Julian Hardyman has ended his ministry as pastor of Eden Baptist Church in Cambridge and is heading unexpectedly to Madagascar.
He had become Associate Pastor in 1996 and then Senior Pastor in 2002. To their surprise, Julian and wife Debbie (see photo) discovered the Lord was calling them in a sudden and dramatic way in a single weekend in September 2021 to leave Eden and Cambridge, to serve as missionaries in Northern Madagascar. The church joined in the discernment process and so their pastor and his wife will become Eden Mission Partners and members of evangelical mission organisation SIM.
They will be working at the Good News Hospital, Mandritsara, a remote market town and regional centre of 20,000 people. The hospital and its wider project, in close collaboration with the local Bible Baptist Churches, serves a population of 300,000 people, most of them living on less than £2 a day, in an area the size of Yorkshire.
Debbie has been asked to set up and run a much-needed dental clinic. Over the last 30 years, over 60 Baptist churches have been planted in villages around the region. Julian will be involved in teaching, training and supporting the leaders of these churches, working under a Malagasy leader. Julian and Debbie have been asked to join the Community Health Team as it travels to villages, some of them very remote, for front-line health care, dental education and pioneer evangelism.
They hope to fly out to Madagascar in April. There will be a Commissioning Service at Eden on Saturday 22 April at 2.30pm to which all are welcome.
