by Doug Robertson, Chairman of FOMT
Jesus told his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go!” (Luke 10v2). The Lord Jesus was concerned for the people he saw each day. Many of them harassed and helpless and anxious. All of them in need.
The Friends of Mandritsara Trust is a UK charity, managed by a group of trustees and has the two aims of …..
1) Proclaiming the Gospel of God’s Salvation in Jesus Christ and
2) Promoting the relief of suffering through the provision of modern medical services
The start of the Mandritsara project
The project in Mandritsara began with an agreement between the missionary society Africa Evangelical Fellowship (AEF) and the Malagasy group of churches The Association of Bible Baptist Churches of Madagascar (FFBBM). The agreement was signed in December 1988 and envisaged the creation of a small general hospital with the ultimate aim of preaching the gospel and planting churches in the north of Madagascar, churches that would become part of the FFBBM.
The first missionaries arrived in Mandritsara in 1993 and the construction of the hospital began later that year. Gospel preaching began straight away together with the little Bible Baptist Church which had recently been planted, and evangelism was soon extended to surrounding villages.
An out-patient clinic was opened in 1995, and the hospital itself in 1996. At first, AEF handled all the sending and support of missionaries as well as funding for the hospital. Then AEF was absorbed into SIM (Serving in Mission) and it was felt a new model of support for the Mandritsara project was needed. This led to the creation of FOMT to support the project and become the link between the missionaries and the FFBBM. The support of individual missionaries is now through SIM and other missionary societies.
Since then, the Mandritsara Project has developed into a modern hospital and surgical training centre (The Good News Hospital), a school (Ecole Bonne Nouvelle), a radio station (The Voice of the Good News), and an extensive district Community Health Care Programme. All with the aim of proclaiming the Good News of salvation in Jesus Christ, and forming gospel churches.
A little personal history
In the mid 1980’s my wife Margo and I spent some years in the desert of Turkana in northern Kenya. I was replacing the AIM mission leaders Dr Dick and Joan Anderson. It was there that I first became involved in medical mission.
In January 2016, Margo and I arrived in Madagascar for the first time, on our way to the Good News Hospital. Our arrival in Mandritsara, courtesy of Helimission, introduced us to what life must have felt like for Noah. It rained almost continuously, day and night from January until April! The whole region was flooded. Roads became impassable and many houses were evacuated. We spent six months working every weekday and frequent weekends, both day and night.
During this six-month period, three long-serving missionary families left the Mandritsara Project for various reasons. But we also had the privilege of meeting our new surgeon Ted Watts, who has become the leader of the missionary team. One evening Ted came to the house we were living in to discuss the future of the Good News Hospital. He and Rachel his wife, with their two boys, would now be the only foreign doctors at the hospital. During our discussion we agreed that unless we were a recognised teaching hospital it would be difficult to attract Malagasy doctors to come and work in the Good News Hospital. But how could it be possible to become a recognised teaching hospital?
Some months after our return to the UK, I was invited to become a trustee of the Friends of Mandritsara Trust. I had been on many committees in my life, but this was the first time I had been invited to become a “Trustee.” I realised that this was a role with significant responsibilities and accountability, but after some time I agreed, and became a trustee in 2017.
When I became a trustee we were six – John Whitaker, David Mann, Alison Brownell, Vic Parsonson, Tamsin Booth and me. Very soon afterwards we were joined by Richard Bulmer who became our treasurer. Over the next few years we were joined by Nathan Lawrence and more recently by Catherine Grierson. When John moved to Canada in September 2023 to pursue his higher surgical training, I was asked to become the Chair of the Trust. My fellow trustees have been generous in their support and very gracious and patient with my poor IT skills!
Friends of Mandritsara Trust
So what are the roles and purpose of the Friends of Mandritsara Trust? We are not a sending mission but rather a Support Trust. We aim to provide financial security for the Project and to seek and supply reliable staff – doctors, surgeons, nurses, teachers, and others as required.
We meet each month on the third Monday evening, online. Ted Watts and Hilde Vlaminckx, our local Team Leader and Deputy Leader, join us from Madagascar for the first hour. Occasionally we are joined by prospective volunteers or a committee member of the Madagascar Baptist Church Association (FBBM). We are keen to maintain and develop our contact with the local Malagasy Baptist Church leadership.
We also organise the annual AGM and Prayer Day in London in April, and we have two other meetings to pray with supporters – the Sending Churches meeting which is now global and the “Northern Prayer Day” somewhere in the centre of England. These meetings are either online or a hybrid of in-person and online.
A charitable trust in the UK is subject to various bits of legislation and guidance from the Government and Charity Commission. We are obliged to develop policies and procedures for all sorts of topics such as Safeguarding, Website, Volunteers, Risk and many others. Our secretary Vic ensures that these topics are shared equally among us all.
Our monthly meetings follow a regular pattern….
a) Opening Bible Reading and prayer (chair)
b) Introduce and greet any visitor followed with discussion. (All trustees)
c) News from Mandritsara (Ted or Hilde)
d) Secretary’s review – policies and procedures, membership, etc (Vic)
e) Treasurer’s report (Richard)
f) Safeguarding review (Alison)
g) Preparation for next members meeting or prayer day (Tamsin)
h) Trustee concerns or suggestions (All)
i) Prayer
FOMT Trustees Meeting
We are conscious that we are engaged in the Lord’s work. We rely on the Lord for wisdom and guidance and provision. But we also understand that we have an obligation both to the Lord and to donors and members to be rigorous in our analysis of our work and decision making. Are we doing the best we can with the resources we have?
Should we be pressing on with some new venture while another is not yet completed? Is there a danger that we squeeze out our focus on evangelistic activity as the demands of new developments or projects increases? We are accountable to the Lord Jesus, as trustees of work that He began years ago. We are also accountable to our donors and members who also seek to honour the Lord Jesus with their gifts and support. Occasional feedback is very welcome, especially at our AGM each April, where all members have the opportunity to discuss and raise any issue that may be of concern to them.
Committees tend to focus on immediate concerns. Often the pressure of events or the need to respond to certain issues pushes all other needs aside. Yet, throughout the Scriptures we are exhorted first of all to pray. So we seek to give prayer more time, both at the end of the meeting, and often interspersed with our deliberations.
My second concern for us as a Trust is to ensure that we provide as supportive a role as we can to the missionary team. Pastoral work by committee may seem to be an oxymoron but I disagree. There can be fewer really encouraging experiences in our conflict with sin and the principalities and powers of the present age than to hear fellow travellers and workers cry to the Lord for help. With this in mind we have increasingly spent time during our monthly meetings in prayer for the missionaries and Malagasy staff.
As the trustees of the Friends of Mandritsara Trust we know that all our work counts for very little unless the Lord is our guide and we work under his direction (Psalm 127v1). This is our aim as we meet each month. The Lord Jesus is not only the Lord of the Harvest, but the architect and chief builder of the Church, the House of God.
Your prayerful support is greatly valued.