The Anglican Church Arrives in Ft. Dauphin by Rev. Patsy McGregor
God is causing revival to spark in Madagascar!!
In April, 2009, one evangelist and one deacon traveled 3 days by truck to Ft. Dauphin to scout out the possibilities of planting a church. A month later, they were followed by a team of 12 clergy and evangelists for an evangelistic mission. Much like the biblical accounts of Joshua and Caleb, they came back with the reports of a promised land. After an announcement on the radio, the first Sunday began with 17 adults and eight children and from that moment the church began to grow. The second Sunday gathered 25 adults and several more children. By the time the evangelistic mission team came back to Toliara two weeks later, 50 were gathering for worship and were promised a visit in August from Bishop Todd, Rev. Patsy and a visiting priest, The Rev. William Roberts and his wife, Ingrid, from St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church, Deerfield, IL.
Upon our arrival in August, over 100 people had gathered at the airport to meet us–carrying two large banners with the logo of the Anglican Communion and announcing the beginning of the Anglican Church in Ft. Dauphin. They brought us into the VIP lounge where we gave thanks to God for gathering us together, and from the airport we went to the local primary school classroom where they currently worship and with the large group, had a short time of greetings and prayer with the congregation. After lunch we looked at various pieces of land to build a church, finding a large piece overlooking the mountains. The combination of ocean and mountains causes the landscape in Ft. Dauphin to be quite beautiful.
The Sunday service was lovely. Almost 200 people were in attendance, approximately 25 of them being visitors. 53 of these people were baptized, small babies, young people and elderly men and women, all surrendering their lives to Christ. The mayor and his wife were in attendance and Patsy sang a beautiful song in Malagasy and English before Todd preached. Unannounced and unknown to us, Anglicans have been waiting for several years for a church to built in Ft. Dauphin. One man has literally been carrying around The Book of Common Prayer in his pocket for 15 years, waiting for the day he could worship with other Anglicans in Ft. Dauphin. He had tears in his eyes when he expressed his gratefulness for this new church plant. The Anglican Church continues to grow, prosper and be blessed by our Lord.