India 2008, YIM
Aisling Boomgaardt
Group participants from Canada with our host from the Synodical Board of Health Services (Baruna Victor). First church service at CNI (Church of North India) Free Church, in New Delhi.
In the classic novels of Mark Twain, the main characters Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn make a long eventful journey down the muddy turbulent waters of the Mississippi only to discover, during the course of their journey, that the great truths are found close to home and in the heart. This past summer I was able to take my own long journey.... to the dusty oppressive heat of central India.
My faith story is one that comes by way of a man named Mansingh Philip. Mansingh is a Bhil Christian living in India, in a little town called Punyiwat. In 2004 he was imprisoned with twenty other Christians because there had been clashes between Hindu extremists and the area Christians and one of the Hindus had been killed; later it was found out this had probably happened by accident and by one of his own group. In the meantime all the Christians in the area who had guns had been rounded up. I am pretty sure that I would be quite an angry and bitter person after having spent a couple of years in prison without ever being charged and for a crime I had not committed, but Mansingh and his friends called their experience, "two-and-a-half years of Bible study." They had spent those years in a tiny room with forty other men and no privacy, but they had been able to read their Bible, sing hymns together, and pray. They were even able to baptize some of their fellow prisoners, who witnessed their faith in God and their knowledge that God would free them.
YIM India Trip participants,
Laura Roberts, Raquel Ramos, Cecilia Lu, Jenny So
When we were in Punyiwat we had the chance to visit Mansingh's home. It was a modest house with mud floors and walls, a thatched roof, and three or four rooms. When I was in the living room on my way out of the house I noticed a sign stuck to Mansingh's cupboard. The sign was about the size of a bumper sticker and on it was printed, "Jesus Christ: Freedom from Caste." I was shocked by this strong statement but only later did I have time to reflect upon it.
The caste system prevails in India, but the indigenous people of the Bhil area are not considered a part of it. The Bhils are one of the Scheduled Tribes of India or Adivasis (indigenous people). They have been marginalized in many ways from dominant Indian culture and society and the resources in their area often ravaged. On the train on the way to Indore I shared a compartment with a Brahmin family – a family of the highest caste in India. When I told them where I was going the older man in the family was quite puzzled and asked in a truly condescending tone, “Why would you go there?”
Dieudonne Asanji
The simple sign in Mansingh's house told me a lot about how the Bhil Christians feel about their faith. Although they proudly identify as tribespeople, they also have a deep understanding that God loves them as equals to anyone else in this world. This knowledge has elevated them in their own eyes as well as in the eyes of others — we heard the story of a Muslim man who was eating lunch with his co-worker, a Christian. The Muslim asked the Christian, "Why are you a Christian?" There was a pause as the man considered, and then he responded, "Because I am able to sit here next to you."
As a Canadian, to be able to witness the ways in which Christ, has moved in the lives of the Bhil people was inspiring. They first learned about God 110 years ago from Canadian missionaries and now the Bhil Christians are able to spread the good news throughout the countryside.
Mansingh is free. By the grace of God he is free from jail and he is free from the stifling caste system.
Mansingh's story helped remind me of something that I too often forget: that I too have been saved by Jesus’ love, that this salvation means that I am free from death, and that I too am a child of God, loved for myself alone.