Fame at last!

Theresa Haine continues her recollections of time spent in Madagascar in the first of a two-part despatch.

The first Welsh missionaries went to Madagascar following an invitation from the then king of Imerina in central Madagascar. They were welcomed and did amazing work building churches and schools and converting spoken Malagasy into a written form that is almost perfectly phonetic and makes learning to read so much easier for Malagasy children to this day.

Sadly, the king died ten years after the arrival of the missionaries and was succeeded by his wife who would have nothing to do with the new religion and instituted a tragic 30-year period of persecution of the Christians.

In 1987 the British Quakers were invited to send a representative to the celebration of 150 years since the death of Rasalama, the first Malagasy martyr. I was going to be in Madagascar at that time on a monitoring visit on behalf of Money for Madagascar so was asked to be that person. I had no idea what I was letting myself in for!

At the three-day symposium which preceded the big day the important visitors were introduced: myself on behalf of the Quakers, the Moderator of the United Reformed Church UK, a representative of the Swiss Reformed Church, two Russian Baptists and two Russian Orthodox priests , one of whom was the Archbishop of Kharkov.

Friday 14th August was the BIG DAY. At 4am the whole town exploded with singing and hundreds of young people who had been holding a vigil throughout the night at the church where Rasalama was imprisoned started on what I later found out was the “Via Dolorosa” that Rasalama followed from her prison to the execution site high up on one of the hills around the capital.

At 8.30am I went down to the big stadium and waited for my foreign colleagues. After about an hour all the Malagasy pastors arrived looking wonderful in white and scarlet. We had to wait until most of the crowds had taken their place then, when the important Malagasy representatives of the various churches had arrived, we processed through a guard of honour, formed by scouts and guides, to our places on the platform.

The crowd was incredible – estimates put the number at about 60,000 people. The sun came out and a forest of brightly-coloured umbrellas/sunshades went up – a wonderful sight. The crowd sang hymns and anthems until 9.55am when total silence descended as we all waited for the President.

And then? All will be revealed next time.

To be continued