Some thoughts for the Indian Church

Recommendations for Malankara Orthodox Church Social and Humanitarian Action(MOCSHA)

1) Identity in Rural India:

Rural India

What Gandhiji said long ago is so true even today - India lives in its villages. As the Indian Orthodox Church, we must make our identity known in rural India and MOCSHA can be a great vehicle to make this happen. We must move on from being a Malayalee Church (club) to being the true Bride of Christ in India. We may be humble in our numbers, that is ok, but just like the poor widow's offering, our service must be sincere and must contribute to the welfare of India and the society.

Christ's love beyond boundaries

2) True Vision of Christ to Indians:

Many Western missionaries think India is a land of evil spirits and dark powers. They cannot understand the undercurrent of love and spiritual richness that flows in India through all her religions and cultures. Hence, even when they preach Christ, they knowingly or unknowingly spread communalism and hate
and hence end up mutilating the witness of Christ. As the Church of India, we need to be able to give the right vision of Christ to India - the vision of Christ as the true friend of the poor, the lonely and outcasts. We are not looking for additions to a club, we are looking for sharing the love of Christ - that message must be prominent. That was Osthathios Thirumeni's message and that is what made many follow His ways and through him, follow the ways of Christ.

3) Sharing parish level activities information

- a Model for collaboration between Sunday Schools and Institutions

Since this(sharing info) is one of the aims of MOSCHA, I wanted to share one thing we have tried to do, here in Albany, but have been very unsuccessful so far. We are a very small group - only about 15 members. We have a Sunday School of about 8 students. We tried to connect our children here in Albany to a couple
of unique children named Sachu and Sneha from St. Thomas Ashram in Attapadi in Kerala. (Please read about Sachu and Sneha, their predicaments, their treatment, progress etc in the archives of ICON,maybe this link can be a good starting point for someone new:Sachu and Sneha.)

A project connecting Albany Sunday School with Attapadi

We wanted to make the 8 students in Albany friends of Sachu and Sneha. The plan was to create a platform for the kids here to communicate with Sachu and Sneha in India in different ways and the hope was that as time passed, the friendship would take a life of its own. Accordingly we showed the kids here videos of Sachu and Sneha's life there, we sent Christmas greetings and paintings of kids here to Attapadi etc. This went on for a couple years I think and interest has tapered off lately, but I am sure the spark can be re-ignited again in future for example by a visit to Attapadi on vacation by one of the kids etc. In short this can be a long term thing.

But I think this is a good model for larger Churches to adopt. Kids do not have money to give, but they have the yearning to love and share. If parish Sunday schools can be connected with some such institutions through MOCSHA for the longer term and the kids are made to grow with the institutions, they will
hopefully develop a relationship with the institutions for life. Thus if MOSCHA can facilitate some of the Sunday Schools to "adopt" some of our institutions, I think it will be a win win situation.

Src:ICON