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 Spreading the good news in Northeastern India
By Fr. Philip Abraham, SJ
The happiest days of my life have been on the hills of northeast India proclaiming the Good News. The thrill of sharing The Gospel with people of good will who have never heard it, and inviting them to faith in Jesus has been a singular grace. I have always imagined that this is perhaps a fraction of the excitement that Peter, Paul, and the other Apostles must have felt as they proclaimed the Good News of Jesus to the first Christians.
If there is one place in India where The Gospel can be preached freely, and where men and women of good will can be welcomed into the Catholic Church, it is the area in northeast India Jesuits call the Kohima Region. Perched on the Himalayas, sandwiched between China to the north, Burma to the east, Bangaladesh to the west, and Bhutan to the northwest, Kohima comprises seven states of India referred to as The Seven Sisters of the Northeast. The scores of indigenous Tibeto-Burmese, Indo-Aryan, Mon-Khmer patriarchal and matriarchal tribes have in the last century slowly opened themselves to the outside world. Given the political trends in India, this opportunity for evangelization is unlikely to last too long, hence the sense of urgency in our prayers for more laborers.
In the six years that I served as a priest in a mission at 8,000 feet above sea level, I was privileged to be God's instrument in drawing over 200 adults and children to the Faith. Nothing gave me greater joy than driving for hours through treacherous mountain paths in a jeep to distant villages to find little communities of Catholics waiting for me to arrive to celebrate the Eucharist together.
It is in this context, when I heard Fr. General Peter-Hans Kolvenbach had recommended the twinning of Wisconsin Province with Kohima Region, that I knew it was undoubtedly an act of God. Fr. General created the region in October 1995. Kohima has 34 priests, 3 brothers, and 47 scholastics. The rapidly growing region can only flourish with this new support and backing.
I believe this twinning is an invitation from God to those far away from Kohima, to participate in the Church's work of proclaiming the Good News to the ends of the earth. Through a sharing of our spiritual and material support we assist in the formation of native priests whom God is drawing in large numbers. We help establish new mission centers. We nurture new Christian communities by helping in the funding of new churches, schools, health care, and human development.
Together we are fulfilling the Jesuit mission in the Kohima Region by spreading the Gospel and building the Kingdom of God in a previously untouched corner of the earth.
Note: Fr. Abraham is pursuing a doctorate in education at Marquette University in Milwaukee, after which he will return to the Kohima Region.
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