On a recent trip to the town of Mandritsara, I had the opportunity to travel with a local evangelist to a rural Tsimihety village. When we arrived, I noticed the water pump right away. Its mechanism and steel stood out in contrast to the mud and thatch huts of the village. The pump had been installed by a foreign NGO several years before and it was no longer working. At the time of its genesis, it seemed like a great idea… and free! But now its steel frame lay rusting away in the center of the village, an example of a foreign idea that never quite took hold.
The foreign NGO offered to put the pump in at no cost and when the project was completed they left the country, having done their good work. But when the pump broke no one was trained to fix it and there were no funds for replacement parts. A rusting pump in the middle of a rural village is a sight not all that uncommon in Madagascar. As the church service began, I was amazed at the makeup of the congregation. Normally, a rural Madagascar church service is mainly filled with women and children. But this service had about 15 people on the old wooden benches, mostly men and no children.
The evangelist began his sermon by reading a passage of Scripture, which was in the highland (official) dialect. When the reading was finished, he turned his head, looked out the window and began to tell stories related to the reading and in the local Tsimihety dialect. The stories made sense to these people, rural rice farmers who spend long days in the fields. Stories in the dialect stick. People enjoy hearing them. They don’t rust or fade away.
Foreign models of development and ministry look good for a time but often fail to take root in deep and lasting ways. We are hoping to continue partnering with ministries that focus on developing people and offer sustainable development that transforms and renews the whole person. This would involve training that takes root at the heart level and makes sense to the local people.
Please pray that we will have many such opportunities to be involved with churches and church leaders who have a desire to see holistic transformation and heart change in this nation and not just quick fix solutions.
*AIM Madgascar has a project for Transformational Development. To give to this project through AIM, use fund SR-MAD-122-U Transformational Development
