“Social Distancing” at the morning Gospel service
The national “State of Emergency” over Covid has now been lifted and life is returning to normal in many respects particularly in remote towns like Mandritsara.
The local fortnightly cattle market has restarted, and the government hospital has stopped doing Coronavirus testing.
Dr Nathan Lawrence, who has been heading up the Covid response at the Good News Hospital says he is still seeing 10-15 possible cases each week and 3 members of staff are off sick with likely Covid – but it is not possible to confirm any of them without the tests.
Helimission are now able to fly again and recently spent 5 days in Mandritsara (the first visit since January) taking the Community Health Team to some of the most remote villages in the area for Health Education, Vaccination and Gospel preaching.
Health assistant showing a gospel book to a burns patient
The Good News School opens this week after 6 months of closure. There will be a lot of lessons to catch up on. Pray about this, but most of all that the children will once more sense the Christian environment, the love and care of the teachers, and that they will rejoice to be hearing the Bible message again each day.
Internal travel has now opened up again but there are still no passenger flights in and out of the country. Please pray about this, especially for two families hoping to move to Mandritsara in the near future: Jesh (surgeon) and Julie Thiessen from Canada with their 3 children hope to go out long-term in December. Mark (teacher) and Lucy (paediatrician) Hinds from UK their 2 children are hoping to go for a year in January. They are all much needed in Mandritsara!
Time will tell whether the pandemic is really over in Madagascar. The team have been very conscious of God’s protection thus far. They are now of course in the hot, summer season – very different from the northern hemisphere.