By Rachel Wallace - Iris Mahajanga Base
We love stopping for the one in Mahajanga, Madagascar and demonstrating the love of Jesus to the precious ones in front of us. Some of the ones we stop for, we never see again, but we have incredible joy in our hearts knowing the love of Jesus that was shown to that one will be like a stone thrown into a huge pool of water continuing to speak and releasing ripples of life for the rest of their lives. Others we stop for, we see over and over again and we get to watch with joy as the love of Jesus transforms their lives in incredible ways.
When we first arrived in Mahajanga, Madagascar I noticed a little boy who walked oxen past our house every day with his father. He was incredibly poor and every day I would wave at him, say hello, and give him little cookies and my old plastic bottles for him to sell. His father invited us to meet the rest of his family, so with great joy, we went to meet them. Due to growing up in poverty, the father had never been able to go to school and although he was willing to work, he was not able to get a job that provided enough to feed him and his wife as well as their seven children. The children had been so hungry that they had eaten soil to take away the pain of hunger. We immediately put them on our community program where we started to give them rice and lentils every two weeks. They had a lot of illness when we first met them, but when they started to eat properly we watched the health of each of them improve.
On the first day they came to collect their rice and lentils and we told them the first Bible story they had ever heard and the entire family gave their lives to Jesus at that moment! We gave the father a proper job working for us, and I sometimes wonder if he is an angel as he has an incredible work ethic, is incredibly kind, honest ,and never harms anyone. He recently told me that this is the first time in years that hair has grown on his head as he is no longer malnourished. We have helped all his children go to school and they are thriving in their education.
We wonder what incredible doors God will open for them in the future as the ripples of the love of Jesus we have shown continue to bring life and deeper transformation. We are currently disciplining the mother and we are teaching her about prayer and intercession. We know she has an incredible calling on her life. and their story has only just begun. We are so excited to watch the unfolding of this incredible story of the love of Jesus transforming a whole family.
