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October 2000
Dear Friends,
Greetings! We are now in the United States for interpretation
assignment. Robert (4.5 years) loves climbing trees and enjoys
Georgia’s pre-kindergarten program. Frances (21 months) loves
swinging at the park and especially reading. She is beginning
to speak three- and four-word sentences.
We are enjoying sharing with congregations about our ministries
with the environment and health programs of FJKM, the PC(USA)’s
partner church in Madagascar. FJKM reaches out to over 700 rural
communities through the work of the health, environment, and other
development department programs.
In April and May, Elizabeth participated in the evaluation of
the community health program. The program, begun in 1998, devoted
the first two years to training more than 30 supervising doctors
in community health approaches and training over 150 community
health volunteers to work in 80 communities. These volunteers
worked with their communities to identify priority health problems
and take appropriate action. Most of the villages identified diarrhea
as their biggest health problem and the lack of safe drinking
water as the major cause.
Elizabeth and other members of the evaluation team met with all
of the doctors to see how well the community health volunteers
were working to promote health with their communities and supervising
doctor. They found that in many places all concerned were very
enthusiastic about the program and that lives are being changed.
A few highlights:
- At Bealanana in northern Madagascar, where drinking water
is predominantly from unsafe sources, a community built two
wells, contributing 3/4 of the costs in labor and materials.
- At Ambohimangakely, the community built an outhouse at the
local primary school without any help from outside.
- At Ikiray, the community built a basketball court to help
reduce teenage delinquency.
In March and April, Dan helped organize two week-long training
sessions on environmental education. These sessions, attended
by about 40 regional FJKM development workers, helped them learn
about environmental education in Madagascar. Many of the field
personnel are incorporating environmental education activities
into their work with almost 100 community groups. FJKM is now
helping students grow fruit trees, native trees, and fast-growing
trees at about 40 primary and secondary schools.
In May, Dan co-led a week-long conference on environmental theology
along with Dr. Dean Freudenberger, a Methodist environmental theologian.
Through worship, slide presentations, discussions, and a tree-planting
event, about 30 theological students explored what the Bible has
to say about God’s creation, what people can do to protect
it, and the implications for Christian stewardship. They also
looked at different aspects of the worldwide environmental crisis
and at deforestation in Madagascar. A particular focus was the
role the church and pastors can play in helping people live more
in harmony with the environment.
We regret that we will not be able to visit all of our supporting
churches but look forward to communicating with you. As part of
our interpretation efforts, the PC(USA) communications department
in Louisville, Kentucky, helped us make a short video about our
work and PC(USA)’s partnership with FJKM. We are sending
this video to our supporting churches. If your church has not
received the video by November 15, and you would like to see it,
please contact us. Our profile and recent newsletters are available
on the Internet at
http://www.pcusa.org/missionconnections/profiles/turkd.htm
In January 2001 we will return to Madagascar to begin a second
three-year term. We are both excited and challenged by what lies
ahead. In addition to our roles as advisors, we look forward to
getting more involved with the education of pastoral candidates
at the Ivato seminary in the capital city Antananarivo.
If you would like to share in FJKM’s health and environment
ministries, contributions can be sent to the PC(USA) using ECO
047979 for health work and ECO 047980 for environment work. Please
mark the ECO # on all contributions. We would appreciate receiving
a letter when you make contributions to facilitate thanking you
and planning for programs.
Please pray:
- that FJKM’s development workers would continue to
be faithful witnesses for Christ in the midst of difficult circumstances
- for wisdom for FJKM’s development department as it finalizes
project designs and prepares funding requests
- that the Lord will provide the resources needed to finance
the development work of the church
- for our safety as we travel to churches here in the United
States.
In Christ,
Elizabeth , Dan, Robert, and Frances Turk
The 2000 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 42
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