Madagascar is a tropical island paradise. In the high plateau, the weather is near perfect all year long, with a rainy season in the summer months. Tropical fruits grow and are easy to buy. Organic vegetables are readily available throughout the year. The people are friendly and peaceful. Closer to the ocean, the beautiful beaches and palm trees beckon European tourists.    

Amidst this paradise is an ugly truth: these beautiful beaches and tropical locales also attract sex tourists who come to prey on girls and boys. Madagascar ranks amongst the world's worst countries for human trafficking, due largely in part to the grinding poverty and poor educational standards attained by most. According to recent statistics by Oxfam, Madagascar is one of the worst places on earth to eat well. With the average Malagasy living on (US) $1 per day, parents may give away their daughters and/or sons as a last resort to avoid starvation.

Alone on the street

The Church of the Nazarene and Compassionate Ministries International have established the Madagascar Street Kids Center. Children living in abject poverty are the ones most prone to human trafficking. Since the amount of money that can be made in a single evening can elevate a family's financial position significantly, it is difficult for girls to say no to the lure of being able to provide for their poverty-stricken families. The Street Kids Center offers the kids not only two meals a day but also basic education through the 4th grade and then further assistance into mainstream education or vocational training after that. Madagascar does not have enough schools for the number of children on the island causing an educational crisis. Education is a key to combat enslavement to the human trafficking world. The Street Kids Center provides girls with skills by which they can obtain jobs, as well as teaching about the love of Christ. It strives to teach young men godly principles by which to live their lives, not ones of exploitation and lechery.

With friends at the SKC

In addition to the Street Kids Center in Antananarivo, a pastor living in the main coastal port city of Tomasina has begun the groundwork for starting a Child Development Center (CDC) in her community to not only battle malnutrition and a lack of education, but to also help the children see that selling themselves, in this city where making a dollar or two by prostitution is easy, is not the way to go. Jesus has another plan for their lives - a better plan - even though life seems dark and dire.

Within local communities in the capitol city, pastors are working to establish small CDC's to further combat these issues. They have started with a weekly feeding scheme and are hoping to expand, soon, to a daily program. We applaud these local pastors as they are funding these CDC's through projects of their own and not relying on outside funding.

The Church of the Nazarene is battling against poverty and evil, as are other organizations. Join us in prayer for this island nation of over 22 million people.

Carrie Fiedler

Recently, Carrie Fiedler brought a Work & Witness team to Malawi. After finishing up their work they returned home, but Carrie had a couple days and wanted to know what she could do to help at the Nazarene Theological College of Central Africa. Since she is interested in children's ministry, the college asked her to lead a class on different ways to teach children.

During chapel time, Carrie taught the students how to visualize the whole Bible in sequence. After chapel, she used many visual aids to show how to involve children while telling a Bible story. In telling some of the parables of Jesus, Carrie used a Bible story pocket that showed the parables while she continued to fold out the various pockets. The students also learned how to make evangelism bracelets from thread and learned two different stories using folded paper to make a cross.

The students were excited to learn these different methods that they will be able to use in their areas of ministry after graduation.

Editor's note: The first ten minutes of this lengthy video has a demonstration of the Bible story pocket. Carrie is reporting about a previous trip to Malawi.