Madagascar
the Red Sea and the Red Island

By Michael Ward

COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho—From the birth of Moses to the crossing of the Red Sea, are examples of how God can intervene in the lives of his people to deliver them.

At this time last year my wife, Emily, and I were on the Red Island, Madagascar, crying out to God for the deliverance of two Malagasy children in an adoption process that each day resounded with the words "this adoption cannot happen, go back to America."

These words came from our lawyer, judges and even high level Malagasy cabinet ministers. But someone forgot to tell God we couldn’t adopt the children. He provided countless interventions and miracles to convince others nothing could prevent what he intended to do.

This is a story that began in a jungle village in east-central Madagascar. At about the same time my wife and I were finding out we couldn’t have biological children, a woman named Josephine was giving birth to a baby girl named Sedera . Among her other children was a boy, Dominique, 2¹/2. Tragically, the midwife, who had delivered many children, didn’t remove most of the placenta, and within three weeks Josephine was dead.

Because her husband had also died, the only family member left to care for Dominique and Sedera was their grandmother. All seemed well until about a month later. Neighbors noticed not seeing the old woman and went to check on her. There they found that she had died with the two children trapped in the hut, frantic and starving, as she had apparently been dead for several days.

The uncle and aunts, because they had more children than they could feed, decided not to feed these two. The baby was barely kept alive on water left after rice has been boiled, while Nick, as he was called, had to forage for himself. He ate his own feces and became filled with worms and his stomach became distended. But just when all seemed lost, God began to intervene.

In court hearings at the adoption, six family members described how one night when Nick was asleep, they counted 250 worms, 100 out of his mouth and 150 from his nose that crawled out of his body for no apparent reason.

They were both still on the brink of death when a villager sent word to her daughter, Madame Elizera, a WCG member who runs an orphanage in Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar, and told her that if these two children were to live she would need to come immediately.

Madame Elizera stopped everything and came to pick up the orphans. She brought them to get what medical assistance she could, but it seemed too late. Sedera stopped breathing on a dirty table in a small French clinic, and no one tried to revive her. But Madame Elizera noticed that amazingly, after a few minutes of no breathing, Sedera started to breathe again.

By this time Nick refused to eat and said he only wanted to be with his mother, Josephine. A doctor explained that if Sedera was to live, he would have to stay alive and care for her. Nick immediately asked for food and began to eat. They became the youngest members of the church in Tana, and were taken to the home of Madame Elizera until Nick had enough strength to be placed in the Triumph Orphanage, which he soon was.

At about the same time the children arrived, so did James Henderson, regional director in Africa, who was making his annual visit to Madagascar. He took a picture of Sedera and wrote a story about the children for the African WN, which normally doesn’t find its way to North America, but this story did.

I remember the moment well when my wife said: "Michael, look at this picture of a baby named Sedera in a church orphanage in Madagascar. I strongly feel God intends it to be our child."

I replied, "Then, call our pastor, Glen Weber, and see if Sedera is available for adoption." We found out she was available.

Nine months later we were in the steamy halls of the Malagasy Ministry of Justice, where each day was a roller coaster of discouragements and elation.

Yes, we got the children, and it happened in such a dynamic way that at the end of two months those who once said, "Go home," were now saying, "I did not believe before, but now I will be in church Sunday to worship your God, because he is a real God."

In the meantime, we have set up a non-profit foundation in the name of The Triumph. We took a two-week assessment trip to Madagascar in April that had a two-fold purpose. We wanted to see if God desired to begin a ministry with the church in Tana and their pastor to reach the people of Madagascar, and secondly, after documenting the needs of the orphanage, set up an assistance program for the 83 children kept there.

While we were there God confirmed the ministry by giving us an opportunity to begin on the spot.

We have become close to Madame Elizera and her family and discovered that one of her teen daughters, De De, had become ill and was hospitalized. She was given a CAT scan and the diagnosis was a brain tumor. We sought God’s direction in a corner of the room of the dilapidated hospital built in 1896. The father was a nonbeliever who exploded at the sight of anything like prayer. He was also a doctor, and realized his daughter appeared to be dying.

The options were few and drastic. If they could come up with the equivalent of $60,000, she could be flown to a French island medical facility for possible treatment. But with a yearly family income of about $6,000, this was not an option.

The second was for her doctor to install a pacemaker and to perform brain surgery. They don’t sterilize instruments as we know sterilization, they reuse needles and might not be able to use antibiotics. We decided to send the CAT scan to U.S. doctors.

I work as a pharmaceutical representative, so I contacted a neurologist in Spokane, Washington, who agreed to look at the images and do the surgery without charge. When we told the family the next day there was shock and stunned jubilation.

A day earlier when we went to Air Madagascar to confirm our return tickets, they told us everyone had a valid ticket except my wife, Emily. An agent had stamped it "non-negotiable" as we passed through the airport in Paris and never said a word about it. They said there wasn’t an available seat except for one in first class at a substantial price increase.

However, we now needed not only her seat, but also one for De De and her father. It seemed hopeless, but God intervened and we got my wife’s seat back at no extra cost, two seats for our guests, and their U.S. visas finalized the afternoon we left.

As De De’s father witnessed this, we watched his heart change. As he hugged us in her hospital room, he said with misty eyes, "This could only have come from God."

We had to book their flights before the diagnosis came back. When the diagnosis arrived, it showed that it wasn’t a tumor but an enlarged pituitary gland with perhaps some other complications. In retrospect, De De was healed and her life saved as we committed our faith and resources to God. The fact that she was going to America prevented what probably would have been a fatal or at least a life-threatening surgery. She began to improve from the moment she learned she was going to the United States, not to overlook the fact that I anointed her within about 30 minutes of seeing her. God’s hand in making this happen was obvious.

The neurologist in the United States said there was hardly anything wrong with De De other than a pinching of a nerve at the back of her head. The treatment—a $20 head sling she should sit in to stretch her neck for a few minutes a day until the discomfort goes away. No charge for the office visit. Our God is an awesome God, wouldn’t you say?

The Triumph Orphanage is in terrible shape. The 83 children there sleep three to seven to a bed. They have no clean water and subsist on a diet of mainly rice and an occasional vegetable. Most have no shoes. The collapsing building has no windows or screens, and mosquitoes bite away in a land where malaria is rampant.

The beautiful, smiling, soiled faces of the children didn’t conceal their suffering. Madame Elizera is doing an incredible job, but they desperately need assistance. That is why we set up the Triumph non-profit organization. We know how to provide immediate relief and long-term education and training in various occupations as the children grow up. Job training is available for some of the parents who were unable to care for their children and placed them in the Triumph. It’s designed to make them self-sufficient and reunite them with their children when they can support them. A year ago our two children were there, and others wait to be adopted to loving families.

So, here I sit at my computer having just put my two angelic Malagasy children, Sedera (meaning cedar tree), and Isaac (name changed at adoption) to bed. Around the corner I hear the laughter of the healthy, dark-eyed, adorable Malagasy teenager, who is a powerfully motivated child of God. Her father is snoring upstairs (after reading his Bible).

An amazing ministry is to be acted upon in Madagascar. This account is but a peephole to all that has happened and of what is for the future. We thank all of you who have joined us in supporting The Triumph. For more information, write to The Triumph, in care of Michael and Emily Ward, 4774 Woodside Ave., Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, 83815. Please indicate if you are interested in adopting a child from Madagascar.

Michael Ward is an elder in the Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, church.

Orphans of Madagascar

Miora & Emily Ward

Street children in Madagascar

Copyright © Worldwide Church of God, 2001