For the many who have followed the ministry in Madagascar over the last two decades, you may remember that the remote village of Mahabana was once taboo Jesus Christ and the Bible. At the time, in our single and kid-free days, Jamie and I would travel to Mahabana by Malagasy sailboat—typically a 2-3 day journey, depending on the wind. Upon arrival, the spiritual darkness in the village was palpable– a heavy all-encompassing weight upon...

An image an hour on the 10th of the month to capture the gift that is daily life. Homemade bows and arrows, second to the last week of English homeschooling, market day, whittling wood, haircuts, a helper in the kitchen, Canadian friends, and sweet, sweet sleep.    

Thank you for your prayers as we traveled back to the great red island earlier this month! It was the most seamless travel from the USA to Madagascar to date! We know this was God’s grace to us as the first two weeks of our return were perhaps some of the harder weeks of transition that we’ve endured in past years– or at least it felt so.   Airing the Dirty Laundry…   Madagascar consistently ranks in the top 10...

In two hands… This last month has felt that we’re often holding life with all of it’s opposing feelings and situations in two hands at the same time. In one hand, soaking in the life-giving days we had in Seattle with Madagascar teammates and college friends while in the other hand, navigating a damaging and destructive situation with employees in Madagascar at the same time. In one hand, the pride of our oldest daughter...

How the month of June came and vanished with the blink of an eye is beyond me.  It could’ve been all the extra things to conquer while our team of five families was still on the ground here in Madagascar, or it could’ve been soaking up all the last memories as a large team of 26 adults and kids, or the many tears shed and tender good-byes that we and the Carlstrom’s said to the Bright, Gough and Jensen families.  This has been...

Ten images on the tenth of the month to capture the beauty in the ordinary of daily life. Like many of you, life here sometimes feels like we can get in a deep rut day in and day out… work, school, cook, work, school, cook, throw in drama and birth and frustrations of life, throw in late night skype calls, extreme poverty, death, more drama… The things I love about living in this country are numerous… and at the same time so...

Ten images a month to catch the beauty of the everyday for us… occasionally the everyday is in America, most of the time it’s in Madagascar, and I dream of days that it would be in places like Spain or Italy, Guatemala or Peru… a girl can dream!  Project from www.rebekahgough.com. We’re rehabilitating this little sifaka lemur… we’re calling her “Rosie”… and she is really the sweetest thing!...

Life as we all know it is sometimes a mixture of good, bad and ugly… at times, all three are wrapped into a single day. The month of June seemed to be just this for us here in Madagascar. Kalamboro… (the good!) Thank you for your many prayers that went out as we traveled as a group to the remote fishing villages of Kalamboro and Mahabana! In Kalamboro, the reception was unbelievable as lines of people formed to give a formal welcome...

In the last 6 weeks, we’ve been in Madagascar, Paris, California, Colorado, Idaho and as I write this, Jamie is BACK in Madagascar after having arrived in country over the weekend for work with Eden Projects!  In the next 3 weeks, Jamie and I will add Ghana and Amsterdam to that list before we return back to the USA together!  To read more from our August Newsletter, click here.

Twenty Fourteen was quite the year… there was good and there was hard, there were times of joy and sadness, times of growth and steps backward.  Through it all, God has been present and He is good!  It’s good to look back through pictures and SEE that God has been present and He is good– in addition to knowing that truth deep in my heart.  So here’s a look at twenty-fourteen and the things that fed our souls during this...

We recently got to hang out with Josh and Amanda, some Santa Barbara friends who came to visit us and the ministry here in Madagascar.  It’s always a joy when our two worlds of Santa Barbara and Madagascar merge and this was no exception. Often times what stands out to visitors has become just normal life stuff for us so we often walk past it without a second glance, thought or even an awareness or appreciation of how different life is...

Just a few days ago we said veloma to four wonderful Westmont College students that were with us for four weeks through the Emmaus Road program.  They joined a team of 25+ Malagasy young people… most of whom work with us either at the Sarobidy Maternity Center or with Eden Projects or who are friends or are friends of friends.  It was an intensely fun time together as we had the privilege to bring together two worlds that we love; our...

Just like her big sister did last month, this little girl celebrated a birthday last week.  6 years old.  Time seems to pass even more quickly with each year.  This little girl of ours was a whole 13 days late… and when she decided to make her appearance into the world, she did so with force and intensity… a bit like a freight train, in fact. From 6 cm to having a beautiful baby girl in my arms in less than 25 minutes… over...

This little chick-a-dee of ours just turned 8.  How is that even possible?  I can vividly remember the excited anticipation when she was still in my womb and the moment she entered the world… our hearts and lives were forever changed and we wouldn’t have it any other way.  This girl… she’s pretty amazing.  She’s spunky and full of life, she’s a lover of animals and people.  She’s an amazing caregiver...

Say you live in sunny Santa Barbara and you travel to Maine to visit friends and you bring back some still kickin’ lobster for your friends back home.  That’s a voandalana.  Or perhaps you live in Arizona and you’re traveling to California for a vacay and when you return home, you bring your friends some awesome avocados.  That’s a voandalana.   The literal translation of voandalana is “fruit of the road”....

  Last week we shared with you the most recent news about Josy and Redy– that the surgery had been performed and the only news we had was that we knew they were both OK.  On Friday morning, November 1st, we received a phone call at 4:30am from India.  Josy was on the other end of the line.  His voice ecstatic, he shared the good news that the initial kidney function tests revealed that his new kidney was working perfectly!  The other...

    It’s been several months since I last wrote an update about Josy.  If you receive our monthly newsletters, (or if you don’t and want to… sign up by dropping us a line here) you know that his health has stabilized, he’s been receiving dialysis 3 times a week while living in Tana which is a 12-hour drive from his family.  Life has returned to Josy… to his body, to his eyes, to his spirit.  Back in...

Friends, thank you for your continued prayers for our dear friend Josy.  It’s been 2 weeks since our last update just after Josy had surgery.      There’s been several times that I’ve sat down to write a letter but the suspected diagnosis and prognosis hasn’t been concrete enough to share, until now.      Two days ago, Josy was readmitted to the hospital for monitoring and seen by a nephrologist yesterday.  We just spoke...

   Friends, we are humbled by your prayers! We are humbled by your love and care for a dear friend of ours that many of you have never met but have only heard stories of over the years. We are humbled by your notes of encouragement to send along to Josy and notes for us.  We received well over 125 messages on email and facebook.  Many of you passed our prayer request on to others, emailed it to your friends and families, sent it to prayer...

It is with a heavy heart yet a heart still full of hope that we write to you today to ask you to pray for Josy, our closest friend and partner in ministry.  As you read this, he is laying in a hospital in the capital city awaiting emergency surgery on Monday.  I say emergent because the surgery should have been performed Friday, but his blood count was too low.  Yesterday, his brother Dina searched the city’s hospitals looking for enough...

You read that right… Jamie and I had our 10-year vodiondry anniversary November 2.  Vodiondry in Malagasy is literally translated as sheep’s butt, so yes, in fact we did celebrate our 10th sheep’s butt anniversary!  Or in other terms, we celebrated our 10-year anniversary of when we got married Malagasy-style.  The name for this Malagasy wedding ceremony between the families… you guessed it… sheep’s butt or...

My husband is a Third Culture Kid (TCK)…. I am not… I’m a Santa Barbara kid! Yet we are raising TCK’s. And what exactly is a TCK? Well, I’m glad you asked… By definition the Third Culture Kid “is a person who has spent a significant part of their developmental years outside the parents’ culture. The TCK frequently builds relationships to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each...

A few days a week, after school is over and kids are awake from naps or rest time, our kids play with a regular group of 6-7 Malagasy kids.  It is awesome!  It brings joy all around– to our kids, the Malagasy kids, and to us.  Usually they play games like prison tag, kick-the-can and soccer.  They push each other on the tire swing and the girls braid one another’s hair.  Their play language is Malagasy with our girls trying to teach some...

Our long-time good friend and main ministry partner, Josy, left his wife home with their 3 kids and made the 15 hour drive to spend a few days with us and our 3 kids.  It was fantastic!!  We learned something new with our time together…. kids are kids wherever they are and whatever culture they’re from.  Josy felt like he was transplanted back into the chaos of the three small children that he left behind and that chaos was replaced by...

Sekoly is “school” in Malagasy and is what transpires four days a week for the three older kids on our team; Isabella (4), Oliver (3), and Eliana (2).  Sekoly coincides with Malagasy language lessons for the parents, however it’s a very different education for these little ones.  Jamie is their exuberant teacher and as a result, sekoly days are full of explorations and adventures, singing, learning Malagasy words, as well as...