Apologetics: Doing Our Homework

Throughout the first and second trimesters, we have been working through an introduction to Apologetics (subtitled: Defend and Establish the Christian Faith!) We started out by going through a review of modern Western Philosophy in what facets these thought patterns subvertly oppose the Christian faith. Of course, no course on Apologetics would be complete without discussing Subjectivism, Objectivism, and if truth really exists (thus validating the existence of our class as well!) We reviewed some of the arguments for the existence of God: causality, the order of the universe, the historical argument, and Pascal's wager*.
After our introduction, we started a brief study of comparitive religion, where we compared Christianity to Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and the newest major world faiths, Modernism, Post-Modernism, and Neo-Paganism. In these sessions we covered the very basics of each religion and related the religious system to our faith.

In France, we encounter Modernism, Post-Modernism, and Neo-Paganism. On our trip to Mauritius, we had the chance to learn more about Hinduism. Every time a CEM group comes to Mauritius, they visit a Hindu temple to learn more about the religion of 70% of the people in the country.


We walked around the temple with bare feet, which we found rather painful after the stones had been cooking all morning in the hot sun. I may be betraying my sinfulness in admitting my pain. Our guide says that during the ceremony where the faithful make a pilgramage to the temple and then walk across hot coals, being burned reveals that you are a sinner!
There were many mini-temples or shrines located outside of the main temple, housing "guardians" and demi-gods that you could pay respect to in order to get protection.
The temple was more terrifying to us than beautiful, with so many painted eyes leering down at us. We were glad for the experience but happy to go at the end of our tour.



On the first stage of our plane ride home (Mauritius to Antananarivo, Madagascar), I sat next to a Muslim woman from a nearby island. We started out by talking about the economic development of Madagascar vs. Mauritius vs. Comoros and the different attitudes and awareness within the countries of their problems.
I explained the purpose of my missionary voyage and what we'd accomplished on our trip. My new friend said that she admires how Christians are always serving: building orphanages, working as doctors, etc. From their, we launched a discussion of our faiths and I got to explain some of the fundamentals of Christianity. We discussed our different views of who Jesus was and the character of God.

On our next flight, the 12 hour leg from Madagascar to Paris, all the CEMistes were together, so I was disappointed that I would be having a more predictable conversation. We were all surprised to find ourselves seated in business class. We had been pampered more than expected at every stage of the trip, and now we were really spoiled! Can't complain.

What else did we do in Mauritius?

We spent alot of time at the beach!
Hmm, that does not sound like a very good missions-trip, you say.
If you happen to be called as a missionary to a country where everyone you should be evangelising happens to be hanging out on the beach, you should go hang out on the beach with them, too!**

We got to help a missionary couple finish building a house for their family of 6 to live. We performed our choral routine at the SOS Children's Village***, at the new Cascavelle Community Center, and at the home of a visitor to the church.
The 2 church families that we visited in Mauritius meet in homes.
We ate two delicious meals with our hands and 2 meals of Lo Mein during our stay, illustrating the mixture of cultures found in Mauritius.
We spent the last weekend of our missionary voyage on a retreat with the two church families.


Our group photo from the retreat in Mauritius, with the churches of Richeterre and Cascavelle.

Notes:

*In short, what do you have to lose if you believe in God and are wrong? (nothing) What do you have to lose by not believing in God and being wrong? (eternity)

**If this opportunity for serving the Lord sounds too good to be true, maybe you should try "Big Break." http://big-break.com/

***SOS Villages offer an alternative to the orphanage or the children's home. Find out more about the organization here: http://www.sos-childrensvillages.org/Pages/default.aspx

Madagascar 4

Dear Readers,
Thank you for your patience! I returned from my missionary voyage to Madagascar and Mauritius about a week ago, and slowly have been assembling my notes from the trip. Here is Part 1, Madagascar, and I'll have a brief report on Mauritius by next week!

The first good question is, what was I doing in Madagascar? It's never really been on my list of places to see; I haven't even seen the movies! (bad joke) This voyage to Madagascar was part of the very very practical stage of CEM; observing a humanitarian mission and evangelism in a completely different cultural, economic and hemispheric context. Our "living classroom" was a 4-day medical campaign and a visit to an orphanage in Madagascar, and then a week with 3 missionary couples in Mauritius.

We arrived early Saturday morning in Madagascar.
As we had nothing to do until Sunday, we visited a nearby orphanage. 27 children live there. We sang “Dieu Fidele” and “Si ya Hamba” and “Papa Abraham” with them, and then we had them sing for us. They sang a couple of songs for us in English and Malagasy and French. Afterwards, we played soccer and other group games, and I had my hair braided.

The orphanage that was visited on Saturday.

The first stage of our trip in Madagascar was the medical campaign, which began Sunday, at the Antananarivo airport, where we met up with the rest of our group. Besides our 11 from CEM, there is a group from Geneva and the group from the US. Our "medical team" is about 50 people! 10 doctors, 1 dentist, many nurses, and about 20 non-medicals who ended up on the evangelism team.


The entire Partners in Progress medical campaign team.

The goal of the medical clinic is multi-faceted. The obvious goal is to help sick people and to teach some preventative medicine. I think our clinic saw about 200 patients per day. We can temporarily relieve the suffering of as many people as possible, but this certainly isn't a sustainable fix.


A (posed) view inside the pharmacy.
The second goal is evangelism: everyone that comes by the clinic gets a packet of information inviting them to 2 "Conferences" held in town, a sign-up form for a Bible correspondence course. Many people were interested in the correspondence courses: I hope the postal service here is reliable, or a lot of people will be disappointed. At each of the conferences, our CEM chorus opened with a 20 minute concert and then the local ministers gave a message.
The third goal was to help out with PR for "Madagascar World Voice" which is constructing a monstrous radio transmitter on the island. The project has been under construction for over 7 years and they are now waiting for a go-ahead from the government to switch on. Our work will hopefully get them the attention of the government and the permit they need to go forward with the project.

Because the clinics were overstaffed (better overstaffed than not), the CEMistes and the group from Geneva were almost all on the "Evangelism team". I was put in charge of puppet shows and entertaining the children who came by the clinic (not that they couldn't perfectly well entertain themselves.) Whenever we had a significant crowd and a Malagasy-French translator, we performed a skit of the Good Samaritan or performed a David and Goliath puppet show.



A scene from our David and Goliath puppet show. Note the size differential between David and Goliath.

I got to use my talent for drawing in our very-mini education campaign. I drew pictures with useful messages like "wash your hands" and "brush your teeth" and had the kids trace new copies and color them in. The most important message (and one of the more awkward drawings I've done in my life) depicted how to spread the parasite schistosomiasis-by peeing in bodies of standing water.


We also spent alot of time playing games with the children who came by our clinic. They taught us many games and patiently tried to teach us a few songs.

In the 1 hour flight back to Antananarivo, I took a lot of pictures out of the dirty window. We can see that Madagascar is a very hilly country, but abrubtly-not smooth and rolling. The rivers are red brown, I assume because of the soil. The roads are few and far between, and very curvy.

An aerial view approaching Antananarivo.

We spent the weekend at the Betikara orphanage, where there are currently 36 children residing. We ate our meals with them, washed our clothes together, and slept in the dormitories. We tried to integrate ourselves into life at the orphanage and make lots of new friends, despite the language barrier.


This weekend, the water pump was out of service so we had to fetch our own water from the lake at the foot of the property. I learned to wash my clothes in lake water, which was one of my goals in life.
The orphanage building also houses a school and a church. On Sunday morning at 9 AM, the whole church went down to the lake to observe a baptism.
For more information about the Betikara orphanage, visit this website:
http://www.madagascar-mission.org/orphanage.htm
Mini commercial: if you are interested in helping out the orphanage, they need funds! One of the orphans, Andry, is running out of the money he needs to pay for his weekly dialysis treatment.


On Sunday, we all went for a hike through the rice paddies.
Andry, on the left, is the orphan in need of dialysis treatment.


Our hike through the rice paddy.

In the Antananarivo airport, waiting for our flight to Mauritius, there were 2 missionaries from Korea who are pastors at a church in California. They were on their way to South Africa after 10 days of evangelising in Madagascar. They had a guitar and were singing praises, which attracted our group. They learned that we were Christians, and asked us “do you love Jesus?” That was so refreshing to hear such a simple confession of faith. They wanted to know that we shared their passion. They sang praise songs with us until their plane started boarding.
Stay posted for the report on our time in Mauritius. Let me know if you have any questions or want to see more pictures.

My Trip to Madagascar and Mauritius, in Firsts

We *just* got back from our missionary voyage to Madagascar and Mauritius, so I have a lot of stories to catch you up on! To start off, here's a quick trip summary in terms of some of my "Firsts" there.

The first time that I:

visited an orphanage
washed my clothes in a lake
performed an outdoor puppet show
started a very small-scale preventative medicine campaign
hiked around a rice paddy
fell in a rice paddy
helped in a pharmacy
signed someone up for a Bible correspondence course
had a dance party in a car
had a dance party at a missionary's house
visited a Hindu temple
swam in the Indian ocean
taught a children's Bible Class in French
flew business class
shared the gospel on a plane
slept in a hammock



our hike through the rice paddy


Our visit to the Hindu temple.