"Samay cha samay cha bhandai thiyye, Thaha napayi tyo saal biti gayo, abha tyo saal lai bida garao, ani pasi jao naya saalai ma, hidna lai ishwar ko agwai ma....." Translated reads- "We kept saying there is time..... Unaware,the year has gone by,, Let us bid farewell to the year gone by, and enter the new year, to walk according to the Lord's leading......" Amazingly simple song ,i have heard it every year,sung sweetly by the faithful local church .........every year the people I associate with the song become fewer in number.Every year I listen to it with a totally different heart,it always touches me to see the eagerness of the old faithfuls who have lived the song faithfully all their lives. May it be my prayer for the new year...and a resolution too.
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Pastor Paris Lepcha is an original Lepcha from the village of Ringhem in North Sikkim.He is the assistant pastor in our local church.The north of Sikkim has a history of christianity which runs to the 1800s when the first missionaries set foot on the soil ,most of them with their eyes fixed on the tough tibetain plateau .The first christian convert in the north of Sikkim was from the village of Rimghem,in and around 1854,an old Lepcha couple who remained a christian in their lifetime but somehow could not pass it on to the generations that followed. My father rightly observed that hundred years hence, Ringhem has it's second convert and that is pastor Paris Lepcha and his brothers.That is what makes them special.He is an assistant pastor to Rev.Jonathan Lepcha ,who took over the baton from my grandfather. Mangan Local church has developed over the years from being a small local congregation to a church which already has branches in four other places in the North of Sikkim and i...
Was wondering what I had let myself in for when I agreed to spend four days of my short Christmas holidays in Bhutan with my family in exchange for the haven called home.Mymother,sister and my aunt picked me up in Baghdogra for a night of halt at Sikkim house in Siliguri.We mentally geared up for the travel to Bhutan ,a country so close in distance to India and in culture to the land of Sikkim which has a history of matrimonial alliances with the country amongst the royalties then. Phunstoling was a four hour’s drive from Siliguri .We crossed Doars,a stretch of tea estates,Binaguri,where an uncle of mine had been posted as an army officer long back,Jalgaon,a border of sorts infamous for giving shelter to the dissidents from either side of the border.Incidently,it also had a historical connection to my family.My great grandfather,had apparently been a missionary in the area.I heard it for the first time from my sister.Just prior to reaching Jalgaon we lost time about a kilometre t...
Zaccheaus was a classical example of a person tied around in knots ,in a bondage of sin and judgement.Someone who,so to say,would never qualify to be a friend of God.He was a short man in the physical sense.He was perhaps a doer.He wanted to see Jesus.It looked nigh impossible,being crowded out by the crowd who were all over. The same nature that wanted to profit out of the situation he had been placed in by cheating his countrymen might have been the nature that brought salvation into his life. He had to see Jesus and he found a way out to have a VIP view of him.He climbed a sycamore tree.There might have been hundreds of people with a normal height who would have missed having such a view of Jesus inspite of their obvious advantages. Surprisingly Jesus stops below the tree where the man is standing and invites himself for dinner to his house. Zacheous is eager inspite of the obvious disapproval from all the people around who hate him for what he has been. When he comes out from...
The other day we had an EMFI meet at my place and one of our residents agreed to share the message. He gave a lovely reminiscence of his childhood and drew a parallel into the current scenario in our lives. He remembered his childhood days in Manipur where by the river-side he recollected playing in the beautiful pieces of land .With time as he grew up the river started changing course taking the path of least resistance,cutting through those landscapes till all that remains is the memory.The beautiful land is no more.It's gone forever. Our lives are like that river crooked ,where we make similar mistakes taking a path of least resistance,compromising,till one day we look back and find that the beautiful places are no more. He was stressing on the fact as to how we must take on the evil head on. It deeply touched me for I guess that is what Christ meant when he said "Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, a...
Yesterday was my birthday. I was in Rishikesh for the same.A strange way to spend a sunday,a birthday and a thanks-giving day,but I guess sometimes we believers need a shocker to sensitize our sleeping faith. The place was a modern Ephesus.Everything existed around the temple and the deities. The shops were selling things required to offer to the deities.The two suspension bridges built over the river Ganga had been conveniently named Ram and Laxman Jhula and it sells because it has become a tourist hub.The business starts right from the moment you set your feet on the bus-stand.I walked around,watching detatchedly the buying and selling going around just everywhere.Shops had come up to cater to the tourist taste,a german bakery...thai restaurants,italian fares mingled with the layers and layers of intricate temple wares. In Ephesus,the deity was Diana. My colleague asked me if there was a spirit of oppression around the place. I did not find them much different from the modern d...
Darchand has been on anti-tuberculosis drugs for the past fifteen months. He has been regularly taking the drugs and is being followed up faithfully by Mukesh.Mukesh has been taking time out to share the gospel with him.Darchand has been regularly reading the Word and has been praying and has by God's grace found the Lord. He was telling me about an incident on the train when one of the train assistants tried to loot him of his money.Darchand is a puny looking man.He was shaken to the core by the incident but he testified that he started praying and a strange peace came over him. Today he came to collect his medicine and I was deeply touched to hear him excitedly talk about his walk with the Lord.The drugs had taken it's toll,he had a slight hearing problem and had developed some features of hypothyroidism but he has a shine on his face and he relates his symptoms to his reading the Bible which amazes me.He tells me that his vision is fine but when he is reading the Bible so...