In the years following World War I, a native of Madagascar who had served in the French army returned home. While living in Antananarivo, he met a friend, André Rasamoelina, a public-school teacher. The former soldier carried with him a small but remarkable book—an English copy of Steps to Christ by Ellen G. White.
The book itself had traveled far. It had been passed from an American soldier to a French soldier and finally to this Malagasy veteran. During the war, Adventists had distributed special Army and Navy editions of Steps to Christ among soldiers in military camps. Unknown to those who shared it, this little book would become the seed of the Seventh-day Adventist work in Madagascar.
When Rasamoelina read Steps to Christ in 1919, he was deeply moved. He later called it the most wonderful book he had ever read. Convinced that others needed access to its message, he immediately began translating it into Malagasy. With encouragement and financial promises from friends, he completed the translation in the spring of 1921.
Around that time, while traveling by train between Tamatave and Antananarivo, André met a young man named Tuyau, who had just returned from Mauritius. There, Tuyau had attended evangelistic meetings led by Paul Badaut, a Seventh-day Adventist missionary. Before parting, Tuyau gave André a leaflet with the address of the Adventist mission headquarters in Mauritius.
André soon wrote to Badaut requesting literature. When the materials arrived, he made a striking discovery: Steps to Christ was published by the Seventh-day Adventists. This led him to write to the General Conference Home Missionary Department in Takoma Park, Maryland, asking for more literature.
In 1922, church leaders recognized the growing interest in Madagascar and asked Marius Raspal, a missionary serving in Mauritius, to visit the island. André later recalled meeting Raspal unexpectedly after being told, “A European is looking for you at the Hôtel de France.” Raspal stayed with André’s family for 12 days, during which they studied the Bible earnestly. The message, especially the third angel’s message, took deep root in André’s heart.
Raspal returned in 1924, and the Malagasy manuscript of Steps to Christ was finally printed. On June 22, 1925, it appeared under the title Ny Dia Ho eo Amin’i Kristy. The following year, after months of missionary labor, Raspal dedicated the first Seventh-day Adventist church in Antananarivo—marking the beginning of an enduring work born from one small book.1
Denis Kaiser is an associate professor of church history at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary at Andrews University.