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We visited a Women's development center at the Graduate Seminary in Fianarantsoa,
Madagascar (South of the center of the country). Dr. Mariette Razivelo, who
visited Rocky Mountain in the mid '90s has been involved in helping the women
there develop skills to help support their families while their husbands are
students at the seminary and to learn to assist with ministry when their student
husbands become pastors. (This involves theological education for the pastors'
spouses.) Dr. Mariette teaches the women to sew and cook and also teaches their
husbands New Testament. The women had lemur puppets and stuffed chameleons for
sale to raise money.
Dr. Mariette is pictured at right, in the
middle with the white shawl or "Lamba". Chameleons are in the front.)
Mariette was one of the first 4 women to attend seminary in Madagascar in the
'70s
But as the Malagasy Lutheran Church does not yet ordain women,
she cannot be one of the pastors. However, she can be their professor!
Women are very proud to be a part of the Women's organization of
the Malagasy Lutheran Church. Each organization has a different color of
skirt to identify what region they are from. We had lunch with some Lutheran
Women in the south who wore purple skirts.  The
women who picked us up at the airport wore white, etc. Their churchwide women's
convention in 2001 drew nearly 7200 women. (Madagascar has about 14 Million
people. The Malagasy Lutheran Church has about 1.2 million members.) We could
learn something from these women.
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