The following is a story about the most recent arrival of OBF
patients, written by Mike Broadhurst, the Hope Centre facilitator. I
have not met this man but he seems to have a huge heart for the local
people. I would imagine he organizes all the patients coming and going
to and from the Hope Centre, as well as many other responsibilities I
would never even think of. His story is inspiring and nearly brought me
to tears. These patients are some of the toughest and strongest women I
have ever seen. Hope you enjoy.
Dear Friends,
We work side-by-side and we share many of the same goals and
desires. From Keith to Sarah, Lizzy to Lindsay, Martha to Mirjam, Chris
to Ria, we are all inextricably tied together in God’s desires. I’m
sending you this tale of 15 women as a gentle encouragement of the great
work you are doing in the Name of Jesus Christ.
Jesus said, “…Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” Luke 6:20
Jesus said, “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you
did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did
for me.” Matthew 25:40
We had been waiting for the ladies from Maroantsetra since
Thursday afternoon. As the crow flies, it’s only about 160 kilometres
from Tamatave, but if you’ve taken a bus anywhere in Madagascar you can
attest to the fact that “as-the-crow-flies” really isn’t a great tool
for determining how long it takes to get from one town to another.
Suffice to say, these 15 ladies were supposed to leave Sunday
a week ago, but that departure was delayed until Tuesday. The trip to
the Hope Center should have taken two days. Instead, they arrived on
Saturday – four days after they’re odyssey began.
To get here they saw one of their buses slide into a river;
walk 10 hours under the deluge of several thunder showers; sleep on the
side of the road using their meager belongings for covering and bedding;
and conserve what food they had so it would last four days instead of
two.
Usually when our larger group of guests arrive here at the
Hope Center the transportation is in the form of either a bona fide bus
or at least a 10-passenger van. I wasn’t prepared for what I saw when I
looked over the balcony as the The Ladies from Maroantsetra arrived
yesterday.
Stuffed into a double-cab pick up truck were two-drivers, a
chaperon and 15 ladies plus all of their belongings. A make-shift
tattered canopy covered those sitting on the benches in the truck bed
where no less than 10 ladies sat crammed together. The rest of the
cadre were tightly compacted in the interior seating designed for five.
It made me think of the Ringling Brothers Circus clowns I had seen as a
kid – one after another piling out of a VW Bug, only I didn’t think of
this sight as amusing, but with incredulity.
Today I asked them about their trip. They had to take four
different “buses.” None of them were an improvement over the one in
which they arrived. “The first one didn’t have a canopy,” one lady told
me.
“Did it rain?” I asked the group.
The cumulative response was a resounding “Yes!” “Sometimes
it rained so hard all of our belongings got soaked,” another lady
offered. Suffice to say, they didn’t have hotel rooms. The ladies said
on one night the road was so rough the driver pulled over and waited
several hours before moving on. They used the delay to disembark and
sleep on the side of the road.
Their trip wasn’t supposed to include a boat ride, which I
had heard about several times as we got updates on the ladies
whereabouts. It occurred two days into the trip when they came to a
river near Famba (a place I couldn’t find on the map).
There is no bridge to cross at this 60-meter-wide gap, so
apparently locals have found a spot where the water is low enough that
brave souls can drive across the river bed. All of the ladies left the
truck and watched as the driver made his attempt. He failed.
The rains that had fallen the night before added an element
of the unknown. As the driver entered the waters the swollen currents
overtook the truck and it lost traction. It didn’t sink, but it did
slip and slide until it became stuck, teetering on some uneven rocks.
To the best of anyone’s knowledge there it still remains.
It’s then that the ladies got their boat ride…two at a time,
that is. It was on Thursday around noon that a local villager with
something described as a canoe helped these ladies across the river in
pairs. Once they got to the other side, they sat for two hours before
they commenced their march to a nearby village, some 10 hours down the
road. It’s during that walk that it started to pour, sometimes
torrentially as the ladies explained.
From there they caught another truck, which took them to
another depot, where they fianlly caught the vehicle that brought them
to the Hope Center. They were in the truck, the one you see in the
pictures, from sometime Thursday afternoon until late Saturday morning.
As they were finishing with their story I asked them if they
were ever scared. Again, in unison, they responded affirmatively.
“What scared you most?” I queried.
After commiserating for a few seconds one of the younger
ladies raised her hand and gave voice to their fear, “We were afraid
that we would miss our appointments.”
Their fear makes me muse about the comforts of home and how
something a little out of the ordinary has the power to disrupt my
temperament on any given day. On the other hand the Malagasy treat the
unexpected with such aplomb that I wonder if they know what a light they
are to me. I pray that each and every one of these ladies are
successful in their quest for the healing they so eagerly pursue. And I
say, “Thank you,” to each and everyone of you for being the hands and
feet of our Savior.
Blessings!
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