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Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Madagascar Arrival

Is that land I see?

We've always enjoyed the sailing part.  The bit where you can sit on the bow, watch the dolphins, special worship times, enjoy God's creation.  Somehow this has somewhat changed, or should I say for Nathanael and Sharon it changed.  Naturally, Tim is a sailor so for him being out on the water in any type of weather is fine.  On the last sail Nathanael and Sharon's minds soon forgot the "nice" bits and focused on the "rolling" bits and started to sound like little kids "are we nearly there" as our ship took another 30 degree roll.  Our trip from Cape Town to Madagascar wasn't the smoothest of sails.  The safest place for Nathanael and Sharon was staying put on their beds.  Many a nights we sat up listening to the different thuds and crashes in our cabin, taking regular cabin inspections to see what needed to be re-tighten or put back together in the wee small hours of the morning.

So after a week, we were ready for land and now we are here.  The land God has for us to minister to, Madagascar.  We have now un-packed our cabin that has been packed up since we left Congo in June!  We can smell the African air that is so familiar to us.  We can be a part of God's healing plan for others - how exciting!

We arrived in the morning with a tug boat putting on a fine welcome display for us.
click below to see a time lapse of our arrival.



As soon as we were tied up, the ship went into unpack mode to get the ship ready to receive the President and the Prime Minister of Madagascar 3 hours later.  Our arrival brought much media attention as our day of arrival coincided with the launch of Madagacar's "Year of the Volunteer" where the whole ceremony was broadcast live on TV.
Presidents Arrival
Managing Director, Roland Decorvet and Family
President Speech
Prime Minsters Speech
Dance Group Entertain the Crowds
The ceremony continued on into town where many volunteer organisations gathered at the town hall. It was kind of overwhelming to take in everything that was happening in a new country, where the faces and ways were very different to where we had been before.  However, we look forward to getting to know the Malagasy people and learning about their lives.

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