Some Adventist pot sellers traveled from village to village across northern Madagascar. One Friday afternoon they arrived at a village and asked someone whether there was an Adventist church in the village. “No,” the person replied.
“Does anyone in this village worship on Saturday?” they asked.
“Yes,” the villager answered. “They meet in a house just up this road.” The pot sellers followed the villager’s directions and found a house with a sign that read, “The Seventh-day Keeping Church.”
The pot sellers knocked on the door and were welcomed into a room crowded with 50 people who had gathered for a worship service. The members squeezed together to make room for their visitors, and the service resumed. Soon the pot sellers realized that the worship service looked and sounded like an Adventist meeting. But who were these people?
When the meeting ended, the visitors asked the worshipers where they had learned to worship as they did. “We are Christians,” the leader explained. We listen to a radio program that teaches the Bible clearly, and we now keep the Bible Sabbath and prepare for Jesus’ soon coming ”
“What is the name of the radio station you listen to?” the pot sellers asked. The answer came back, Adventist World Radio. The leader explained that the believers knew that the radio station was owned by Seventh-day Adventists, but they hesitated to use that name until they learned what they must do to become Seventh-day Adventist members.
The pot sellers told the congregation that they were Seventh-day Adventists and promised to notify the district pastor of this new congregation.
When the district pastor learned of the group meeting on the mountainside, he arranged to hold meetings and organize a new company of believers. A woman donated land for a church, and today the believers in Andravinambo worship as Seventh-day Adventists. A lay pastor continues teaching them and encouraging them to share their faith with others in their region.
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-From the Seventh Day Adventist Quarterly, week of August 13, 2010.
