organization we are traveling with is called "Partners in Progress." I don't know much about them besides their name, but if you want to know more you can check their website: http://www.partnersinprogress.org/ The medical mission trip will be near Mahajanga, a northwestern port city with a population of over 135,000.

From Mahajanga, we will be flying back to the capital of Madagascar to spend the weekend at an orphanage. This orphanage is supported by the French-speaking churches. The children at our church give money every Sunday, and we will be presenting the orphanage with the collected sum when we go there. We are planning a mini-retreat for the orphans, with songs, meditations, games, and (I hope) puppet shows.

After our weekend at the orphanage, we will be flying to Mauritius, where we will participate in an evangelism campaign and then a church-retreat. As far as culture prepping goes, we learned that Mauritius will be much more of a culture shock for us than Madagascar, because Madagascar has such a French influence. In Mauritius, we are likely to encounter idols around every corner.


A schema of our voyage. Thanks to http://www.alphavilla.net/index_files/map_indian-2.jpg for the map! A fine educational website.

Our voyage is in only two weeks, and we are just now realizing how much we have to prepare! Prayer team, here are some requests to present before our God: 2 of our CEMistes are still waiting to receive their passports (should be any day now). Help us to not forget anything essential and to not get sick so that we are well-energized and helpful. Help us to be culturally sensitive and to learn as much as possible.