Interview with Lucienne, a pastor’s wife

“Not exactly wheelchair-friendly,” my companion, photographer Mette Corsel, noted tongue-in-cheek. A crude concrete stairway with uneven steps, followed by a steep, rickety wooden ladder, brought us to the second floor of a rectangular two-story building with balconies on both long sides. Originally plastered white, the brown-red dust gave the building a rusty outlook. Here, in Ankadinondry, Madagascar, the red dust permeated everything.

The room we entered on the second floor offered welcome shade and coolness during that hottest hour of the day. When my eyes had adjusted to the dim light inside, I saw a few plastic chairs and a small table standing on a creaky wooden floor. In a corner was a simple lectern.

Here, Pastor Tanjoma and his wife, Lucienne, conduct the Sunday services of the Église Évangélique de Reveil de Madagascar (Evangelical Revival Church of Madagascar).

Pastor Tanjoma and his wife, Lucienne, and their young son outside of their church in Madagascar. “It was really hard to revive the church because it was almost dead when we came here,” she says.

Long dresses

Gloria, Bible League Madagascar’s communications officer, interpreted for me. We sat ourselves at the table for a conversation with Lucienne. She laughed when I asked her how it was to be a pastor’s wife here.

“It’s difficult to put it,” Lucienne answered, “because life in the countryside is not the same as in a town like in Tana. Here, they criticize you in every small detail: the way you dress, the way you live. People here are not really open-minded. Their perspective is that a pastor’s wife must always wear long dresses and things like that.”

To me, Lucienne looked perfectly presentable, although her salmon pink jacket, white shirt, and white pants were quite heavily stained with the inescapable red dust. But that went for us all.

Apart from the criticism, was it hard for you to get started?

“It was really hard to revive the church because it was almost dead when we came here. Before coming here, we used to lead a church in Antsirabe, which is a part of Tana. We didn’t know anyone when we came here, and I just wanted to return to Antsirabe. However, as we were educating the people, they started to open their minds, and it’s a lot better now.”

Lucienne reflects on the difficulties of being a pastor’s wife here.

Can you explain how Bible League’s Project Philip Bible study program has been helping in that?

“When we were still in Antsirabe, we already knew about Project Philip. Just when we were considering how to share God’s Word here, God opened the way for us: we heard that Bible League was coming to Ankadinondry, too!”

Harvest

Lucienne and her husband, Pastor Tanjoma, started gathering people in Bible study groups, which gradually developed into a church. “At first, people were very reluctant about the project,” Lucienne recalled. “They wondered if it wasn’t some sort of freemasonry thing, something I thought myself before I was converted. But we kept praying for our cell group and could see God working, even though the enemy was trying hard to work against us.”

When the first Bible study course was over and the participants had received their Bibles, they kept coming to church. “Project Philip has been so fruitful; the harvest has been amazing,” Lucienne rejoiced, her brown eyes sparkling. “We also received encouraging reports from our students who are now at the university in Tana. They gave us feedback that they are preaching what they’ve learned here, and some of their friends have started to follow Jesus, too.”

Canoe

Tanjoma and Lucienne continued with a second round of Bible studies. They didn’t run it in Ankadinondry this time but in the countryside. “It’s in a rural village, some six miles away,” Lucienne explained.

“It’s a two-hour walk, and you have to cross a river with a canoe. We go there two Sundays a month, and they come here the other Sundays. They come walking all the way—all of them, with their children! We see God’s hand at work through this project. We thank God because He allowed these people to hear the Gospel. What delights me is that we have also planted a church out of this Bible study group!”

Can you share a little bit about yourself and your personal life?

“I am 30 years old,” she replied. “Tanjoma and I have been married for 11 years and have 2 children.” Here, Gloria cried out, “But you look so young!” Lucienne giggled cheerfully and added: “Our firstborn is 10 now and lives with my mother in Antsirabe, where she attends school. The youngest, a boy, stays here with us.”

Dead church

Lucienne was born and bred in Antsirabe, a part of Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar. Her husband originated from the countryside but has lived in Tana most of his life. The two met at a company in Antsirabe, where they worked. They fell in love and married soon. Tanjoma was a believer, but although she belonged to a traditional church, Lucienne wasn’t.

“My husband already wanted to be an evangelist at that time,” she recalled. “Even while we were married, he would go to church, and I would stay home. Sometimes, I asked him to come to my church, but he would say, ‘No, please don’t drag me there!’” When I asked what was so bad about that church, Lucienne bluntly said, “It was a dead church here in Madagascar, and I was a sleeping Christian.”

The Lord has used the couple to revive this local church, which now has 40 members.

Only when Tanjoma expressed his desire to become a pastor did Lucienne wake up spiritually, as she phrased it. “I realized the great need for God’s Word in my life,” she reflected. “I felt God working in me for a long time until I followed Tanjoma to his church. We dedicated our first child, I was baptized, and Tanjoma was ordained as a pastor.”

Call

Their denomination’s leadership asked the couple to take temporary care of a church led by a German pastor who went back to his native country for a while. Upon his return, Tanjoma and Lucienne received the call to move to Ankadinondry and revive the church there.

“Our leader said, ‘There’s no one to take care of the sheep, so go!’” Lucienne recalled. “We obeyed God and came here. That was in 2020. There was nothing, no activity whatsoever. The first year was tough. We were also struggling financially.”

Fixing phones

In the beginning, Tanjoma often went to Antananarivo to work and earn money. Concerned that their dire situation would force them to neglect their ministry, they pleaded with God to help them.

“Tanjoma is a very handy man who can repair things easily, so he started fixing people’s phones while I worked in a hairdresser’s salon nearby,” Lucienne recounted. “The more my husband did that work, the better he got at it. It expanded, and now, we can live by it. The beauty is that we don’t rely on our capacities, but it’s God using our gifts to bless our lives.”

And not only the lives of Lucienne and her husband, for that matter. Under their leadership, the church in Ankadinondry, which had nearly petered out, has grown to a membership of around 40, not counting the new plant in the rural area. The Revival Church has been truly revived under the Lord’s blessings.

After praising the Almighty God, Lucienne added her appreciation for Bible League International and donors like you: “May God bless all of you from the headquarters and everybody around the world. Thank you for surrendering your time and money to serve God and His work. May God expand your work as well.”