Melias was building things for a living in Madagascar, a construction engineer with a steady trade and, by his own account, no particular expectation that God would interrupt him. In 2013, at twenty-one, God did.
It was not dramatic thunder. It was quieter and harder to argue with. "The Holy Spirit convinced my heart that the Bible is true," Melias said. "I found new joy and excitement learning about Jesus through the Scriptures." The book he might have dismissed became the most alive thing in his life.
From building houses to building the church He could have kept his new faith as a private comfort and gone on with engineering. Instead he gave it everything. In 2015 he trained for six months as a missionary, and since then he has planted churches and discipled new believers among the Tanala people in Ikongo and the Sakalava in Nosy Be, some of the least reached corners of the island. Now he is training three more Malagasy missionaries to do the same.
Madagascar is not a footnote in what God is doing. He is raising up local people like Melias, engineers and tradesmen and ordinary workers, and sending them to their own unreached neighbours.
When the Holy Spirit convinces your heart that this is all true, it does not stay a hobby. It becomes the thing you build your life around. He is ready to convince yours.
