The yellow sun bleated over the great city of Madagascar. Cars and busses whizzed around the small, two-lane asphalt streets as pedestrians wandered the many nooks and crannies of the crowded metropolis. From the viewing platforms of Lake Anosy, beyond the imposing copper statue of Miss Marie-Laure stood the Rova of Antananarivo; a place where Philosopher King Damien Ngolo had spent almost thirty years of his living, breathing life inside of, ruling the nation with a soft, gentle hand from the top floor of his palace of glass and stone. The compound stretched for several hundred meters, where it held the personal home once inhabited by Ngolo and many antediluvian monarchs, several religious buildings such as the Fiangonana chapel and the two tombs of King Radama and Queen Rashoherina, along with the Beskana and Tranovola, the latter which had been converted into the Antananarivo Filozofia meetinghouse from the Malagasy Academy.

But the Rova compound was visibly less active in recent months, as the lights of the Manampisoa of the Philosopher King had not been illuminating the sky for longer than any Malagasy citizen could remember; and the top floor of the Manjakamiadana was seldom seen to have anybody within it, indicating that the place where Ngolo had spent most of his days was largely forgotten by the new, temporary administration.

But the politics of Madagascar did not worry the members of the Lumpa church, so long as freedom of religion was permitted and taxes were merely optional. Every Sunday men and women from across Antananarivo would congregate at the trio of Lumpa churches — two of which were simply one-room chapels that could only hold a few hundred at most — to pray and worship their Lord. The born-again sect of Protestantism had grown rapidly throughout the more pious community of Madagascar, as the political divide between so-called ancestor worship and Abrahamic religion had grown larger and larger as the administration continued to take no measures against witchcraft and paganism within the more rural, undeveloped areas of Madagascar, which, as many believed was a sign of degradation of Malagasy culture that had been developing since the arrival of the Catholic Church.

The Northern Antananarivo “Our Mother Lenshina” Lumpa Church was just concluding sundown ceremonies when a large, beardless man wearing a camouflage uniform and muddy black leather military boots, along with a red beret with a tarnished golden zebu pin. He calmly waited as the pastor met with the several other officiates of the church; sun rays slamming down on his eyes to no effect, as his eyes were used to the bright floodlights that turned the dark central Malagasy rainforest into a radiant training ground. The time finally came when the sun climbed over the mountains and into the sea, where darkness took its place. The uniformed man finally approached the pastor and asked to convene with him privately, to which the old religious man agreed. They went to the backrooms, which acted as the office of the pastor when he was not preaching; the room’s walls were painted a dark shade of red, and a single, naked lightbulb hung from the tall ceiling. The two men found their seats at a built-in wooden table that connected to the wall with long windows looking out to the back garden where many churchgoers convened after sermon. After the two men were comfortable in their small wooden seats, the camouflaged Sakalavan began to speak,

“Father, I have done much searching in the past months. I had promised my boys that I would be back by Christmas, but I still find myself here even in the new year. My soul does not seem to be at peace like it has in the past, and I believe it is because something is changing witin my soul.”

The pastor nodded solemnly and responded,

“So, you come to seek salvation?”

The Sakalavan nodded slightly, but did so with cautiousness,

“I am already a devout Christian. I pray daily, go to church, and the only sin I can admit to is gambling.”

The pastor nodded once more,

“So you seek to begin a new life as a Lumpa?”

“Is this what you think is best?”

The pastor leaned forward in his chair, carefully positioning his elbows on the table,

“Christ brought you here, my child.”

General Ravony nodded,

“So He did.”

[General Adam Ravony, leader of the Sakalavan People's Militia is now a convert of the Lumpa Church.]