A Tiny Treasure and A Mighty Love… Malagasy babies are often quite small at birth compared to those born in the developed world. At the Sarobidy Maternity Center, the average newborn weighs about 6.4 pounds, while in the United States, the average ranges from 7.0 – 7.6 pounds. Chronic maternal malnutrition plays a major role in these lower birthweights. While I haven’t seen official statistics for babies born elsewhere in...

It was a joy to see many of you during our recent travels back to California! Those six weeks flew by as we packed into them what we’d normally spread across a five-month home assignment– church presentations, Sarobidy Creations sales, thank-you notes, college visits, medical and dental appointments, and sweet time with family and friends, just to name a few. Even in the busyness, we returned to RVA with a renewed sense of...

Changing the Face of Birth in Madagascar… In May, the Sarobidy Maternity Center celebrated it’s 12th anniversary! A lot has changed in those twelve years– and amazingly and honestly, everything has changed for the better! The team, our practices, and our competencies, all continue to evolve, be honed, and strengthened! In medicine, like many things in life, practices can become routine, corners can be cut, and ultimately,...

Our kids have spent the majority of their lives in Madagascar– they have a deep love for this beautiful island nation. The people, the language, the nuances of the culture, the sights, smells, and sounds that have permeated their hearts and minds since before even their earliest memories.  We’ve now been in Kenya for three years– living and serving at Rift Valley Academy. This was never the plan, and yet, in God’s...

Hi there, my name is Isabella. I am a 19-year old American, born in California, but raised in Madagascar on the mission field, where my family has been serving for the past 15 years. I am so grateful to be apart of the CSALT crew in Jeffreys Bay, South Africa and stoked to see how the Lord continues to work in each of our lives throughout the remaining half of the program. I recently completed the college application process, applying to both a...

Celebrating Jesus… Just before Christmas, the Sarobidy Maternity Center hosted Christmas parties for all the women in both the prenatal (shown below) and postpartum programs. What joyous celebrations they were! There were snacks, games, prizes, laughter, and the Gospel message. Two of the pregnant mamas were particularly eager to learn more and stayed behind to ask additional questions about the birth of Christ, the Savior, and what it...

The Far Reaching Impact of RVA… This note of encouragement, written by the parents of one of our last dorm guys, speaks to the incredible ministry of Rift Valley Academy, not only to students, but to their families and ministries spread across Africa.  “Hi Alissa and Jamie! I just wanted to thank you for being such good dorm parents to E these past two years. I really appreciate how you’ve been so kind and gracious to him,...

The last two months have been a whirlwind of activity, travel, transitions, and emotions for the five of us!  * It started with closing a chapter of life with an incredible group of young men who have been under our roof for the last two years as well as the culmination of Isabella’s high school years with her graduation from Rift Valley Academy.  * Three weeks in Madagascar with full clinic days and teaching at...

SMC turns 11… The Sarobidy Maternity Center celebrated it’s 11th anniversary in May. The Lord has lavished this ministry with His goodness, His protection and care, His grace and His love. It was fitting that the 11th anniversary fell on a Monday-prenatal day at the Sarobidy Maternity Center. The day was celebrated with singing, fetal heart beats echoing out the exam rooms and down the halls, praying with pregnant mamas for...

Hello friends!  Do you know that feeling when so much has happened that you don’t even know where to start to share? This has been the last 2 months+ for us! Alas, we’re going to attempt to share a snapshot… ❤️ Mountaintops… We spent several weeks back home in Madagascar in March and April. This time, though always intense, feeds our souls in a different way. It’s the longstanding friendships and mutual...

By definition, a Third Culture Kid (TCK) is a person who spends a significant part of his or her first 18 years of life accompanying parent(s) into a country that is different from at least one parent’s passport country(ies) due to a parent’s choice of work or advanced training. Examples of TCKs include Missionary Kids, Military Kids, Foreign Service Kids and NGO kids. The majority of kids at Rift Valley Academy are Missionary Kids yet all fall...

Full House… Thank you for your prayers that traveled with us back to Kenya at the end of December. Visa issues delayed us by a few days but we landed in Kenya in time to ring in the New Year with friends here. Within a short 7-day span, we moved out of our house in California, checked in 15 pieces of luggage from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City to Paris to Nairobi, celebrated New Years, unpacked and stocked our house with food and supplies,...

Ultrasound Training… In 2016, the Sarobidy Maternity Center received a partial grant for a beautiful ultrasound machine and probes to be used as part of our prenatal care. Later, we coordinated with Hope Imaging for two sonographers to travel to Madagascar for two weeks to teach the art of ultrasound for basic scanning of pregnancies, dating, fetal weight, position, etc. Over the last 5 years, three of the Malagasy midwives have been...

Over these many years, the Lord, in His mercy, has grown us and taught us through various trials and hardships, revealing to us His character– one of love, forgiveness, and unceasing grace. We have seen the vastness of His protection, His sovereignty, His compassion and His Holiness.   We have so much more to learn about His nature and about ourselves as we desire to be more like Christ. We are thankful that He is never done...

It’s 10pm on Friday night here in Madagascar. As I type this, voices of our kids and their Malagasy friends fill our home as they speak a conglomeration of Malagasy, French and English. There’s 9 teenagers and 4 younger siblings having a sleepover at our place… a normal occurrence when we’re back on the Red Island.  As we sit fully emerged in this world, it’s a hard to believe that just a week ago, we said farewell...

Raising Up a Generation of Healthy TCK’s… Upon returning to Kenya from Madagascar, Rift Valley Academy arranged for Lauren Wells, Founder and CEO of TCK Training to provide a two-day workshop on Third Culture Kids. This is a topic near and dear to our hearts as we love and raise our own TCK’s, as well as, have the privilege to care for other TCK’s in our home and in our midst.  “Expatriates often experience more...

Thank you all for your prayers as we traveled home to Madagascar last month. It was far too short, but what we lacked in duration, was made up for in the sweetness of our time on the Red Island!  A Slice of Home to Carry us on… During the short but jam-packed time that we were in Madagascar, we enjoyed friends and shared meals, the kids enjoyed their friends and sleepovers, we enjoyed working long hours alongside our teammates and...

The second term of the RVA school year is over, the students have spread across Africa back to their families and their countries of service and a hush has settled over the campus. Roadblocks… Over the last 20+ years of traveling to Madagascar or to remote villages within Madagascar, we have experienced multiple unexpected roadblocks to our departure… passport and visa problems, sickness, theft, accusations and so much more. Honestly, we...

Life-Saving Impact… “I feel very blessed and happy to care for my baby. Thank you very much to the Sarobidy Maternity Center for the help and the prayers you have given me and my baby. This is my first baby and she was born prematurely… you really helped me with the money I needed in the hospital and especially encouraged and taught me how to care for my underweight and premature baby. At this time, she is very healthy and has...

Partnering with Parents… BOARDING SCHOOL… what thoughts or feelings does this conjure up for you? For some, it may be a foreign concept. For others, it may come with negative connotations, beliefs or experiences. And for a relatively small percent of the US population that has lived it, it may have been not only an extremely positive experience but also a vital educational lifeline. I married a boarding school kid and I have three...

Thank you to all who prayed for our return to Madagascar!! The amount that transpired in that month was a bit intense… good, hard, scary… we’re thankful for the ways the Lord protected and sustained us during this time! A Brief Recap…  * An armed break-in of the main Eden office 4 days before our arrival. * The unexpected death of the mother of one of the midwives at the Sarobidy Maternity Center the night of...

Thank you all for your prayers last month as we wrapped up the first term of the school year at Rift Valley Academy (RVA) and as we traveled to Madagascar without being affected by the Kenyan Airways strike!  End of Term in Kenya… The end of term at RVA was fully packed with performances, end of season games, final exams and end of term celebrations— homemade dinners with the guys, ice cream parties and a...

There is rarely a quiet day at the Sarobidy Maternity Center. Mondays are prenatal days and are buzzing with women singing first thing in the morning, Bible study on the front porch as birds chirp in the trees overhead. Sounds of baby’s perfect and strong heartbeats come through the dopplers and echo down the halls. Health education lessons are taught in Malagasy and one can hear the roar of laughter from the ladies when various...

Birth work is beautiful. It is also quite primitive. The flow of hormones and surges and work and strength to bring a new life into the world. The tenderness of a woman becoming a mother for the first time or perhaps the 6th time. It is a sacred space where Jesus fills the room and one can easily be left breathless at the beauty of His intricate creation.  Birth work is also dangerous. Every 11 seconds, a pregnant woman or newborn...

For the last 15+ years, Jamie and I have known with certainty, where the Lord has been calling us individually, as a couple and as a family. Madagascar. That big beautiful Red Island that is home to nearly 28 million people and that exquisitely feels like home to us. In the fall of last year, while on home assignment in the USA and waiting for borders to reopen in Madagascar, we sensed that the Lord was leading our family to serve at Rift...

A bit of home in Kenya… Earlier this month we welcomed several of our dear Malagasy friends and co-workers to Kenya for the Eden Projects International Leaders conference. Eden has become one of the largest reforestation organizations in the world– and as such, numerous leaders from various countries, Madagascar included, converged in Kenya! It was surreal and so much fun to be together with our friends in this place!...

Revisiting the Pair-of-Ducks… Years ago, in one of our newsletters, we wrote about the Paradox of life on the mission field. Also, lovingly referred to as the Pair-of-Ducks when our kids were younger. When our kids were little, we would often sit around the dinner table and each would share their “yay duck” and “yuck duck” for the day. Twelve+ years of living on the mission field and we still talk about the paradox...

Here in Kenya…. Thank you all for your prayers over these last few weeks of packing, traveling and transitioning to Kenya. Just 10 hours before we were set to leave for the airport, Gavin spiked a fever and was feeling miserable. Within a few hours we determined it best to change our tickets and postpone our flights by 30 hours– enough time to figure out what was going on, hoping he would feel better for the flight, yet still make...

Thank you for your steadfast prayers that traversed the globe with us…. quite literally! If you missed our newsletter last month, we made the decision to return to the USA two months earlier than our scheduled home assignment in order to get Isabella, our oldest, back to RVA, her school in Kenya so she could complete her third term. The five of us departing together was the ONLY way for us to get her safely back to Kenya without being...

Grace Abounds…  As many of you know, in January, our oldest daughter, Isabella, began Rift Valley Academy, a boarding school for missionary kids in Kenya. She has loved her time at RVA– the friends, the sports, the community! RVA operates with three terms a year separated by a month-long vacation between the terms where students return home to their various African countries. Our family was eagerly counting down the days for...

Thank you for your gracious prayers, emails and messages of encouragement since sharing the news last month about the imminent transition of taking our oldest to Kenya to begin high school at Rift Valley Academy!  The Lord was incredibly gracious to us amidst the seamless travel of 6 flights, 13 negative PCR Covid tests, entrance back into Madagascar, and the airplane safely landing after two failed attempts in the midst...

Ten Year Anniversary… On this day, 10 years ago exactly, we arrived in Madagascar as a family of five. At the time, our kids were 4 years, 2 years and 6 months old. We arrived in the wee hours of the morning on January 1, 2011… the five of us and all 26 pieces of luggage plus 3 car seats and 3 strollers. Officially, we were nuts!!  The Expected… The last ten years of ministry have been full of things...

Some of the most common questions we encounter when we’re in the USA on home assignment are:  1. So what’s Madagascar like? 2. Do you like living there?  3. What do you eat there? 4. What’s a typical day look like for you?     Three of the four of these questions are not necessarily the easiest to answer in the matter of just a few seconds.  To be clear, we’re not in the USA and...

Did you know…? * Madagascar is the world’s fourth-largest island.  * Despite Madagascar’s close proximity to the African continent, ocean currents have isolated the island, resulting in high rates of endemic plant and animal species. * Approximately 90% of the flora and fauna found on Madagascar are found nowhere else. * Madagascar consistently ranks one of the top 10 poorest countries in the world. * Madagascar is nearly 90%...

Amidst the Covid pandemic, Dengue Fever epidemic and continuing to live in planet prison as one friend hilariously referred to it as….  this month has been sprinkled with several small victories to celebrate.      In our newsletter last month we shared about the Dengue Fever epidemic our community was facing. At the time, Jamie and I were recovering and slowly regaining our strength. In these last 4...

An epidemic amidst the pandemic… Amidst the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, our city on the northwest coast of Madagascar is facing a DENGUE FEVER epidemic! The last such epidemic on the island was in 2007. Dengue Fever is a nasty disease transmitted by an infected mosquito and is often referred to as “breakbone fever” because of the bone-crushing pain associated with it. Unfortunately, Jamie and I can now testify...

Thank you all for your prayers for our safe return home! We arrived in country 2 weeks ago and after taking care of some business and seeing friends in the capital city, we made the 10.5 hour drive to our home city last weekend.     The mission field is often described as a massive paradox… deep joys in the face of severe struggles often mingle at the same time. The emotional paradox of our return home is real. After moving between five...

Throughout Madagascar, life is ruled by taboos as an attempt to maintain harmony with the ancestors in whom the Malagasy worship in order to communicate with the Creator God. There are varying levels of taboos… individual, family, community, land and even tribal taboos as is evidenced by the story of the twin babies that Rota and Andry recently rescued and adopted! Since taboos are put into place to maintain harmony, when...

As I’m sure many can echo, the last decade has been an eventful one. As we remember the milestones of the last ten years, we’re astonished and ever so thankful for the sweetness of the Lord that has sustained us, encouraged us and propelled us forward throughout the many transitions of living in four countries on four different continents.  2010… Originally slotted to leave for Madagascar in 2010, we knew without a shadow...

Half way through… It’s hard to believe that we’re over half way through our time in France!! To be honest, our motivation has stalled a bit– a combination of brain fatigue and wintery cold and dreary days. The teachers recognize this regular pattern in the students each year come February. We’re thankful for gracious and compassionate teachers as they continue to pour into equipping us and the other...

Ten on Ten– a chance to capture ten images (ideally every hour for 10 hours) on the tenth of the month. I’ve managed to whip my camera out every month, sometimes capturing 10 images, sometimes not– but what I haven’t managed to do is anything with these pictures after snapping them. These last three months have been a whirlwind split between transitioning from Madagascar to France, biggish city to smallish town, ministry...

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.    

Back on this side… Thank you for your prayers last month as Eliana and I made a whirlwind trip half way around the globe for her much-anticipated fourth grade Sacramento trip with her Santa Barbara classmates! The definition of whirlwind in this particular case means 6 different planes for a total of 46 hours in the sky, an additional 23 hours in airports, and nearly 1,600 miles driven in three weeks time! AND… totally worth it on...

Morangobe is an area north of our city that contains one of the few and largest old growth coastal mangrove forests in our immediate region. In the past, the villagers of Morangobe have lived off the benefits of a healthy mangrove forest which was once teaming with fish, shrimp and crab. Sadly, this semi-isolated mangrove forest that has stood strong and tall for generations has literally been under attack from the charcoal mafia and tree...

And… we’re off! We’re sitting waiting to board our first flight. Goodbyes have been said, tears shed and home assignment is complete. It was intense, in some ways—predictably so and in other ways it was intense in ways we could never imagine. Here’s a snapshot of our last seven months by the numbers… * We moved houses 6 times * 3000+ Sarobidy Creations items that were tagged and priced by countless friends and family that...

Highlight Reel… My brain and heart haven’t been in a place to write a newsletter…. usually my head is spinning all month long with what I want to share. This month it just hasn’t. We decided a highlight reel of images from this last term in Madagascar would be a fantastic substitute… I mean, who doesn’t love photographs– it’s honestly one of my love languages! Easier said than done though–...

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...

Life on the mission field brings an array of emotions across the board… this letter hits a bit on a few of these. Heavy… (This is part of an original blog post that can be found here….) A first-time mom with joyful expectation of delivering a healthy baby boy at the Sarobidy Maternity Center had been struggling with the results of her 20-week ultrasound that showed her baby had short legs. Unbelieving of the news, she received a...

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...

On the 10th of the month, a photo an hour– over ten (ish) hours. This month the 10th fell on a Friday… and oh, how I love Fridays! With the exception of a birth or a government/business meeting, Fridays are usually reserved for starting the day a bit slower, catching up on stuff around the house– laundry and such, and administrative tasks– tackling emails, updating charts for the maternity center, preparing for the...