I don't know if it's the new year, the new century or the new millennium.  All I know is that it was Saturday, January 8th.  I was standing in front of the Centre d'Etude Biblique waiting for 2:00. 
          It is our usual routine to have an hour of Bible study followed by two hours of English language classes on Saturdays.  The only difference about this particular Saturday is that it marked the beginning of a new English language course. 
          We've been doing two English languages courses a year.  Students meet every Saturday for 3 hours.  The first hour is Bible study in their own language, then we use conversation centered on Bible topics to teach English.  In the course of 25 weeks, the students get 25 hours of Bible study.  A new course usually starts out with 50 students in the beginners English class and an additional 12 or so, who have already had some exposure to English grammar and vocabulary and who want to practice their conversational skills.  That number of students usually dwindles by the time the course is half over, but we usually end a course with about 25 students.  With this plan, we reach up to 100 new contacts yearly. 
          Some of these students have been influenced by the Bible teaching and have become Christians.  Though our first goal here in Madagascar is to teach Bible in the Malagasy language.  We willingly put in these Saturday hours teaching English to attract new students to the Center so that they may hear the gospel while they learn English. 
          January 8th was a surprise.  We had put an ad in the local newspaper announcing the beginning of a new class.  I expected to get about 50 new students and I was excited at the prospect of 50 new contacts hearing the Word of God in the bargain.  On this particular Saturday, even at 1:30, my classroom was already full of students busy taking notes from what I had written on the chalkboard.  Ten to twenty more students were pouring in each minute.  By 1:55 there were more people milling around than we could even fit in the four rooms of the building.  At 2:00 John began the Bible teaching.  Bodies filled every conceivable corner of the building.  We had never had a crowd this big.  By 2:10, there was no room left even in front of the building.  Students crowded around the windows trying to hear the teaching. 
          At the conclusion of the Bible lesson we already knew that teaching English on that day would be impossible.  We set up a desk and registered students for the new English course.  You can imagine our surprise when we discovered that we had signed up 514 students for this new Bible/English Series. 
          On January 15th, we had moved this project to the local Primary school and rented 3 rooms in which to hold classes.  All three classrooms were overflowing and didn't even have standing room by the time John started the Bible teaching.  He taught 3 Bible lessons to the three different groups.  Our youth group showed up in force ready to work.  They checked addresses and signed up students to take the World Bible School courses in English, they fielded questions, and they explained the plan for both the English and the Bible courses.  Barry and I administered English language placement tests and did personal interviews in English to try to organize this mass of students into workable groups. 
          Between January 15th and January 21st my mind was a blur.  We scored and sorted 352 placement tests, all the while praising God that 352 had the opportunity to hear another Bible lesson.  288 of those students signed up to take the World Bible School course.  10+ didn't even want the English class, they just wanted to know if they could come to study the Bible.  More than 100 others were turned away because we had more students than we could handle. 
          By the third week of January this new project was in full swing.  We have 3 different levels, Beginners, Intermediate, and Advanced classes based on the students' ability to speak English.  Each class gets one hour of Bible study in Malagasy (John Ratovohery is using the book of John to teach who Jesus was and basic salvation), one hour of English conversation (Barry is also teaching the book of John in English, but he is concentrating on all the different roles in which Jesus is portrayed in the book of John in an effort to teach why we need to obey Jesus' words), I (Stacy) am teaching one hour of English grammar to each level using Bible scriptures to teach English grammar.  We have averaged 350 students per week since the beginning.  Even up to last Saturday, we were still turning newcomers away, promising that there would be another new course starting in January of next year when the Rosie family returns to the field after furlough. 
          Conversation on Bible topics has been lively.  Each week, Barry and John have reminded the students that they are available for private Bible studies at the time and place of the student's choosing.  The youth group are busy touching hearts every chance they get by making new friends and inviting folks to the Center.  Several new Bible studies have been scheduled.  Esther Ratovohery teaches a women's Bible class on Saturday afternoons and her attendance has jumped too. 
          We are rejoicing and with our might we are all doing what our hands find to do here in Madagascar.  Please pray for these new students.  Learning English is important to them, but we hope to show them that learning to be in constant communication with the Savior is far more important and far more lasting than English.  Pray for us as God uses us to reach these precious souls.

It was a lovely rest
          The Rosie family along with Korri (Stacy's sister and the children's school teacher) enjoyed 5 days away from the city of Antananarivo.  We saw lemurs in the wild and spent two whole days on the beach soaking in the sun and just resting.  It was a wonderful vacation and we came back rested and raring to take up work again.

Need Bibles
          We've had this particular need for a long long time, but now with 300+ English/Bible students, we are in dire need of 100 Easy-to-Read version of the entire Bible.  The cheaper paperback covered style is sufficient.  I have written to the company that publishes them three times and have not gotten any response.  Can you help us by searching down information on the Easy-to-Read version of the Bible?  I need to know the cost per Bible and I also need to know what shipping costs would be if these Bibles were shipped airmail.  I know this sounds terribly expensive, but we have found that  books shipped surface mail get lost or stolen.  We have never lost any books that have been sent airmail.  If you can track down this information, please write or email us and let us know.  If you can be our hands and feet on that end, we would surely appreciate it.  These Bibles will not be given away, but will be kept at the Center and used for English classes.

Fair Warning
          We would like to say a special thanks to Jenny Evans and to Korri Morsey for so patiently teaching Kit and Havilah Rosie for the last year.  But I'm giving you fair warning now.  We need a teacher for Kit's eighth grade and for Havilah's third grade which will begin in January 2001 just after we return to Madagascar from our furlough.  I'm going to be on my knees in front of you during that furlough, begging everywhere I go, for one kind-hearted soul who is looking for adventure and who would like to return to the field with us for 9 months to a year to teach the miniature missionaries.  If you would like to come, please let us know.  If you know someone who might be interested, please encourage them for us.  And if all you can do is pray, then please pray.  It is the most important thing you can do to see that the miniature missionaries get a good education.