Jesus vir my, Jesus vir ons, Jesus vir almal.
Nuusbriewe uit Madagaskar
Happiness is….
having running water in your house. After months of battling with water pressure, broken pipes and rusted plumming, Dries managed to get it all fixed amidst all the other pressing projects. My Christmas present is to have a hot shower. I can’t tell you how wonderful that feels! I am not the only one though, Dries who usually doesn’t complain, had to admit that the hot shower was just pure luxury.
Lees meer “Madagaskar: The week 11 December 2022”
School will close in two weeks time for the Christmas two week holiday. School exams start on Tuesday and two more Ranger meetings remain.
My lesson from the book of Ezra was about praying for government and our leaders. I asked my group of boys whether they think the president sits in his office and watches football all day. This was of course meant as a joke and to get them thinking about the responsibilities of those in government. Christian promptly replied, “Yes, … and he also increases the price of the rice everyday.” I think I know the discussions of the adults in that household.
Lees meer “Madagaskar: The week 4 December 2022”
I thought that this might be a good time to bring everyone up to date with where we are the school building project and how we spent the funds that we had received. We did well in some areas, but had to spend more in others, for example, the roof cost more in the end and was the most stressful assignment, but also the most satisfying as the rainy season is at hand. We never allocated any money for toilets when we did the original budget. Oops! Maybe we have lived too long in Madagascar where toilets are not exactly a priority.
Lees meer “Madagaskar: School building update”
| Nov 27 |
If anything, I learned one lesson this week; don’t let your bias of a culture cause you to become so suspicious that you don’t expect positive behaviour from people. Euphrasie and I were convinced on Thursday that the teachers at Ampamata school were sincere and totally innocent in this situation with the French man. Why he twisted the truth or embellished certain facts, I don’t know. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and put it down to ignorance. We are very thankful to him for the good quality stationery which he donated to the school and will save us a lot of money. I trust that there will be a way for us to work together, so I’ll keep you posted. Thank you for your prayers in this regard and all the encouraging messages.
Lees meer “Madagaskar : THE WEEK – 20/11/2022”
Bake-off shows have cake week, tart week etc, but I can describe last week as meltdown week. I suppose of the kind where something goes wrong in a nuclear reactor and the fuel overheats and melts everything. Let me start with the worst one.
Lees meer “Madagaskar : Meltdown week!”
| lynettemadanewsNov 20 |
The team worked until 7 o’ clock every night and the final corrugated sheet was laid down on Friday evening. I cannot describe the relief and above all the thankfulness we felt. No matter the unplastered walls and two classrooms with mud floors, it feels like a functioning school for the first time.
Lees meer “Madagaskar:November update”
After two weeks of non-stop work, I can finally show evidence of the new roof. Only two classrooms so far, which means that we shall need another week to finish and therfore we are a week over the designated time. There is nothing to do about that. At least, following popular culture, we can put the blame on the fact that the owner probably measured and levelled nothing at the time of construction.
Lees meer “Madagaskar: Lynette weeklikse nuusflits: Die WEEK – 6/11/2022”
I have no pictures of a shiny roof to show you yet as the work is progressing really slow due to the bad state of the current walls. We are so thankful that PM lent us one of his workers, Zachary, who with the help of two extra guys are doing a proper job and they seem to never get tired.
Lees meer “Madagaskar: The week 30 October 2022”
So tomorrow it will be off with the old roof and on with a new one! I am saying this with a lot of gusto and positivity, simply because the vision of the shiny new roof will get us through the next two weeks. There are a lot of challenges; the existing walls are not straight at all, not the same height, built with different kinds of bricks and the wooden beams are rotten. So that means, not a straight forward job then. Not that that seems to deter Dries as nothing is ever just simple and “normal” here. What should have been a weekend of rest, was not to be as the Land Rover’s clutch broke and Dries had to search for parts, because without the Land Rover, there will be no new roof.
Lees meer “Madagaskar: Nuusflits vanaf Lynette: Die WEEK – 23/10/2022”
The roof on our house has been replaced. That makes one out of three, the school’s roof next in line and then the toilets. Exactly one day after the finishing touches were made, we had strong wind and heavy rain that night. Some parts of the house were wet as the wind pushed the water through the front windows and door, but no leaks from the roof. I cannot describe the relief, as the rainy season is almost upon us.
Lees meer “Madagaskar: Lynette’s Weekly newsletter: the Week 9 October 2022”
‘Dust to dust…bite the dust….let the dust settle‘, I forgot that there were so many ‘dust’ metaphors and we are experiencing all of them at the moment. We are surrounded by the literal variety mostly. The one that settles everywhere. The red dust at school is blown into every nook and cranny of the building. Bookcases are covered in plastic for protection, but unfortunately we cannot walk around in plastic bags and at the end of every day we are left with the fine, red powder even between our teeth.
Lees meer “Madagaskar: Lynette’s Newsletter: Dust…”
“You will not believe what happened!”
That is a standing joke between Dries and me, after which I would reply, “Of course I’ll believe it.” After so many years in Madagascar, nothing surprises me. This time though, it was Euphrasie saying it and I thought that this one might surprise me. Apparently Ledesy, one of the teachers at Lovako school in Ampamata brought his brother to come and live there with him after the holiday. So it turns out that Ledesy often goes fishing and then his brother covers for him at school. Well, this is of course unacceptable and I have to address the matter when we see him next week.
Lees meer “Madagaskar: THE WEEK – 18/09/2022”
The question everybody asked was of course whether the school opened for the new school year. The answer is a definite ‘yes’, but not without issues and concerns though. The first hitch, being the fact that the toilets were unfinished and they had to make do with low walls and no doors. Many of our desks were damaged beyond repair by the move and after years of service, so not enough place to sit. There was no running water yet and we are dependant on the goodwill of the neighbours to draw water from their well until Jirama connects us to the municipal water. Keeping the goodwill seemed easier said than done as it turns out that as soon as even a bucket or a tool was left outside, it would disappear only to show up at the neighbours. We don’t have storage and at the end of the working day all the tools and material gets locked up in the classrooms and this goes for bricks too.
Lees meer “Madagaskar: THE WEEK – 11/09/2022”
I am writing this edition of the week from our balcony, the view of the ocean in front of me, the lemurs frolicking in the mango trees in the garden and the familiar and comforting sounds of the village below. Yes, I am home.
Lees meer “Madagaskar: Lynette Mada news The week 4 September 2022”
Almost time for me to go home…as in Madagascar home. One more flight to go. I am writing while I wait on Bole airport in Addis Ababa. Time is really going slowly now.
My week in Paris was just an amazing experience. I think my mouth did hang open for a moment like the rest of the people around me when I saw the Eiffel Tower for the first time. From up close, it just looks like a pile of rusted iron, but that is just between us. Alice’s first question was whether I went to the top. Sorry people, my sensitivity to heights made me break out in a sweat just looking all the way to the top. Versailles was another highlight; so much history…so much gold. In this case, all that glitttered, was really gold.
Lees meer “Madagaskar: THE WEEK – 25/09/2022”
The devotional times at the Bundescamp in the mornings, built up to that moment of asking us whether we were ready to accept the challenge of being sent and used by God. You might wonder why this was so significant to me as Dries and I have been in the mission field for years. It has never been straightforward nor easy, but we were never uncertain of the fact that we were called to Madagascar. The last two years were so challenging; the probable closure of the school on Nosy Be and the constant shortage of funds to keep going. The long time apart did add to our asking the Lord whether our time in Nosy Be is coming to an end. When the solution to keep going with the school came in the form of starting with less than we had the first time, I could not get my head around the fact that we will have to once again ‘start from scratch’.
Lees meer “Here am I Lord…..send me!”
Paris!
My arrival in Paris was bittersweet. I had to say goodbye to the Schock family in Schorndorf after two of the most memorable weeks of my life. It deserves its own blog post.
Lees meer “Madagaskar: The week 21 August 2022”
Be free, was the motto of the 2022 Ranger Bundescamp in Thüringen, Germany. The whole theme of the camp revolved around Marco Polo and his trip along the Silk Road to China in the year 1300. This trip lasted 24 years after which he had made his way back to Venice by sea. This historical event gives us a feeling of adventure and discovery.
I have so much to share about this incredible experience, but will stick to an introduction today.
Lees meer “Lynette from Madagaskar: Watch “Inside Bundescamp 2022 | Eröffnung””
Dries and the team have been working diligently to continue preparing the building ready for the new school year. What started off as nothing but a shack, is beginning to change. Dries was adament that this building will eventually be a suitable home for JoshGen school. As he always says, “I see the end result in my head.” I am thankful for that as I sometimes struggle to see past the existing obstacles.
Lees meer “Madagaskar: One step at a time….”
I arrived safely in Frankfurt on Tuesday morning. I managed to find the train station very quickly as well as the platform for my train. That was where the ‘plain sailing’ ended. The DB or Deutsche Bahn is usually exactly on time, but my chosen day of travel was also the day when there was maintenance work on that specific line and include the fact that I got off at a wrong station once, it took me just about five hours.
Lees meer “Madagaskar: Lynettemada News for the week 25 July 2022”