Julian Hardyman has been a pastor of Eden Baptist Church in Cambridge for the past 26 years. His wife, Debbie is a dentist. Julian has a connection to Madagascar through his grandparents who were London Missionary Society missionaries there a century ago. He and Debbie recently made a pastoral visit to see Joel and Joyce Chin and family (anaesthetist/GP). The Chins are members of Eden, working in Mandritsara this year. Whilst in Mandritsara, Julian and Debbie were invited to go on a village visit with the Community Health team.

‘You need to be ready early,’ he said, ‘Is 5.30 am at the Community Health Office ok?’. In the monochrome pre-dawn we were there. As he and the others put on their light weight body armour, Andry looked rather dubiously at my light shirt and trousers. The even lighter running top I had with me didn’t seem likely to make much difference if we went off the bikes at speed, though I was glad to have a helmet.

Off we set, Debbie behind Teodil; me behind Madison with Andry out ahead to lead the way. Neither of us had ever been on a motor bike before, even as a passenger. I found myself realising quite quickly that Madison knew exactly what he was doing and all I had to do was to relax, hold on and trust him. It then occurred to me that that was a pretty good picture of Christ’s call on my life so I mused on that as the road out of town took us south west over a long bridge across a wide river. The metalled surface lasted long enough to take us over one mountain pass before it gave way to red dirt track. The riders weaved skilfully between rocks, potholes and water channels past rice fields and villages. At one point it became an avenue of mango trees. Now we were climbing steep, rocky, uneven slopes which I would have struggled to run up. The drivers rode their bikes with consummate skill in both ascent and descent, though at one point the path was so steep, uneven and sandy that we came to a stop and slowly fell over sideways, me chortling with laughter. Lower down we had to wade through floods and a river whose bridge had been washed away.

After part 1 of the motor biking adventure of a lifetime we arrived at the village of Ankialenivalambana, some 40km from Mandritsara. We ate breakfast with the pharmacist and then the team went out to announce the programme of immunisations and talks. We noted the little vanilla plantation at the back of the house.

A good crowd had gathered. Andry had asked me to lead off with a gospel talk. I spoke about journeys, ours from Mandritsara, Tana and the UK; my grandparents’ to Madagascar by boat in 1917 (this always seems to go down well) and the Lord Jesus’ journey to us, using Jesus’ saying ‘I have come’.  I felt pretty much out of my depth but Andry seemed to translate expertly and no doubt improved it greatly.

The crowd stayed for Debbie. She asked about toothache – and lots admitted to it! She then spoke about decay prevention.

Then the immunisations began. Over the next two hours 60-70 babies under 6 months received their immunisations and a good number of pregnant women got precautionary tetanus jabs too. 

We had a good lunch of a cockerel which had still been strutting around when we arrived. After that we were on our way home, arriving back in Mandritsara as dusk fell. Andry pronounced himself very satisfied with the day and said he’d love to have us involved regularly. He commented that we were the first white people to give any kind of talk in that village. We pray that a church may be established there in time.

1. Praise God for the opportunities to bring the gospel to remote villages around Mandritsara through the Community Health work.

2. Pray for Andry, who leads the Community Health Team, that the Lord would continue to give him and his team inspiration, perseverance, faith and good contact with village leaders.

3. Pray for safety for the team, travelling long distances along rough tracks.

4. Pray that gospel churches may be established in Ankialenivalambana and other similar villages through the Community Health work.