Richard & Ruth Jertberg
Missionaries to Madagascar

Baptist Missions to Forgotten Peoples

August 2025

We praise God for the life and ministry that He has given to our family here! When you are where God wants you, you are in the best place in the world (for you)! Live God’s will for your life! And if the parents are in the best place/God’s will (even if it is on a foreign mission field), then the kids are in the best place too. America or somewhere else, if it is not God’s will for us, would not be the best place for our kids and would be detrimental for their well-being. We do not feel sorry that our kids are growing up here –actually, we feel so blessed that they can!
On June 9th (Monday), the church celebrated Pentecost. Here in Madagascar,
Pentecost is a big picnic holiday. The church organized a picnic to the beach, but because the beach is far from where the church people live, we offered transportation to and from the beach. I think the ride in the big red car was a highlight for many! (like the hay rides at fall festivals.) They were talking about how they were going to ride in the car for several weeks leading up to the picnic. The excursion and the van carried about 30 and 20 people per load; and we made 2 trips back and forth each way. Richard and I were driving about 6 hours that day with cars full of excited people and kids singing at the top of their lungs! Everyone enjoyed eating, playing, and having fun together as a healthy family should. That day, sickness hit (actually, it hit on Sunday the day before all the excitement of the picnic). Richard was the first to get it while he was preaching. A low-grade fever, headache, aching joints, a rash… The sickness worked its way through all of us. The thought came to me, “rubella.” I looked it up and found a match for what we were having!
I am so thankful that I am not pregnant as rubella can cause serious problems for a developing baby! Also, Nate had a big staph infection in his foot. Through some diligent natural care, he was able to get better without having to take antibiotics. We are all pretty much recovered now (though I have continued to have sore wrist joints), and our sores and heat rashes are healed. It is hard to work and do things when you are sick (or have sick kids)! Thank you for praying for our health!
The beginning of August, we did an outreach with the church people to the
neighborhood around the church. Every afternoon for a week, from 3-5pm, people from the church went out in groups to share the gospel and invite people to a film. We were able to clearly present the gospel to many people in their homes (Here, people invite you in to sit and listen to what you have to say.). Please pray for conviction and souls to be saved! Saturday night and Sunday night, Richard set up a sheet and projector and showed films and the church leaders gave a gospel message. It was encouraging to see many people in the church faithfully come each day.
As most of you are starting up a new school year, we are just wrapping up ours. Helping older kids with their algebra, physics, research papers, or other subjects, teaching middle kids how to do long division, teaching a 5-year-old how to read, correcting all the subjects, keeping up with two little kids and a baby, and cooking food for everyone is a lot of work! We praise God for letting Rebekah come and help us with schooling and life. She has been a huge blessing that we have all really enjoyed! Even though it is a lot of work, we would choose homeschooling. We enjoy being able to spend time with our kids and teach them, and we like the flexibility that we have with our schedule. Rebekah will be leaving in January along with Matthew who decided to stay and start college in January.
Other things that have been happening: Richard continues to preach every 3rd Sunday; the Bible institute class and our Malagasy classes continue; we finished up a bench building project for the church (It is so nice to sit on benches with a back-rest at church!); Rebekah, Matthew, and Nate biked all the way around the island; Rebekah with the older kids trained for and participated in a 10K run called the “Maki Run;” we spent two nights in tents camping; we went to a parade; and we celebrated Madagascar’s independence day.
Being a parent has been teaching me many things about God. As a mother, I love to watch my kids enjoy life, savor special treats, play with their toys, and have fun. I give them things or do things for them just for them to enjoy – because it brings me joy to see them happy. How about God? I think that God has given gifts to His children just because He likes to see His children enjoy life. We are so blessed to be the children of God!
This week, the four oldest kids – Matthew, Sarah, Nate, and Abby – are at camp. It is near the capital city which is about 36hours away. They took a taxi-brousse (public transportation) and have been having quite an adventure with a police stop because the van didn’t have all its documents in order and several break-downs. But they are having a good time together and going to camp.
The older kids have been taking turns teaching the kids’ class at church. I am so glad that they have this opportunity to serve and teach. With them gone to camp, I am teaching. Last Sunday, I taught without a translator! I love to teach and talk to people, but I don’t love to not have the words in Malagasy to communicate! Please pray for our continued growth and studies in this language!
We celebrated Richard’s, Hadassah’s, and Moriah’s birthdays and will celebrate Jeremiah’s one-year-old birthday this week. Jeremiah is growing and learning so quickly! He started walking a month and a half ago; he has 8 teeth; he loves to eat; he likes to play in the dirt and sand and play with cars; he is a pro at climbing the stairs; and he has already hit 25 lbs. We love our chubby buddy.
Construction continues. Currently, they are working on retaining walls. God led us to work with a man who seems to be very knowledgeable and on-top of his job and is good at organizing his team and getting things done. We are very thankful to be working with him (and I think he is happy to be working with us. The other day, he miscalculated in our favor the amount of money that he was supposed to be paid. When Richard gave him the right amount, he said that other people would have just kept the extra money). Please continue to pray for the work and also for the salvation of the workers. We were able to share the gospel with them and introduce our family.
In the last letter, we mentioned that we were thinking about coming back on furlough at the end of this year, we are looking at pushing that date back by several months. We would like to finish the building project and house (and hopefully get out of our rental house) before heading back for furlough. Thank you for praying with us for wisdom in this.

In the service of the King,
Richard, Ruth, Matthew, Sarah, Nate, Abby, Kezia, Hadassah, Moriah, Grace, Jeremiah

Prayer Requests:

• Preaching, teaching, and classes
  would be well understood
• People would be saved
• People would grow
• Kids in school: good attitudes,
  understanding
• We would learn this Malagasy
• Health, strength, and protection
• Kids traveling from camp
• A new location for English class
  and Bible study
• Honest and good workers
• Construction
  Praises:
• The privilege to serve God here
• Health and strength and healing
• Rebekah here helping us
• Good overseer for construction

Areas to Pray For:
(Each one of these is so important!)

• We would stay close to God in our
  private fellowship with Him.
• God to send more laborers for the
  harvest. There is so much to do here,
  and we can’t do it all.
• Good communication skills (both in
  language acquisition and the way
  things are said).
• Souls to be saved. Boldness in going.
• Wisdom and the leading of the Holy
  Spirit in all areas of life: ministry,
  parenting, planning, etc.
• Diligence and good time management.
• Protection.
• For physical health and strength.
• Finances.
• Things not to break (It is difficult to
  prepare lessons and messages when
  your computer is not able to connect to
  the internet. It is difficult to do
  business and life with a broken phone.
  [These both happened recently.] It is
  hard when the car doesn’t work or the
  solar panels don’t work or the washer
  doesn’t work or the stove doesn’t
  work; and the list can go on and on!).