After Twenty Years’ Wait
Patience and perseverance: WGLO partners, Joana and Yvonne, prepare to commence the “Laying the First Stone” ceremony.
A couple weeks ago, we celebrated grandson Brock’s 21st birthday and were amazed at how quickly the years had flown. But, for our WGLO-Madagascar partner Jaona, the past 20 years may have seemed agonizingly long. For 20 years, Jaona and wife, Yvonne, have dreamed of and prayed over establishing a toby in the remote settlement of Andranotaratra. With heavy hearts, they’d witnessed so many tormented, hurting people left on their own. This place, this toby, could be a welcoming shelter, a real place of healing.
Liturgy of “Laying the First Stone”
Construction site foreman, Mr. Laza, smiles proudly among a group of workers and students.
Staffed by a pastor-coordinator and lay “shepherds,” tobys embrace the mentally ill and troubled, the outcasts and addicted. Hurting ones with little money and nowhere else to go become part of a loving community, where they receive both standard medical treatment and tender Christian care.
Madagascar, with a population of 27 million, has only 265 psychiatric beds. In unique fashion, tobys fill this yawning gap in the Malagasy health care system, providing help and healing to the otherwise overlooked. Small wonder that there are more people seeking shelter at the Lutheran tobys than there are beds to hold them.
And small wonder Jaona and Yvonne outshined the sun this past October 12. After a 20- year wait, things had come together, and a small throng was on hand for the “Laying of the First Stone” for Toby Andranotaratra. Finally, the government lifted certain pandemic restrictions, permitting travel to this place and small groups to gather. White gown-clad shepherds from Tana, local folks, students from the nearby school, and the work crew led by smiling Mr.Laza were on hand. At last, the construction of a men’s dormitory and a women’s dormitory was underway.
After 20 years, plans (prepared by French architects and Malagasy engineers) are being materialized; prayers of thanks are floating upward; and lovely dreams are coming true. Thanks, dear WGLO friends, for helping make this good thing happen.