Dear Friends,

Fahasoavana sy fiadanana aminareo amin’ny anaran’i Jesosy Kristy Tompontsika! Grace and peace be to you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ!

On the verge of a new school year we write to you again, bringing you a message of peace and joy from Fianarantsoa, Madagascar. We have had a summer of rejuvenating travel and study and are looking forward to the start of the new school year at the end of this month.

We are Cynthia Holder Rich, a PC(USA) clergy member of Chicago Presbytery, and Mark Rich, an Evangelical Lutheran Church in America pastor. Cynthia teaches Christian education, church administration and English at Amboniavaratra Theological College of the FJKM (the Church of Jesus Christ in Madagascar, the PC(USA)’s partner denomination in Madagascar). We both teach at the Lutheran Graduate Seminary of the Malagasy Lutheran Church. Both schools are situated here in Fianarantsoa, in the beautiful highlands of Madagascar, a large island off the southeast coast of the African continent. We came to Madagascar in February of 1998. Mark is appointed by ELCA; Cynthia has been jointly appointed by the PC(USA) and ELCA. We have three children: Joseph, 8, Paul, 6, and Ella, 3. They attend French government school here in town, and by now, our family is well-adjusted and happy in our island home.

We went to an engagement ceremony this month, at which we witnessed many of the charming engagement customs practiced by the Malagasy (the proper name of the people of Madagascar) of the highlands area, where we live. The groom’s family brought an elaborate flower arrangement for the bride. Then the bride had a job to do: she had to find her engagement ring in among the flowers, ribbons, and woven basket. While she was looking, members of the groom’s family commented loudly and often to her and to the assembled group of friends and family—"Oh, we forgot the ring at home!" and "If you can’t find it, you can’t get married!" and even "I guess Alain decided he didn’t want to get married, after all!" to the great laughter of the assembly. Meanwhile, the bride kept looking, with tension mounting—it’s really a bad omen if the bride can’t find her ring, and sometimes, those who hide it have done a very thorough job. But finally the ring was found to loud applause, and the groom slipped it on her finger, and they were officially engaged.

Life in Madagascar, and mission life for those of us here, is like this custom. Often, one has to look and look and look, and fear you will never find, the treasure, the gold, the goodness at the heart of this life. The only difference is that we’re usually not looking through beautiful flowers and ribbons to find the good stuff. Our treasure is too often sunk deep in a basket of poverty, ecological degradation, and a morass of international politics that includes anger at the Malagasy government, urgency about saving the island’s flora and fauna (but often not its people), and in many places, a bone-deep weariness of the problems of yet another African country in trouble (in truth, many Americans would be hard put to pinpoint Madagascar on the globe). These realities affect the everyday lives of most Malagasy people deeply.

A case in point is the story of one very sick little girl. One of our students arrived at our door recently with the news that another of the students’ children was very ill and had to go to the hospital right away. So off we ran for the car and went and picked up the girl, her mom and two other women. The child, 5 years old, was having seizures every five minutes, and was unconscious when she wasn’t seizing. We got to the hospital with everyone in a very tense state. When the child was finally seen, the doctors decided to admit her and gave her mom a prescription for two anti-seizure medications. It happens that we have had enough experience to know that these two used together cause respiratory arrest. But the doctors assured us that they wouldn’t be used at the same time, which did little to allay our anxiety; nevertheless, we carried the girl, who continued seizing every few minutes, over to the peds ward and went with the other two moms to find the pharmacy and get the required medications. By the time we got home, we were exhausted and filled with worry. Although many of the medical professionals in Madagascar try very hard, the fact is that medical care is very spotty and that many people die of conditions that are easily treated in more developed contexts. The sad reality is that the story of this child is repeated every day in Madagascar, and when this happens to people we know and care for, it can be difficult to remember the treasure that lies at the heart of our life here everyday.

But the joy, the treasure, is there—you just have to commit yourself to finding it. The joy is there in our work with our students, who deem as precious the opportunity to get an education. Treasure is found in the chance to be with people when they have a new insight about God, about human life, about service, about the church. Goodness is there in the relationships we have with our Malagasy colleagues, who all strive against great odds—and succeed in so many ways—in the task of theological education for the next generation of leaders for the two churches with which we serve.

If you would like to receive e-mail newsletters from us, please send a note to us at our e-mail address (below). Thanks!

In Christ’s Peace,

Cynthia Holder Rich and Mark Rich

The 2000 Mission yearbook for Prayer & Study, page 42