Manali Missives, October, 2015 Meanderings Down Memory Lane

Manali Missives October 2015

Meanderings Down Memory Lane

Time travel is a concept that has been popular for a long time with the "Back to the future" movies, the books "The time traveller's wife" and the "Outlander" series and many other books and movies. I (Lena), have also done some time travelling during this our last month in India. David joined me in my travels to Tamil Nadu, back to my schooldays in Kodaikanal and the place of my birth 60 years ago - Thiruppathur. The reason for going was not only to share some very memorable childhood places with my husband, but also a quest to try and obtain my birth certificate. For 60 years I have lived with a lie, knowing full well that my birthplace is not Västerled, in Stockholm, as stated in my passport, but an obscure little village in the South of India.

Although I finished my work officially on the 30th of September, I doubted that my patients and also some of the staff here would understand why I suddenly could not work, so David and I decided to take the trip down to South India.

After travelling for 40 hours nonstop, by bus, metro, plane, train and taxi, we finally arrived at the hill station of Kodaikanal. The bus trip up the hill brought back so many childhood memories for me. As a child, my sisters and I with our parents, would travel by train from Nagpur to Central station in Chennai, take a taxi to Egmore station for the last overnight train trip to Kodaikanal road where we would get on this same bus. David and I were happy to see a quote from Ps. 121:8 on a plaque behind the bus driver. The climb is over more than 2000 metres and the roadside is scattered with Lantana bushes and coffee and banana plantations. The beautiful waterfall named Silver cascade was renamed in Swedish to "Tanternas tårar" (The tears of the women) in anticipation of all the tears that would be shed as parents left their children for 4-5 months at the boarding school. 

David and I had breakfast at "Cloud street", named after the book by Tim Winton, a nice little restaurant very close to the bus stand.

In the afternoon we went for a walk around the lake, luckily we took our umbrellas as suggested by the hotel staff, as it started raining quite heavily. As a child I have crossed the lake, rowed on it and walked and run around it many, many times. Things have changed quite a bit, there are now lots of little shops near the boat house and the park, but some things are unchanged. The house where Mrs Gomperts taught us English is still there, now turned into a shop. I was able to go inside, into the room where I was introduced to Jack and Jill and "the owl and the pussycat went to sea..." etc. I missed the piece of home made peanut brittle that we always received after our lesson!

Other memories were not so happy, once on our Sunday afternoon row we came across a woman who had drowned herself and her 2 children in the lake. It was rumored that her husband abused her to the extent that she could not even face leaving her children in his care. Some things we see really get imprinted on our retina!

The circuit of the lake was almost completed when we veered off up the hill a bit to have a look at KIS. Here also were many small stalls selling spices, eucalyptus oil and homemade chocolates. And suddenly there it was, just as I remembered it, Highclerc, the American school and I was transported back in time, tears welled up in my eyes as memories flooded over me. The gates still had the old name on it and behind them the beautiful church built in stone in the Norman style. 

Highclerc school was opened in July 1901, started by Mrs Margaret Eddy whose son Sherwood was a missionary in India. In 1972 Highclerc was renamed Kodaikanal International School (KIS) and became the first international school in India.

The Swedish school where I and my sisters studied was situated just next to Highclerc, today there is nothing left of its buildings, the grounds have been taken over by KIS. 

The Swedish school was moved into a new building in an area known as the Swedish settlement. Here the Swedish Church missionaries who worked on the plains in South India would retire during the hottest season. The Swedish church is still there, now handed over to the Tamil Lutheran church. My older sister was baptized and confirmed in this church and we had many "skolavslutningar" (end of school year celebrations) here. 

Albs from previous bishops of Tranquebar (some of them Swedish) are still hanging in the closet. There is also an old Swedish bible kept in the church. Next to the church is "Nordhem", the church hall which housed the Swedish library. This is where we had church coffee and celebrated some of the Swedish festivals. The 6th of June, which now is the Swedish national day, was then celebrated as Swedish flag day. As most of the missionaries would have gone back to the plains and the school would have started by the time of Midsummer day, this very Swedish celebration with dancing around the Midsummer pole, was incorporated in our 6th of June celebrations.

Nordhem is still there, well looked after with the original name on the gate even if it is now used by the local council.

We visited some of the regular tourist sites in Kodaikanal, places I went too as a child. Pillar rocks, which are unchanged, and Coaker's walk with a beautiful view over the plains with Vaigai dam and Periyakulam, and many other places. There were some emotional moments, with very precious flashbacks.

Next stop on our journey was Madurai, a city built around 300 BC, housing amongst other buildings a large temple devoted to Menakshi (one of Shiva's wives) and the Thirumalai Nayak Palace built in1636. It also has 3 major bus stands which is a bit confusing for visitors who arrive by bus. We found our hotel and arranged for a taxi to take us to the small town of Thiruppathur on the following day. God is so good! Our driver was proficient in English and of course spoke fluent Tamil so he acted as a translator and guide as well as driver. The drive went through the beautiful South Indian countryside with paddy fields and palm trees. The Swedish Mission Hospital was not difficult to find and it was a treat to walk around it. There was the maternity ward with the name of the Swedish doctor, Dr Helena Eriksson, who did the Caesarean section to deliver me. The operating theatre is still there, same building, but recently renovated. I remembered some iron gates from the time of my younger sister's birth; amazingly they are still there. My forehead had a very close encounter with those gates; I still have the scar to prove it! 

After a short tour of the hospital we headed off to the Registry office, which funnily was just next to the hospital under a great banyan tree. 1 1/2 hours later and Rs 312 (Aus $ 6.50) poorer I had my birth certificate in my hand! What a fabulous feeling! 

The day after I celebrated my 60th birthday and the hotel staff all enjoyed having some birthday cake.

We had booked and payed for train tickets up to Vellore but were still on the waiting list on the morning of the day we were to travel. David cancelled the train tickets and we travelled by bus instead. The bus appeared to be full too as there was a lot of commotion after we had boarded. Some passengers had no seats! It was an interesting experience as we left an hour late and travelled through the night.

The town of Vellore has an old fort which was used by the British during their time, it also has a newly built golden temple but what interested me is the amazing hospital that was started by Dr Ida Scudder in 1902. In an earlier missive I have written about her and how her life story impacted me. Now I was here in Vellore for the first time.

Dr Ida Scudder's story is truly inspiring; her parents were missionaries so she grew up near Vellore. As a teenager she attended school in the U.S. and struggled with childhood memories of famine and disease. However when she returned to India to care for her sick mother she had 3 men visit her in the one night asking for help with their wives' childbirths. Ida encouraged them to see her father, the doctor, but none of the men would accept a male doctor. The 3 women all died and Ida determined to return to the U.S. to study medicine in view of becoming a medical missionary to women.

Auntie Ida, as she was known by the people in Vellore, started a nursing school and later a medical training college for women. Today the Christian medical college in Vellore is known for its excellence in medical care and training all over India. Truly an amazing woman of God!

David and I enjoyed being taken around the hospital, worshipping at St John's church in the fort area and meeting old friends and gaining some new ones. The hospital at Vellore is also investing a lot of energy in solar power and solid waste management which David was very interested in.

After 10 intensive and interesting days in Tamil Nadu David and I returned to Manali to prepare for the visit of Australian friends. Ross and Lesley arrived in time for a Buddhist wedding celebration after a flying visit to the castle in Nagger. We also went on a lovely church picnic and a visit to the Solang valley (ski valley).

One week ago we dropped them off in Chandigarh and continued on to Amritsar for a farewell. Just outside of Jalandhar we encountered a long queue of trucks, not an unknown feature of Punjab. Three roadblocks and several diversions later we were defeated and returned to Jalandhar and a hotel. Thank God for Google maps; without them we would have been totally lost.

I returned to Manali last Wednesday, David came back on Saturday morning after attending his book launch in Delhi, both of us a bit worse for wear.

This I hope will conclude our travelling here in India for a while apart from the last drive to New Delhi before we board our plane back to Sydney, Australia.

These last 2 years have been so rich - in experiences, travelling, friendship, love, exhaustion, hard work and bewilderment in many ways. We have encountered the unknown in many areas - medically, culturally, linguistically and geographically.

We would not have had it any other way(apart from enjoying it for a longer period of time); we have been so blessed and enriched by these 2 years. To God be the Glory!

Lena Reichardt

Manali Missives, August, 2015 The Road & The Way

Manali Missives, August 2015 

The Road & The Way

“The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.” JRR Tolkien

Road songs, stories and movies are popular artistic genres. They plug into ancient traditions of pilgrimage that are being revived, including by many who will walk to Paris in the lead-up to COP 21/CMP 11, the Climate Change Conference due in November this year. Many religions include traditions of pilgrimage. Muslims have their Hajj, the journey to Mecca. Hindus have their Maha Kumbh Yatra, in which the largest gathering of humanity converges every 12 years on the ironically named Allahabad, at the junction of the Yamuna, Ganga and the mythical Saraswati rivers. And the Jews had their Exodus, which led to the annual pilgrimage to the passover festival in Jerusalem. “Se vi går upp till Jerusalem” goes the classic Swedish lenten hymn, describing how that Jewish custom was adopted by Christianity. When Islam prevented medieval Christians from reaching Jerusalem they not only tried to win back the holy city; they also developed new pilgrimages. Spain has its famous Camino de Santiago, the Way of St James. In northern Europe St Olav’s Way crosses Scandinavia to Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, on Norway’s west coast. Lena and I have walked a small part of that ancient “pilgrimsled”. And for those who could not manage to walk even these pilgrimages - remembering that these were times when few people travelled - churches adapted the labyrinth, a path that led into the centre of a circle whose diameter was only some metres across, then back out again. The example at Chartres Cathedral, in France, is famous.

The gospels are really road stories sandwiched by birth and passion narratives. The first time we meet Jesus after His birth is when his parents realise that he hasn’t accompanied them on the return journey to Nazareth after the annual passover pilgrimage, but has remained in Jerusalem. His years of ministry were one long road journey, skirting increasing danger until He was ready to walk into it, head on, eyes wide open. Facing, and facing down danger is part of the genius of road stories. Apart, perhaps, from the Gospels themselves Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” is the most terrifying book I’ve ever read. Set in post-apocalyptic America it depicts the flight of a father and son to relative safety through a grim landscape that is no longer able to produce food, and peopled by desperate humans whose survival instinct has overridden their sense of morality. Tolkien, too, was a master at weaving danger with fellowship into his narratives. Here is another version of “The Road goes ever on”:

“Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star,
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
And trees and hills they long have known.”

I’m pondering this particular theme because Lena and I have both been on the road, and we’ll soon be on it again. Our 8 weeks in Australia were wonderful from one point of view, but deeply disturbing from another. We attended our niece Bron Reichardt Chu's wedding, stayed the whole time with my generous parents, spent quality time with our adult children, our son-in-law, his family, and with my brothers and their wives, caught up with various friends and colleagues, and had days off in the Bed and Breakfast my schoolfriend Sue Handley runs in Katoomba. We presented our project a number of times in Sydney, country NSW and Melbourne.

I also spent a week literally “on the road” - on a tour of the Darling Basin organised by Uniting Church people to help church leadership and city slickers such as myself to understand, appreciate and support both people living in the Murray-Darling Basin, the context I studied in my PhD thesis, and of course to do this for the Basin itself. So I was able to present copies of my book "Release the River!" to people on that tour from 6 of the 8 Uniting Church congregations I'd visited a decade before when I did my field study. Back in Sydney my supervisor, Dean Drayton, launched my book. For an academic tome sales have been satisfying: I'm well on my way to covering costs.

But overshadowing all of this was the rejection by the Indian authorities of our applications for new employment visas. I have been granted a 6 month tourist visa and Lena a very curtailed employment visa that allows her to continue to work in the Manali Hospital until the end of September. She must have left India by November 4. These decisions took the relevant Indian authorities several weeks to make and communicate with us, which was of course deeply unsettling. We wondered what had gone wrong, and whether we could have done things differently.

However, when we discovered that many other similar visa applications were also being curtailed or rejected we realised that this was not about us; the still fairly new government has changed policy towards granting visas to foreigners working in NGOs. Upon realising this, a number of us in this situation, and our friends and family, were indignant.

“You’re doing such great work!” people said. “Why would they (the ubiquitous, amorphous “they” denoting the authorities!) want to prevent you from continuing it?”

I’ve come to a different view. To explain it will take a longer than normal blog entry, and an exploration of  how people of “The Way”, Christianity, relate to people of India’s dominant faith, Hinduism. “They” are BJP, the Bharatiya Janata Party, currently the popularly elected government of the world’s largest democracy. It is no secret that the BJP stands for a Hindu India. One of the current ironies in a number of countries is that political parties that represent  particular religious perspectives are using the mechanisms of secular democracy, introduced to the world by the West, to promote their own religious, anti-secular agendas. We are dismayed because that’s happening here in India and in several middle eastern majority Muslim countries, and because it may happen in Pakistan, Indonesia and elsewhere. But every time Fred Nile or Corey Bernardi in Australia, or the Republican Tea Party in the US, all of them representing conservative, supremacist Christian constituencies, use political processes to try to achieve outcomes favourable to their understandings of the Christian faith, they are doing the same thing.

Currently there is much anxiety in India as to the BJP’s ultimate intentions. If they really want an India that is Hindu, what will that mean for India’s many, numerous minorities? Did the Prime Minister reveal his hand when, while Premier of the state of Gujarat in 1990, a slaughter of Muslims occurred that many believe he at least tacitly supported? Does the sudden refusal to issue visas to those such as ourselves who previously received them promptly signal that a time of difficulty for India’s Christian minority is now at hand?

I certainly hope and pray that Mr Modi has learnt from the experience of 1990, and that India’s minorities will not be subjected to persecution. Yet a cursory reading of India’s long history may be helpful. The sub-continent has been subjected to Muslim invasions for well over 1,000 years. Some estimate that during this period 70 to 80 million Indians were killed, making the Muslim invasions of India the greatest slaughter ever perpetrated. For evidence, or at least allegations, of Muslim ferocity visit the museum in the Sikh Golden Temple, in Amritsar. While European invaders, and particularly, of course, the British, did not match the Muslims in extended ferocity they were far more effective than them. At its height the British Raj extended from Afghanistan to Burma. And, particularly during the “Mutiny” of 1857 and the slaughter of 1,000 civilians in Amritsar’s Jallianwala Bagh in 1919 the British showed they could be ferocious too. India, at one time or an other the richest, most advanced culture in the world, but was reduced to poverty.

I would find it difficult to disagree if devout, nationalistic Hindus argued that followers of these invading Abrahamic religions had wrecked Bharat, and that they (the Hindus) are determined to restore it to its former glory. I would find it particularly difficult because parts of the Indian Church still look as though they are living in the shell of the colonial era, and parts are still corrupt. The specific issues differ, but like the western Church the church in India carries much baggage. I have spoken with Indian Christians who would welcome a governmental crackdown on the Indian Church’s accounting procedures and the ways in which it uses money that comes from abroad, and who argue that the Indian Church needs to be both independent of its ties to the western Church, and scrupulous in its financial dealings and its governance. One friend welcomed the news of our departure for these reasons! In principle I agree with him. If local people do not wish to continue the environmental impetus I’ve introduced it’s not for me to tell them how they should live their lives. Nor is it for western volunteers like Lena to supplement a local hospital’s care until all needs are met.

On the other hand, I think the Hindu supremacist argument that India is Hindu, and other religions and cultures are invalid, unwanted interlopers is a convenient re-reading of history. Christianity, at least, is not a recent, unwanted, European intrusion to India. There is good evidence that the apostle Thomas brought it, peacefully, to the southern regions of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. In any case, Christianity was well-established in southern India towards 2,000 years ago, part of its under-documented expansion eastwards from its beginnings in west Asia. It may be that it became established in India at the same time as or even before it did so in Britain. Although parts of the Indian church still look European, others have well and truly indigenized, just as Hinduism has changed and been changed by the incursions of other peoples and religions into India well before Islam, and even, dare I suggest it, by its contact with Christianity. Mahatma Gandhi’s close relationship with the British missionary Charlie Andrews is evidence for that.

Secondly, it seems to me that Hindus are liable to contradict their arguments against Christian evangelism by their own actions. If I’m to broach this sensitive subject it’s important to be clear about what I mean and don’t mean by evangelism. By evangelism I do mean living my life in a way that is consistent with my Christian faith, that is, by loving God and loving my neighbour. I also mean discussing my Christian faith, and explaining its “what” (content) and “why” (reasons for that content) according to the normal conventions of conversation. I also think that discussion and explanation can take place in larger groups of people, such as preaching in churches, meetings outside of churches and by writing, so long as no pressure is placed on people to conform.

By evangelism I do not mean placing emotional or moral pressure on people to convert to Christianity. Nor to I mean offering financial and other inducements to do so. I certainly do not condone the use or threat of force, or of trickery to force or fool people into converting. Recently a friend in Australia reported that a Muslim praised him for his facility in languages, then asked him to repeat a formula in Arabic. When he did so the Muslim told him that he had just acknowledged Allah to be the only god and Mohammed to be his prophet, and that therefore he was now a Muslim! A long time ago I stumbled into a Hindu temple, whereupon a priest rushed at me, daubed my forehead and demanded money. I had apparently just performed puja to the temple’s god. Both these acts of evangelism were cheating in my book!

Christianity has long, honourable traditions of caring for and healing the sick, and of teaching. These have found expression in India in hospitals and schools. Typically, the campus on which we have lived for the past 2 years contains a church, a school and a hospital. Granted, these institutions provide splendid contexts for evangelism. At their best, help and care is offered by them with no strings attached; at their worst. indoctrination becomes an ugly parody of evangelism. So, to hear the District Commissioner, the top government official of Kullu District, praising our hospital in a meeting of NGOs some months ago; and a senior Muslim, graduate and now parent of a student at a Christian school in Srinagar, Kashmir do the same for the school last year, indicated to me that despite and perhaps because of their British origins such institutions have made positive contributions to the life of India. I think the focus on education is one of the best things I’ve observed about modern India. It would be “cutting off one’s nose to spite ones face” to force Christian-run schools and hospitals to close, or to disadvantage them, for ideological or religious reasons.

Besides, since Mr Modi praised the UAE’s decision to reserve land for a Hindu temple in Abu Dhabi recently he would open himself to charges of hypocrisy if he refused to allow Christian churches to build places of worship and service in India. Since the 1970s Hinduism has made significant incursions into the West. Not only the Californian-inspired Hari Krishna movement, but the increasing multitude of migrants from India and its diaspora have brought with them various expressions of Hinduism. Having been afforded by Empire many opportunities to bring Christianity to India the Churches cannot now fairly deny this. But neither, I suggest, can the Indian government fairly deny the Churches the opportunity to continue to do good in India.

But they can deny it. So in October we'll take a holiday and celebrate Lena's 60th birthday but, grieving, we'll  pack up and farewell people in Manali and around north-western India whom we've learnt to love over the past 2 years. Never have I thought that it was possible to fall so passionately in love with so many people at one time! We hope that Indians will take up what we've initiated. Our project feels cut off before it had matured. But I believe that God will mature it in the way God wants to, and bring good from what is presently heartache. We intend to return when we can. To our Australian friends, God willing we'll be back in Oz, re-establishing our lives in early November. Lena has already accepted a job offer in the practice she previously worked at, and I've re-submitted my CV, and have already had several preliminary discussions. We’re on the road again!

Grace and peace,

David & Lena Reichardt

Manali Missives, June, 2015 You know it’s Summer in Manali

Manali Missives, June, 2015

You know it’s Summer in Manali

It’s summer in Manali!

You can tell that because the snow has retreated to the surrounding mountain peaks. 

You can tell it because the tourists who’ve made the trek in small cars, large SUVs and Volvo buses from the plains of India are shivering in the early morning cool. Having achieved their goal, escape from the dreadful heat, they had no idea it was going to be like this!

You can tell because up in old Manali Russian and Israeli tourists are out in force, and an occasional, opportunistic Indian offers best quality marijhuana. 

It’s summer in Manali!

You can tell that because it’s difficult to press your way through the throng from one end of the mall to the other, and there are queues at all the ATMs.

You can tell it because “Aloo (potato) ground”, one of the few areas of flat land for miles around, has become a gigantic bus park. (In a flash flood it would become a bus jam!) 

You can tell because some weeks after the tourist vehicles started appearing in numbers, the local Main Roads Department decided to re-asphalt the entire, 1½ lane wide road to Old Manali.

It’s summer in Manali!

You can tell that because several kilometres past the end of the new asphalt, across the military bridge to Old Manali and along the roughest little stretch of 4 wheel drive track in a built up area I’ve negotiated in my life La Plage, the indianized French restaurant with fascinating food, fine Indian wine and gorgeous views, has opened for its annual 3 month stint.

You can tell it because the church on the hospital compound has been in daily use for the past two weeks as an Indian Christian agency trains its workers.

You can tell because numbers of Americans arrive early each morning for hospital devotions and take over much of the bench space in Outpatients!

It’s summer in Manali!

You can tell that because there is talk in the hospital about holding medical camps in Lahaul and Spiti, and that means that Rohtang Pass, which you must cross to reach them, is now open.

You can tell it because a list of visiting specialists is coming to participate in these medical camps.

You can tell because meanwhile, back in town, beggars, shoeshiners, and vendors of balloons, fairy floss, sunglasses, cross stitch, instantly painted plaques commemorating your visit, roasted corn on the cob, assorted nuts and all manner of other “must haves” are plying their trades. 

It’s summer in Manali!

You can tell that because the garden at Johnson’s Café is in full bloom, and against the snow-capped, mountainous backdrop it looks spectacular!

You can tell it because though there hasn’t been much rain for a while the Beas River is flowing vigorously. It must be due to glacier melt!

You can tell because young boys start playing cricket on DayStar School’s basketball court at 6.30am, and old men (viz., moi!) have been seen trying their hands at badminton for the first time in decades!

It’s summer in Manali!

You can tell that because from 6.30am the tourist drivers start inching their vehicles out of their impossibly compressed parking spaces to prepare for the day.

You can tell it because the government has imposed a 5,000 rupee “green tax” on each vehicle per visit to Rohtang Pass.

You can tell because the tourist operators have gone on strike. They wonder, not surprisingly, what is being done with tax monies collected.

It’s summer in Manali!

You can tell that because at the hospital’s daily morning devotions the many attenders sing with full voice.

You can tell it because church is full each Sunday, numbers bolstered by tourists from the plains and abroad.

You can tell because…well because it’s summer, in all its himalayan glory!

It’s winter in Sydney!

But that’s where we’re headed next week folks, for a period of 8 weeks’ rest, sharing our story, planning for the third year of our 3 year project and most importantly, spending time with family and friends. The climax of this will be attending our niece Bronwyn’s wedding. 

I (David) have just returned from Chennai where I participated in an inter-church ecotheological consultation hosted by the Church of South India. From there I flew to Amritsar (So I’ll have to pay Greenfleet more money to plant more trees along the Murray River in carbon offset!), and spoke at a Diocesan women’s meeting on the theme of trees. The following day trees again provided the theme at a tree-planting ceremony, at the Epiphany Church in nearby Batala. This was the start of a project called “Trees for the Planet” that is being funded by Evangelische Kirche in Hessen und Nassau, Amritsar Diocese’s German partner church. These 3 events all celebrated this year’s World Environment Day.

My big news is that “Release the River!” the book I have written from my PhD thesis, has returned from the printers to the publisher, Delhi-based ISPCK. I plan to bring some copies to Australia, have ISPCK send many more, and hold a book launch. More of that later.

Meanwhile, Lena just keeps on saving lives…with some shopping thrown in!

With love,

From Lena and David Reichardt

Manali Missives 4/2015 On the Pressure on Land

Manali Missives, May, 2015

On the Pressure on Land

Lena and I had a good holiday in Sweden with her family, but came home to Manali with a down-to-earth thud. Even before we arrived we read that the large plot of land belonging to the Church of North India in the village of Katrain, about 20 km south of Manali, has been illegally sold for the third time. Some years ago a CNI employee impersonated the then Bishop, forged documents, sold what was not his and used the proceeds to build a magnificent house that overlooks the highway. The Church took him to court, but for reasons I shall explore the case has dragged on, and has still not been decided. Meanwhile the first buyer, no doubt sensing danger, onsold the property to another innocent party who has just taken leave of his innocence by doing the same. 

This time the response has been immediate. The Church, now well-used to the process, has sprung into action. Lady Willingdon Hospital staged a half-hour strike that received considerable attention in the local media. Dr Christopher, the Hospital administrator, drove to the Diocesan Office in Amritsar and back, a round trip of as good as a day, for a half-hour meeting to get documents in order. Importantly, this time, the Church has considerable support in the local community. Crucially, one hopes, local, district and even state IAS (the elite Indian Administrative Service) officers hold the Hospital in very high regard, and have opposed the land sale. The latest buyer is said to be mortified. One assumes that the vendor panicked, and may now add criminal activity to their loss of property and income. 

Yet if the local situation can be viewed with some hope of restitution to the Church, across northern India it seems that storm clouds are gathering. Less than 2 days after arriving in Manali I set off for Amritsar myself. Having spent the first year of my project largely working in and getting to know schools within the Diocese I feel it is now important to meet ministers and congregations. I reason that if they don’t see me taking an interest in them, neither will they be likely to develop an interest in something as unusual as ecotheology, especially when communicated by an “angrez” (originally from French, meaning “English”, now expanded to mean any westerner.) 

Of the Diocese’s 4 regions congregations and ministers are most concentrated in the Punjab, around Amritsar. I started planning individual meetings there, only to be trumped by the Bishop. In the months since Bishop Samantaroy was installed as CNI’s Moderator (effectively the arch-bishop for a fixed, 3 year period) it has become evident that “land-grab” actions such as the one in Katrain are being undertaken across the country in an increasingly coordinated manner. The ante is being upped from taking land that the Church of North India inherited from the Church of England to destabilising the Church as a whole by seeking to arrest its leaders, and by spreading rumours about their demise.

One of the tactics being used is to request police to issue F.I.R.s (First Information Reports) against the heads of the Church. An F.I.R. is a written document prepared by the police when they receive information about the commission of a cognizable (more serious) offence. It generally reports a complaint lodged with the police by the victim of a cognizable offence, or by someone on his or her behalf, but anyone can make such a report either orally or in writing to the police. An F.I.R. is an important document because it sets the process of criminal justice in motion; it is only after the F.I.R. is registered in the police station that the police take up investigation of the case. Anyone who knows about the commission of a cognizable offence, including police officers, can file an F.I.R. Although in theory those making the complaint or providing the information that provides the basis for an F.I.R. are to be held to account, if they operate under the protection of power people who themselves are opposed to the accused, F.I.R.s that are mischievous in intent can be lodged with impunity. If, for example, the senior leadership of the CNI was arrested because of F.I.R.s lodged against them, that would seriously affect the good running of the Church and facilitate illegal land grabbing.

So Bishop Samantaroy called a meeting of CNI ministers and staff of the Punjab region of the Diocese to explain this serious situation, and to jointly decide upon a course of action. He asked me to give a short paper on “Persecution”. Instead of meeting a few ministers personally I spoke to 130 of them on a subject of great concern. That was no doubt good for my project, but I think it’s best to let Bishop Samantaroy explain that subject himself, from his letter to bishops and main functionaries of the CNI:

“I am terribly grieved to inform you that presently our beloved Church of North India (CNI) is undergoing critical situation.

This is because some self styled bishops and fake powers of attorney holders with the help of land mafia have started to grab illegally the properties of various churches. Their main purpose is to sell these properties and make money. In order to achieve their goals they are using every means, whether money power or man power, and even political power. No doubt, various churches have started fighting court cases against these people to protect the properties, but eventually they have to suffer because a lot of loss of money, time and energy. Moreover, the churches have to undergo tremendous tensions and pressure unnecessarily.

Lately, these anti-church, anti-social, greedy and selfish people have adopted a new strategy which is extremely cunning and dangerous for the life of CNI. One Mr XX [the Bishop named him], who is a self-made and self style Metropolitan of the so called Anglican Church has filed a false, fake and frivolous F.I.R. against the Office bearers and some functionaries of the Church of North India. His main purpose to file this F.I.R. is to destabilise and cripple the functioning of the Church of North India. It will be certainly very humiliating, dehumanising for all these leaders and functionaries of the Church to stand in a Court of Law as criminals without any of their fault. Of course, concrete efforts are being made to thwart such evil designs but ultimately and unnecessarily, it will cost the Church a lot of money. Not only that, but our valuable time will be spend in fighting these case rather than using it for fulfilling the ministry and mission of the Church.

As the people of God, we believe and trust in the power of God which never allows any satanic plan to succeed against His Church. As He set free the people of Israel from the bondage of Egypt, he will certainly do the same for us. His word, which always encourages us tells us that, “And God of all grace, who called you to eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.” (1 Peter 5:10) His assuring promise is, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts.” (Zechariah 4:6)

How should the Church respond to this serious threat? First, by informing and inspiring the people. Hence this feisty, informative letter. It countered a rumour that the Bishop had stood down from his post as Moderator by communicating both facts and outrage! Secondly, by taking the long view, and focussing on God’s saving grace. Both the Bishop in this letter and I in my paper placed this particular situation within its context of biblical history. For good reasons the people of God have suffered throughout history, but God has always been faithful. Thirdly, by calling the people of God to prayer:

“Trusting in such great promises of God,” the Bishop wrote, ‘the time has come to put forth all our requests and petitions before Him in prayer.”

And fourthly, by developing strategy and tactics. The meeting itself spent much time organising how the community of God would respond locally and across the region to land grabs, and in the case that the Church’s leadership are arrested and held in custody. 

Though I’m still trying to understand the historical background to this developing situation, and bearing in mind that in India every statement is an overgeneralisation (including that one!), a few factors stand out: 

• Pressure on land is increasing in India as its already vast population grows. 
• At its inception the Church of North India inherited large areas of land from the Church of England. As was the case at the inception of my Uniting Church in Australia, different denominations claimed to be the legitimate inheritors of properties previously held by various antecedent denominations, causing law suits and bitterness. 
• However, the CNI’s situation differs greatly from the Uniting Church’s in that much of its membership come from a Dalit (formerly called “untouchables” or “harijan”) background. Ironically, those considered the lowest of the low by many caste Hindus have, by virtue of belonging to the CNI, inherited much property from the former colonial masters, the British. I imagine that would be highly irritating to caste Hindus who feel that the right and natural order of things is that Dalits have no rights. 
• On the other hand, belonging to an organisation that owns land is a powerful symbol for formerly Dalit Christians that they do have rights. The response of church members to reports on the progress through the courts of various lawsuits involving land is nothing short of visceral! This isn’t just about land; it’s about who they are! 
• And yet, much of that land, at least where I have been, remains under-utilised. One of the reasons why the current spate of tree-planting across the Diocese is a good idea is that it quickly makes valid, necessary use of land that is otherwise in danger of being encroached upon.

Like much in India this is an complex, urgent matter. The Bishop concluded his letter with a number of “prayer points”, matters for those who believe in the power and efficacy of prayer to pray about. Those of you who receive our monthly prayer bulletin have been able to read them. For those of you who don’t share this perspective, I hope this issue of Manali Missives has alerted you to another very human drama in the great land of India.

Grace and peace from 

Lena and David Reichardt

Manali Missives, 3/2015 On being Sent

Manali Missives, April, 2015

On being Sent

Lena and I are sitting in a house on the side of a valley much broader and at an altitude lower than our flat in Manali. Despite this and the fact that Easter is over for the year, snow lies everywhere. Why? Well we are at a much higher latitude than Manali, in Sweden on leave with Lena’s family. Six months ago her mother, 95 year old Annie, moved from the Scanian village of Löberöd in Sweden’s far south where she had lived for 31 years, to the house her daughter Elna and son-in-law Hans Bolin had just bought.

Annie is a remarkable woman. Last year, over a decade after she was widowed, and close to a half century after she and her family re-settled in Sweden following 17 years in India, an article about her featured in an issue of a journal of an association representing the region in the province of Skåne where she then lived. She and her husband Assar were, during the central part of their working careers, missionaries in India.

The word “missionary” carries colonial baggage dating from the time when western missionaries worked under the protection of western military and economic might in societies whose values, cultures and identities were formed largely by other religions. One of the word’s range of meanings is “reflecting or prompted by the desire to persuade or convert others, e.g., ‘the missionary efforts of political fanatics’”. That word “fanatic” expresses people’s suspicions. What sort of a person would leave home, family, friends, career, money, comfort and a society in which they were comfortable, supported and knew how things worked and to which they belonged, for a highly uncertain future? In earlier times a large proportion of missionaries met premature, nasty death. Some still do. Surely something akin to fanaticism must lie behind such the decision to go. That suspicion was and is common both in sending societies - until recently these were usually western powers whose ruling classes generally paid lip service to a deist form of Christianity that frowned upon such enthusiasm - and receiving societies, which had generally suffered so much at the hands of colonial power that they were suspicious of anything from the West.

However, the original meaning of the word “missionary” is both more innocent and more profoundly radical than its detractors imagine. Derived from the Latin verb “missio”, “I send”, it recognises that all followers of Jesus, not just a particular clique, are sent by Him out into the world, to live out, communicate, bear witness in word and deed to His good news. During His ministry Jesus sent out (in Koine Greek, “apesteilen”) his 12 apostles (apostolōn) to “proclaim as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons.” ( Matthew 10.1-8) In one of His post-resurrection appearances He gave them the gift of the Holy Spirit and sent them out: “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” (John 20.21) And most famously, in “The Great Commission” the risen Jesus enjoined His followers to “ Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” (Matt. 28.19-20) This because “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” (Matt. 20.19)

The Great Commission sets alarm bells ringing today. In our jaded, post-modern era claims to truth and authority are viewed with suspicion, if not dismissed outright. A proper response to this suspicion would require a book; I’ll make only a summary response here. If it is true that Jesus was raised from death, surely His claim to authority should be treated seriously. Anyone who can defeat “the last enemy” deserves serious respect indeed! And, having noted that what He told His followers to do was in no wise violent or imperialistic, we should note what missionaries actually do in our time. And that’s where mother-in-law Annie’s story is valuable.

Many missionaries are remarkable people. They are not fanatics, but they are highly motivated to do good, and routinely make sacrifices that most people would baulk at. Annie is no exception. Despite her 95 years she retains her vitality and story-telling ability. For Annie, having 3 daughters attend boarding school far from the family’s home in India’s central province, Madhya Pradesh, was perhaps the most difficult sacrifice.
But when I asked her, seated in the living room of the house on the side of the valley in central Sweden where she now lives, “Why did you go out as a missionary?” she was calm but emphatic. She had followed a calling from God. Asked to describe that call, however, she was less definite. At first she said that she didn’t know how to describe it, then that it came in different ways to different people.

“So how did God express His Call to you?” I persisted, knowing how difficult this can be to explain. She replied that she had received a ‘maning’ (exhortation) from God, and that she had been “led in different ways”, and through the occurrences of her life.

That, I thought, was still too general and vague. “Give me an example please,” I continued, although in Swedish an equivalent for “please” is rarely used. So she spoke about a missionary from Africa who had done a kind of “show and tell” about her work for Annie’s Sunday School, deeply impressing the then 12 year old girl. This sort of thing also happened every year at “bible days” held by local associations (called föreningar) of Evangeliska Fosterlands Stiftelsen (known as Swedish Evangelical Mission outside of Sweden). EFS is a remarkable lay organisation within the Lutheran Church of Sweden that exists to share the Christian gospel both within and outside of Sweden. Only 15,000 members strong today, it has given birth to several churches, at least 2 of which, in Tanzania and Ethiopia, number their membership in the millions. One year a missionary who had returned from Ethiopia made a particularly strong impression on Annie Jönsson, who began to think of herself as a missionary.

At one level there seems nothing “spiritual” about this. Many organisations have known how important it is to inspire and enlist young people for their cause, and have taken steps to do so. In 1930s’ and ‘40s’ Germany Hitler Youth held mass rallies, hikes and the like. Today we hear of extremist Muslim groups that use the internet and other forms of information technology to capture the hearts and minds of young Muslims, some of whom become suicide bombers. These, to me, are obscene parodies of the missionary endeavour, focusing on power and hate, rather than service and love. It also grieves me that many western churches seem to have stopped trying to engage their young people in “great adventures for God”. Have we in the West been intimidated by the liberal and humanist line that the Gospel is just another form of imperialism, and that it is wrong to share it in case we disturb the culture of those we imagine ourselves sent to?

Coming from northern India’s steep Kullu Valley to central Sweden’s broad Åredalen has helped me to put this issue into perspective. It is in valleys such as this one, in central and northern Sweden, starting over 150 years ago, that poor, newly literate Swedish farmers and their families met to read and live out their Bibles. There are no obvious trappings of power here. These were not Vikings, or some northern European version of ISIS. The twin gift - reading the Gospel - helped to liberate them from poverty and an oppressive, clergy-centric Lutheran church culture. They rediscovered Martin Luther’s great insight - the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father and the fellowship of God the Holy Spirit - and they wanted and felt called by God to share this gift. And so began a marvellous missionary story to their local areas, to all of Sweden and to Africa and India, which continues to this day, and of which Annie Jönsson’s story has been a wonderful cameo. So no, proper missionaries are not agents of imperialism or western domination!

I have shared the human side of Annie’s process of discernment regarding her missionary call. For her the divine confirmation that she was called to be a missionary in India was expressed in finding a husband who also felt called to be a missionary in India. Inevitably, much of our conversation centred around this. In summary, Annie was concerned that she was becoming old but still had no husband. She prayed that God would show her one, and God brought Assar Nilsson into her life.

Now began a long period of training and preparation for them both, the consequences of Call. Annie trained to be a nurse, while Assar, who had already studied at agricultural school, trained and was ordained as a priest in the Church of Sweden. With what Annie feels was this perfect preparation the couple made their way in 1951, via a period of language study in north India, to their home and place of work in the village of Seja, in rural Madhya Pradesh, a name which means Central Province. For the next 17 years, including periods of furlough home in Sweden, they lived and worked in the heart of India.

So what did Annie and Assar Nilsson do? Two statements Annie made seem significant. The first was that  “Everything was just as important”. That is they turned their hands to what needed to be done. The second was obvious but often forgotten: their goal was “to help them”. For Annie “them” didn’t simply mean the local Indians with whom she came in contact. She exercised a ministry of hospitality with other missionaries. Many of these lived in the nearby regional city of Chhindwara where the headquarters of the region’s Lutheran Church was located. They needed to get away from time to time. For them Annie became a hostess. Assar taught farming techniques and practice, cared for the youth he was teaching and was responsible for the mission’s farm. In his third period of service he inaugurated a farm training school. As a pastor he also helped in the local Lutheran congregation. And that word “helped” is critical. What was true 50 years ago for Annie and Assar is even more so today: a missionary is someone who helps, contributing their skills and life experience in ways that the people to whom they have been sent experience as humble, relevant help, not patronising domination.

In 1969 the Nilsson family - Annie, Assar and their three daughters, all born in India - left it for the last time as a family. There followed a difficult period of readjustment to life back in Sweden. Often the process of being sent home can be more difficult than being sent out. One wonders whether India has not affected the Nilssons more than they have affected India. Two of the daughters followed in their mother’s footsteps, becoming missionaries themselves. And two of the daughters have employed their cross-cultural skills in cross-cultural marriages! Even now, 46 years on, Annie’s memories, thought processes and conversation remain profoundly influenced by the great land to which she was sent.

David Reichardt

Manali Missives 2/2015: Stretched to the Limit, Adequate by God’s Grace

Manali Missives, February - March, 2015 

Stretched to the Limit, Adequate by God’s Grace

Yesterday I (Lena) looked out from our bedroom window and noted that a fruit tree in the school ground next door was covered in white blossoms. The weather had been a bit more pleasant over the last couple of days, but today there are heavy black clouds, blustering winds and rain. The snow line is still fairly close so maybe winter is yet not over. 

Usually in the winter months the patient numbers drop and we can all take it a bit more easy. In my area of work the weather is not such an influencing  factor because babies are born all throughout the year and when they get sick the parents usually try to get to the hospital even if they have to walk several kms in snow. 

The last week has been very busy, in the baby health clinic on Friday we had more than 70 children come for check ups and immunisations.

I am on call 24/7 for obstetrics, gynaecology  and pediatrics and my colleague Dr Chris Shin is on call for medical patients. At present we have no fully qualified surgeon as Dr Philip Alexander has joined his wife and son in the United states for a bit of a well earned holiday. 

A comment on face book the other day made me realize that maybe a lot of people don't know the full extent of what it means to work in a small mission hospital. I have such great admiration for Dr Philip and Anna Alexander (and many other doctors working in remote places) who have been here for 10 years and who are constantly learning new things. 

There is a huge difference in my life here compared to my life in Australia, not only when it comes to working hours but also the availability of specialists to refer to. We are the specialists here and many people come from far away places because they have heard about the hospital here and the good care patients receive. The young doctors who come here for part of their training learn to deal with all kinds of diseases and injuries and when they need help they call us. I know that I am not the only one who after a busy day goes home to look up and study symptoms and treatments of some unknown disease that we have come across during the day.  We rely heavily on the Internet, Medscape and medical textbooks but most of all on God and his Holy Spirit. So many times in my daily work have I stopped and put my hand on a patient and prayed for wisdom, knowledge and guidance in treating and helping this patient.

We have 2 medical students visiting us from Cardiff in Wales at present and the other day one of them told me there was such an interesting case in the emergency room. He was referring to a case of organophosphate poisoning which is very uncommon in the western world, but here in Manali where this poison is so readily available, not uncommon at all. This made me realize how these last 1 1/2 years have changed my perspective on the practice of medicine. 

For example, coughs and colds are common enough but not always due to a simple viral infection.

Tuberculosis is very common and a great mimicker of many other diseases. How do you diagnose it and how long do you treat the patients, what kinds of drugs does one use? 2 days ago we discharged a woman who is about 36 weeks pregnant, she has had a cough on and off for 3 months. Her chest Xray showed a right side pleural effusion. Normally we would examine the sputum for tuberculosis bacilli but her cough is non productive (ie no sputum is produced). An attempt was made for a diagnostic pleural tap but no fluid was aspirated. We have 2 lives to think about. Do I start this woman on medications that are classified as being dangerous to the baby now without the woman having been diagnosed with TB? Do I wait until the baby is born and then treat both of them with drugs without the diagnosis of TB  having been confirmed? Do I not treat even though clinically this lady has TB? 

Consider the baby that I continued to resuscitate for an hour even though it had no pulse or heartbeat for 15-20 minutes (10 minutes is usually the cutoff for resuscitation) and did not breathe on her own for an hour? This little girl developed seizures after the birth probably due to the hypoxia. By the grace of God that baby seems to be developing normally and the last time I saw her was smiling and cooing without any signs of stiffness or spasticity. (Signs of cerebral palsy)

It is frightening to be a doctor sometimes and I am reminded almost daily of my dependence on others, other doctors, staff nurses but most of all on God. How does one answer the question-"how long before the baby is born?"or "will my baby be alright?" My answer is often-"only God knows". Indians understand this answer but often reply-"but you are like God to me/us". Of course I know and they know that I am not God, but it still scares me to know how much trust they put in me. Many doctors suffer from the "Messianic complex" - we feel we have to save everybody. It is very hard to accept the death of a patient, there is often a lingering doubt -"did I do everything I could, did I make a mistake, could I have done something different?"

I look at role models, the people who led me on this path. Dr Ida Scudder, Dr Paul Brand, Dr Clement Moss to mention some and I feel truly blessed and humbled to be sharing my profession with such great women and men of God. They inspired me and evoked a passion within me to pursue the vocation of a doctor, to help and serve all human kind.

Lena Reichardt

Manali Missives 1/2015 A Special Journey

Manali Missives, January, 2015

A Special Journey

Welcome to the New Year. Our main news of the past month is that I (David) have represented Church of North India (CNI) and the Uniting Church in Australia, and presented a paper at an international ecological conference held by the Church of South India (CSI) at CMS College, Kottayam, Kerala. That necessitated travelling from near India’s northern (uttar) border to near its southern (dakshin) one, a journey of 3,500 km. Because it would be hypocritical to travel to and from an ecological conference by air, the most ecologically costly means of travel, unless that was necessary, Lena and I re-lived the romance of rail and of our youth. In lieu of a railway between Manali and Delhi we did that 550 km stretch by bus each way, but the 3,000 km between Delhi and Kottayam, by very different rail routes. On the way south we largely followed India’s west coast; travelling back north we crossed the sub-continent to Vijayawada, near the eastern coast in Andhra Pradesh, the state I still feel, after living there for 3 years during the 1980s, is one of my homes.

Rail remains a wonderful way of getting to know India and its people.  I’ve often wondered how this nation, about 40% the size of Australia, can sustain 60 times as many people as my country. Travelling through it made me realise how empty most of it is. Vast numbers of people cram into small spaces. They of course each have an “ecological footprint”: the landscape as a whole is being overtaxed. That is most easily seen in the skies, which are polluted over almost the whole country except the himalayan north. But although the land and waterways are also heavily polluted in built up areas, what my PhD supervisor Dean Drayton said of America also holds for India: “The thing that makes this land great are its rivers.” “Land of the Seven Rivers: A Brief History of India’s Geography” by Sanjeev Sanyal, confirms this view. Wherever we were in the great teardrop the trains in which we travelled described, water was not far away. 

The character of these waterways varies greatly, of course. So still is Lake Vembanad, a large freshwater lake in Kerala separated from the sea by a barrage, that fisherman stand in their simple boats to ply their age-old trade. That would be impossible in Manali’s turbulent Beas River which the British stocked it with trout to go along with the apple orchards they introduced to its banks, so another form of fishing is needed. The winter climate varies greatly too, from the snow-bound Himalayas in the north, through the often foggy central north of the country to the lazy, humid warmth of Kerala. And so, of course, does the vegetation, from the mountain conifers, through Delhi’s rich remnant “jungle” to Kerala’s ubiquitous coconut palms.

The peoples of the subcontinent are famously diverse. Although India’s population is still smaller than China’s it has something like 20 times as many people groups. The impressive rail network the British built has been greatly improved of late. It has enabled Indians to migrate all over their country, mixing these groups up. Political instability and economic need or opportunity all drive people to move. We spent the 2 day journey to Kerala in the company Utkarsh and Megha, who were on the way to their honeymoon. Megha’s family are Hindus who fled from Muslim Bangla Desh at Partition in 1947. They eventually settled in Agra where, decades later, she met Utkarsh while both were studying for MBAs. They fell in love, and in some sense symbolise a new, post-caste India. Now we are Facebook friends with them and have shared many photos via WhatsApp, a mobile phone application popular in India.

A sense of call is also causing Indians to move. There are more Christians living as  “internal migrants”, working in Christian ministry, than in any other country. The large number of Lady Willingdon Hospital’s staff from the southern states of Kerala and Andhra Pradesh exemplify this trend. While waiting on Kottayam station for our train back to Delhi I was hit on the back by Riya, one of the hospital’s dentists. Unknown to us she comes from Kottayam, and had spent her annual leave with her family there. Riya was delighted to share the entire journey to Manali, and the start of a new working year, with us. 

The people we met were almost uniformly pleasant and interested in us. Many of the CMS College students acted as volunteers to help the Conference run smoothly. They and the staff and owners of the resort at which we stayed (having been treated to a night there by a friend) were wonderfully hospitable. So was Shona. Until recently employed by UnitingWorld, our sending agency, Shona has been keen for us to visit her at her home in Nagpur, central India. We couldn’t do that on this occasion, but I texted her, suggesting that she meet us when our train arrived at Nagpur station. In the last minute before we resumed our journey Shona came running along the platform, calling out my name and bearing luscious strawberries, guava and bananas, the fruit of her garden. She shook my hand, embraced Lena, and we had to board the already moving train! But it was enough, for now! We’ve had contact with Shona on Facebook, but nothing beats face-to-face!

While the conference proceeded Lena was taking a well-earned, much-needed rest. The morning after the complimentary night she told me that she wanted to stay here, So we did. Imagine a well-furnished apartment in peaceful, beautiful, tropical surroundings by placid Lake Vembanad, far from the much-loved Lady Willingdon Hospital with its ceaseless demands and you’ll understand why! As a bonus there was a pool in which she could walk to treat her chronically troublesome hip, an ayurvedic massage centre, a good, in-house restaurant and boats in which we were taken on tours around Lake Vembanad.

Each morning I walked out to the main road and took a bus for the 12 kilometre ride into the conference at CMS College Kottayam. The bus passed through fields sown with rice, beside canals slowly being choked by an exotic weed, and into built-up areas among ubiquitous coconut palm trees. At nearly 1,000 people per square kilometre Kerala’s population density is India’s highest, but it still manages to look verdant. Many of these people are Christians - from the ancient Mar Thoma Church which harks back to the apostle Thomas,  the Syrian Orthodox, Catholic and, more recently, the Protestant (including the Church of South India), Evangelical and Pentecostal traditions. The many churches give ample evidence of these traditions, as do the icons of Jesus at the front of many buses. But the evidence that particularly tickled my funny bone was a wonderfully named small business: “Jesus Engineering Works”. So it does!

The conference was hosted by the Church of South India’s Ecological Concerns Committee led by the energetic Professor Mathew Koshy Pannakkudu. Its theme was “Climate Change and the Developing World”. I prepared a paper on that theme, but changed at the last moment to one I know well: “Releasing the River of the Water of Life”. The reason I changed was that the session that morning was about water and good hygiene. The main speakers were Pujya Swamiji Chidanand Saraswati and Sadhvi Bhagavati Saraswati, founders of WASH (Water, Sanitation & Hygiene) who came from their Hindu ashram in Rishikesh. I thought it would be helpful to to give a biblical perspective on the theme of water. 

However, the conference’s theme examined an ecotheological issue that people interested in justice, peace and equality often think about. For many decades the word “Development” has been used to describe the process that many think should be used to bring the world’s poorer nations to the same standard of living as those of the rich West. It means industrialising, which means exploiting natural resources much as the West has done. In particular, development has involved producing and using vast amounts of energy by burning “fossil fuels” - coal, oil and the like. Now, just as crores of people in nations such as India are being released from poverty through the benefits of development scientists from western nations are saying that burning fossil fuels is causing the whole world to heat up dangerously. No wonder some people believe that this is just another Western trick to keep themselves rich and the rest of the world poor! But the scientists’ warnings are true. Farmers from India, Australia and around the world have known for some time that the climate is changing. Development, first in the West, and now in the “Rest” too, is causing such dangerous climate change that life and human civilisation as we know them could be destroyed. The biosphere is already being badly damaged. 

The ecotheological question is, “In a time of climate change, are justice, peace and equality possible?” I believe that they are, but only if the whole world acts together, in unity, to stop, then reverse climate change. We already have the the technology and we know what we should do. All over the world people are installing renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power in place of fossil-fuelled power plants. This and many other measures need to be taken urgently, for the world is in a race against time. Christians need to be involved in all these activities as much as anyone else. But a Christian does so out of the conviction that this is God’s world, for which this good God has good plans. In this crisis there is hope. Though the crisis is huge, we remember that Jesus used the tiny offering of a small boy’s bread and fish to feed a huge crowd. So let us join hands with God and each other to address the climate crisis, trusting that even our small acts will be used by God in significant ways. Let us both pray and act. 

I was impressed by how far the Church of South India has come in their environmental program. With ecotheological contact people in each of their 22 Dioceses, who relate to the Church’s Ecological Concerns Committee, a well-organised annual program and a number of publications, they have done a lot to bring ecotheology, and ecological concern and practice from the periphery to the centre of church life. Having met many of those responsible for this I hope that meetings between them and ecologically interested people in the Church of North India can inform and facilitate the latter’s ecotheological development.

This was indeed a special, blessed journey.

David Reichardt