Lessons from Africa Evangelical Fellowship's outreach to the Tsimihety people of Madagascar.
Welsh missionaries of the London Missionary Society (LMS) first brought the gospel to Madagascar in 1818. Despite disease and persecution there was a glorious beginning. By the 1830s the Bible was translated into Malagasy and churches were planted. In the 1960s the churches founded by the LMS fused with other groups to form the Church of Jesus Christ of Madagascar (FJKM). Sadly, today many of these churches are formal in practice and liberal in theology.
Africa Evangelical Fellowship (AEF), having worked in southern Africa for more than a century, has long had a burden for Madagascar. A visit in 1986 by AEF's Dr. Bob Foster found enormous spiritual and social need, and a striking openness to the gospel. In particular he noted the need for church-planting in the remoter areas and among the Muslim peoples in the North West province.
