Hello there! After much too much travel and more stops than we expected, we finally made it to Toliara, Madagascar on Saturday morning. Eli, our mission worker here, greeted us at the airport with open arms. This is an interesting work; Eli is a native who was taught the Gospel by former Dalraida members Jim and Vicki Murphy, and he immediately expressed a desire to teach his people. You can tell that he is well known and respected in the community as the local preacher as several people greet him when we walk down the street. Our goal for this week is to encourage, teach, and help Eli as we can. We were able to witness several baptisms yesterday, all who were young people that Eli has been teaching for some time now. It was a good start to the week!
From Perry Baker
Sunday was the first service in the newly built church building in Toliara. The congregation built it by themselves. Gif, Avery and I spoke throughout the day. After worship, the ladies were cooking lunch outside over fires these young people who were baptized yesterday sang to us as well as some of the older ladies. Worship/lunch/Worship started @10am to 2:45. We walked about 1 1/2 miles back to the hotel. At the end of the day, we had supper with Eli and the other local ministers at 6pm to discuss the work. Tomorrow we will be going house to house with Eli to encourage members of the church who have not been attending.
From Avery Hackney
After some setbacks with the airline company in the capital we have finally made it to Toliara! Since arriving yesterday we have constantly been surrounded by the brethren from the local congregation. Immediately upon arrival we were able to be present for the baptism of six precious souls! After having a brief study here at our hotel with some of the brethren, we went to visit the congregation in their newly finished building. They are so proud of their new meeting place! While this building may lack some of the western comforts we tend to take for granted it was filled with smiling faces eager to worship the Lord. Today we were able to attend the first official service in this new building and there was not an empty seat! Everyone was so kind and so happy to be studying the Word of God. We are all looking forward to the rest of our time here in Madagascar!
