Helping needy Malagasy kids to become 

Jesus’ kids!

November 2009                Volume 12, Number 11

"A generous man will himself be blessed, for he shares his food with the poor."         Proverbs 22:9

  Malagasy Ingenuity

              On October 13, 2009 a long awaited and planed for event finally came off. The American School of Antananarivo’s third grade class came out to Betikara to experience several uniquely Malagasy cultural events. During the two hours that the Betikara Lambs and the students from the American school of Antananarivo were together the Malagasy children were honored to be able to show the third grade class just how much you can have fun with only a few pieces of what many people consider to be junk.

            In preparation for the events of October 13th the Betikara children gathered all of the required materials such as: matches, old spark plugs, old wire, old bolts, used plastic bags and used twine, small pieces of discarded wood, sticks, thorns, and stones. All of these items are most of the time just thrown away by Americans. For instance, what good is an old worn out spark plug? By itself it is useless. However, if you add old wire, an old bolt that the threads are stripped off of, and matches you can have fun and make quite a big explosion in the process.

            All you have to do is remove the electrode from the end of the spark plug and insert the old bolt in the remaining hole. You use the old wire to affix the bolt and the spark plug so that the wire will hold the bolt in the hole of the spark plug. Once this is accomplished you remove the bolt and scrape the ends of three or four matches off into the hole of the spark plug and replace the bolt using the attached wire. Then you hit the head of the bolt against a hard surface, and presto, you get a big explosion. One match end = small explosion. Six match ends = an ear ringing explosion!

            The children had fun in many different ways. Besides constructing the Malagasy spark plug noise makers, there was Malagasy jump rope, Malagasy story telling using stones, Malagasy kite construction using thorns, sticks and old plastic bags and old twine, Malagasy ball making using old plastic and old twine to tie everything into the shape of a ball, Malagasy hopscotch, and Malagasy car building using old boards, old wire, plastic bottle caps, and old tin cans.

            The Malagasy spark plug noise makers and the plastic balls were a big success. Every child wanted to take one of them home. Needless to say, the children had a great time together and hopefully learned something as well. :-)

If you would like to help with a monetary donation, write your check out to BETIKARA and send it to: 

  Indiana Church of Christ 
  225 East Pike Rd. 
  Indiana, PA  15701 

“He who is kind to the poor lends to the LORD, and he will reward him for what he has done.” 
                           Proverbs 19:17