The Boulter-Hodson Clan in Toliara

5TH JANUARY 2021

When I last wrote it was July, my father (Hugh Boulter) had just died, and we were trying to get back to the UK for the funeral.

After a frustrating month of trying to arrange the permissions to travel, it became clear that the road was no longer safe. So we contacted ‘Mission Aviation Fellowship’ (MAF) who very speedily arranged permissions for us to fly to the capital. They picked us up in a small light aircraft and were calm, competent, and simply sorted everything out, I can’t praise them highly enough.

We then went on a repatriation flight with Air France to Paris and then on to the UK to quarantine with my mother near Reading.

We held Dad’s funeral a few days after the quarantine lifted. It was a beautiful occasion held out doors in the church yard of St Mark’s Englefield where Beth and I were married. It was a beautiful if poignant day and an amazing number of people lined the street to the Church (all socially distanced), or sent their condolences. It has been strange not having Dad to talk to about so many things, and I miss him dreadfully.

Having made it back for the funeral we then faced the problem of how to get back to Madagascar. Madagascar closed its borders in March and all commercial passenger flights stopped. Now in January the island has still not reopened and flights have not resumed, and so we cannot get back for the time being. Once the relief of making it back to see Mum and getting to Dad’s funeral had passed, we realised we needed to put our emergency backup plan into action.

Before leaving for Madagascar we had left our belongings in a friend’s barn in France with the understanding that if we had to evacuate for any reason we could use their gite while we sorted ourselves out. In mid September we traveled to France and took up residence in the middle of the countryside.

The younger children are in the local primary school, and our oldest we are teaching from home. Beth’s work has carried on at a pace with her working remotely from France. It is not where we intended to be, and we all miss Madagascar, but we are safe and well, so we are counting our blessings.

Meanwhile I have been doing what I can for the Bible College in Toliara from France. That has meant regular email correspondence about a range of issues from discipline cases through to hiring a new college secretary and sorting out a refurbishment of the buildings and equipment. All of that has only been possible owing to my colleagues in Toliara: the Rev. Victor, Bishops Todd and Sami, and our new secretary Cynthia. We talked about what it might be useful for me to do to support the college intellectually while I am away before I left, and we realised that the internet connection is just not fast enough for me to teach via zoom.

Instead we agreed that I would teach remotely using the old fashion method of writing up my lectures to be sent to the college to be translated into Malagasy. The hope is they will start to form a learning resource and course book for the students. That work has been going on at a pace and so far I have sent three six-lecture long courses for translation with another three in the pipe line for the next couple of months.

Fundraising has also been ongoing, and we were given a grant for equipment from Franciscan Aid, and then have also raised an amazing £10,000 for the education fund which is going through the Anglican agency ‘Christians Aware’, who have been incredibly helpful and encouraging. That money has meant we have been able to have the class rooms repaired, and painted, to have new tables and chairs to replace the sparse and broken ones that were there, and to have bookshelves made so that the books the college do have are available for the students and do not get eaten by termites and other insects. These generous donations have also meant we can feed the students a good diet, and renovate their sleeping area and washing facilities, both of which were dirty, broken and basic. That means that we have students who are ready to learn rather than hungry, dirty and tired.

The college has been teaching in my absence with an altered time-table so that I can pick up my teaching load as soon as we can make it back. Realistically it is hard to say when that will be. We live in such an unpredictable world right now, but the college is now on the Summer break until March. Meanwhile we will keep doing what we can from here. Like many people in the West we are having to learn what the people of Toliara know very well: how to live with uncertainty. My hope is that this realisation that we cannot control everything in the world will teach us all to trust God and care for all of his creation, especially the marginalised and forgotten people and places.

Blessings,
Adam, Beth, Joseph, Hannah and Benjamin.

PS: Do check my web gallery of my paintings at: www.adamboulter.co.uk

PPS: The Education Fund for Toliara diocese is still open if you would like to donate.

A very insightful talk from Rev Adam Boulter, Dean and Principal of St Patrick’s Bible College, Diocese of Toliara

https://www.facebook.com/oneboatchaplaincy/videos/2624389211106027

The Boulter-Hodson Clan in Toliara

14TH DECEMBER 2019

Toliara is getting very hot and humid, we have had our first cyclone through of the season which mercifully hit the north coast just dumping a lot of rain here, so the whole town is awash or calf deep in mud.  Meanwhile the surreal sight of fake snow-clad Christmas trees can be seen in various roadside shacks while we all sweat in the sun.

It has been a very eventful few months since our last newsletter.  In October I started teaching, and have a great group of ten young people training for the priesthood or to be evangelists.  They have a wealth of experience in the bush churches, and lots of enthusiasm, but very little education.  So it’s a matter of assuming nothing and starting from basics, all of which is great fun and their faith is deeply inspiring.  The classroom is dark and hot, so we normally abandon it and teach out under the shade of one of the thorn trees, with the obligatory white board propped up on stones.  There are a number of local clergy who are helping with teaching, and I have a very good translator, who does a great job of getting me to explain theology in plain English.

The diocese is very new here and quite precarious, lacking a solid indigenous leadership base and money.  The churches are in the poorest communities and so getting new leaders trained up takes time as the educational level is so low.  I am hoping to set up an educational fund for the diocese to help with those needs, so do be in touch if you would like to contribute to that.  Also the diocese is encouraging the parishes to twin with parishes in Europe, the UK and the USA so do let me know if your parish might be interested.  More than money or resources the people I meet are scared they have been forgotten by the rest of the world.  So, most importantly, do pray for this remote corner of a country where the rest of the world only remembers its environmental riches and forgets that many people live here in abject poverty.

Daily life is an adventure, we have got a charcoal stove as it is much cheaper than the gas bottles, and does not heat up the house (it also gives everything that slightly camp fire taste).

The streets of Toliara are an experience in themselves with bustling stalls selling the most random things, including tables of used nuts and bolts and other engineering parts all laid out in size order.

Hannah had her eighth birthday and it is a mark of how fast the expat community has welcomed us that she had quite a band of friends around for tea.  The children’s school is turning out to be very good, although how they play sport in this heat is beyond me.  Meanwhile I’ve started painting and posting up on my web site. www.adamboulter.co.uk

Sadly Beth’s mother, Hatta, took ill in October, had a stroke and then died within two weeks, all of which was a massive shock.  So we arranged to head back to the UK for a few weeks for the funeral and memorial service, which turned out to be quite an undertaking.  All the internal flights were full, and so we landed up having to drive to the capital which is 24 hours of driving then fly via Ethiopia to London.  In the end, we set off a few days early and stopped on route so as to not tire the children and to take the chance to see a bit more of the this beautiful country.  Even so, it was an exhausting trip, and we landed with our very generous hosts in London with a palpable sense of relief.

Hatta’s memorial service was a wonderful event, if very emotional for us all, with so many good friends and family around.  The next day we flew back to Madagascar, and spent a few days in the Tana the capital, sorting out visas and hunting down books for the students, before flying back to the heat and humidity of Toliara.  All in all it is wonderful to be back, but also full of surprises.

In this humid heat there is just not the energy for worrying on top of daily life, and Malagasies take a very laid back attitude to tomorrow.  While I often find that attitude frustrating I’m starting to think I need to learn some of it from them.  One of the truths of our lives here is that things are not what we expected.  The problems we worried about and tried to solve before getting here have generally turned out not to be issues, and the things that are issues I often failed to predict (although they seem so obvious now).  Which leads me to think, why do I get so afraid of all these things that have not happened?  Plan and prepare, yes, but I seem to spend a lot of energy worrying.  When I am right it does not prepare me, and when I’m wrong it misleads me. So maybe we need to hear the voice of the angel to Mary:  ‘Do not be afraid”.

Blessings,

Adam, Beth, Joseph, Hannah and Benjamin.