As Covid swept the world, the poorest people in the world living on the East and South of Madagascar were hit with severe drought. Anglican Aid mounted a food support project that had a surprising result. The Anglican Diocese of Toliara, which serves the poorest regions of the island, grew in leaps and bounds.
“2021 was a big, big year for us,” Berthier Lainirina, Principal of St Patrick’s Theological College in Toliara, told an Anglican Aid “field notes” meeting at St. James, Croydon, in Inner West Sydney. “Well,it was a year of drought. Truly, many people died, and it’s unfortunate that people die. Cows, goats and sheep died as well. But the good thing out of this is that we, as the Anglican Church, because of the help you gave us, could distribute food to people, and that was also a way of showing love to them, saying that because God loves us, we also love you, so we’ll do our best so that we don’t die. And out of that love, out of that sharing we have done, many people came to know Jesus. I remember I was baptising over 2000 people within three days. I was tired.”
Tim Swan, Anglican Aid CEO, asked Lainirina: “So how did they come to know Jesus through receiving food?”
Berthier Lainirina: “It was actually the church that distributed the food. So there’s a tradition, Madagascar, before giving some things, you have to speak, and we explain the evangelists who distributed the food explained that this food arrived because of love, and where does this love come? It’s the love of God. And it was an opportunity for us to talk about God’s love. And surprisingly, I don’t know why, but when I was there distributing food, there hadn’t been rain for years, but when we were there distributing food, then rain came down, and it’s like, yeah, it was a big surprise. And we said, ‘That’s got two years.’ And it was great. Many people believed in the Lord. People heard the message and received the faith. Yes, yes. The message of the gospel. And then there were new churches that were started.”
Twenty new churches started, but there were not twenty pastors to serve them. But the college, where Berthier Lainirina had become principal in 2021, also grew rapidly, from 12 students to the 50 that Anglican Aid agreed to support – but the dormitories Anglican Aid built for fifty appear to house more. It’s apparent that both the need for pastors and young men and women seeking to study at St Patricks makes it hard for Lainirina to say “no.”
And he would be saying no from a distance. Swan prompts Lainirina to tell the story of how, as a young student, he came across a book by Moore College Principal Mark Thompson in the Roman Catholic seminary library. When he came to Sydney for further study, he wondered whether Thompson was still alive. “And now I am living in his house,” Lainirina said. He is researching a PhD at Moore in his third language, English.
“We thank God that we could have students from all over Madagascar who studied at St. Patricks, and they all go back to the respective diocese and the minister there. But we are still left behind the growth of the church. And so the people that graduate every year are not enough compared to the need because the church continues to grow.”
Asked to describe a typical student, Lainirina described the effects of their poverty. “So many of them come from rural areas, which means that the level of education is a bit low compared to those who study in the city and also, which means they can’t afford to pay anything, and that’s why the college has to provide everything for them, housing, food and so on. Another challenge is related to theology. Many of them have been influenced by the prosperity gospel.
“It might be difficult for you to understand it, but in the context of poverty, the gospel that works there is the gospel that says that God can make you rich. And if you want to become rich, come to Christ. If you want to solve your problem, come to Christ. If you are sick, it’s difficult to afford to go to the hospital. And many people there die of sickness. Like two years ago, when I was here, my father-in-law died of a kidney problem. I mean, most of the [Madagascan] people die of sickness. Last Sunday I was here at St. James and I was amazed seeing an old man of 99 years. Then I told him, I’ve never seen someone like you at your age. In Madagascar, it isn’t easy to find people reaching 80 years because life expectancy is 55 to 60. So in that context, the prosperity gospel, it’s easy to [think] ‘Okay, so with Christ, I’m not going to be sick.’ So they came with that theological background, and that’s where St. Patricks is now important. “
St Patrick’s uses the Moore College PTC (Preliminary Theological Certificate) material translated into French and Malagasy. They are grateful forte material, ut they need to add to it. “Speaker 3 (19:47):
I teach doctrine at the college, and I use the PTC Doctrine One and Doctrine Two to teach the students to give them a good and better theology. Of course, we have challenges. It’s not only a matter of copying the PTC; the PTC is a good material for us. Then we had some practical issues. Our challenge is to make theology relevant to the context, the context of poverty.”
His time in Sydney has presented stark comparisons to Berthier Lainirina. “Each time I go to Moore College, I have always noticed that students eat like kings and queens. There is a lot of food. I’ve seen people here buy coffee for $6, and tea for $6, and yet 80% of Madagascan people live on one or two or three dollars a day. And people here can buy coffee for six bucks. So please, I’m not saying don’t buy coffee anymore, but send those monies to us.”
This is a story of how a group of wealthy people by world standards – Sydney Anglicans – have connected to some of the poorest people in the world.
Anglican Aid’s Cameron Jansen, their Aid and Development team leader, explained just how poor the people living in the poorest parts of Madagascar are. Jansen Cited the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative’s work on a Multidimensional Poverty Index.
“Multidimensional poverty takes into consideration that being poor. It’s not just about having a low income. It looks at three dimensions, health, education, and living standards, and it gives us a more comprehensive assessment of the level and the experience of poverty…
Three of the four poorest areas in Madagascar all happen to be in the Toliara diocese. And this index, it tells you about the objective levels of poverty. And objectively, these are some of the worst areas of poverty in the entire world… About 86% of the population, or 4.3 million people, are in multidimensional poverty, or three and a half million who sit in that severely poor category.
But for the vagaries of history, two of the largest islands in the world, Madagascar (population 32m) and Australia (population 28m) might be in the opposite positions, St James’ rector Alan Lukabyo told the meeting. “They could be drinking the $6 coffees and we could be the ones worrying about waterborne disease.”
Supporting a student at St.Patricks Theological College for a year costs $US1,100 or currently $A1,665. To support St Patricks https://anglicanaid.org.au/projects/st-patricks-theological-college/