We arrived in Tamatave late in the afternoon and were met by a brother who is the pastor of a group of 70 people and has built a church in his premises. We met with a few brothers concerning the translation work, and also some of the other believers. There are four Message groups in this area.

The evening service started at 6:00 pm and many of the 80 believers who attended, traveled for 30 kilometers to get there. Once again I was given the opportunity to speak to them. It humbled me to see the sincerity on the worship of the believers just to hear something said from Brother Branham.

They only had the pastor’s word or some visitor’s word to go by. I realized afresh how blessed and how thankful I ought to be just to hear first hand, in my own language, the Voice of God for my day.

The evening meeting, I had to speak through two interpreters. From English to French, then from French to Malagasy. The translators were also present at this meeting, like they were in every meeting we had.

When we returned to Antananarivo after another nine hours on the same route from Tamatave, we had a meeting with the pastors and the translators. Some of these precious people have tried to translate the Message from French to Malagasy. This is not a good way to translate the Message, and definitely not the VGR way, because it could introduce error into the translations. Each language should be translated directly from the English and then it should go through the checking process so nothing is given to the people that Brother Branham did not say.

During the meeting, I went to the finest details explaining to them the translation and the recording procedures and the lengths that Voice of God goes to get the prophet’s Message exactly as it is into the hands of the people. I also made it clear to the translators that their responsibility would be to translate the manuscripts as they get it from Voice of God, and not to explain what is on the manuscripts. Also not to presume if they don’t understand. I also labored on the importance of communication between them and the Voice of God and not to take any chances.

After I spoke to the brothers, I gave them an opportunity for questions. They all agreed that the Voice of God is the only source from where they want their material. While we were having lunch, I shared with them some testimonies of the experiences I had with the translations.

The meeting concluded on a high and positive note.

On one of Brother Nanda’s trips to Madagascar prior to this, He met with the chief of police and security of the whole island, and was called to share the Message with him. As I was told he wants to be baptized!

The next day Brother Nanda took me to the brother who translated the first tract that was sent to Voice of God (Pick Up Your Pen). He is a doctor, a professional international translator, and he has his own school to educate children. These are statistics that he gave to me concerning Madagascar and the reason he has the burden to see the Message get to the people:

60% are illiterate

80% did not go beyond four years of schooling.

15% went to high school.

Less than 2% have university or college degree.

Less than 0.5% would regard reading as a priority because of the battle to survive.

I told him that his burden for his countrymen to get this Message is commendable… As I took him step by step through the translation process, as I did with the other translators by using examples like when Brother Branham speaks about “bird eye” and many other words that he won’t find in the Webster, he confessed he did not know the seriousness of this. He admitted it was much more important than any of all the past international translation experiences he ever had, and he has the highest respect for Voice of God and wants to assist with the translation wherever he can.

On Sunday afternoon, I was asked to speak to the biggest Message church in Madagascar by the pastor who was also present at the meeting on Saturday. The group consisted of 170 people.