Dear friends of the Mission,
Honestly, every time I write a piece for your publication, I hope and pray that it will be the last time I fill the page with human pain. After an unprecedentedly arid four years, for the entire territory of Southern Madagascar, the majority of the indigenous people are facing the tragic consequences of what we have so far shadowily heard about and never thought we would experience, Climate Change. Millions of people have already restricted their daily calorie intake to a third of normal, consuming exclusively insects (mostly grasshoppers), herbaceous plants that are almost inedible and peeled cacti. The lack of drinking water forces thousands of our brothers and sisters to migrate or, at best, to move long hours every day, almost with blurred eyes and a doubtful future, in search of the land of watery promise.
I have personally witnessed scenes that I would have expected to be printed exclusively on the pages of a medieval short story. Young men steal animal skins from the tanneries – hides destined for the shoemaking industry in Western countries – boil them for hours in muddy water, so that once soft they become their daily meal. Children are shoved between the pipes of our diocese’s aqueduct, literally licking the drops of water that form in the joints. Four hundred thousand people, according to official measurements by international organisations, have for months been not just below the poverty line but below the survival line.
I tour every inch of the country and the only sight I see in our churches is people drinking the baptismal water, children in the sanctuary guiltily consuming the zéon, and chanters with chapped lips praising God beyond despair.
For all of this, as a father and bishop, I will not be ashamed once again to ask your assistance, at the very least, so that we can continue the programme of constructing wells and water supply facilities. At present seven of the twelve wells are the work and contribution of the Orthodox Foreign Missionary Brotherhood. So that we may, with God’s help, expand our soup kitchens to every parish, doubling the number of brethren living from them and alleviating the suffering of the local community. So that we may continue the uninterrupted operation of the new rural dispensary, this breath of life project which your love has founded. So that together we may take up the cross of the African brother, who every day is crucified, every day dies, and every day, in spite of everything, praises God.
Beggar of your love and beggar of your subscription
† The Bold Prodromos
