Madiriparum
4 May, 2010
In the evening of the 30th of April, I traveled with Rev. P. Solomon for three days in Madiriparum where he is the Pastorate Chairman. In a previous blog entry I wrote about attending Sports Day at Mission High School and how this is one of the older works of the diocese. What I just learned is the story behind Madiriparum and its school (Mission High School).
Bishop Azariah, the first bishop of Dornakal visited the area and talked with the local town leaders. They offered him some land (at this point of the story there is some disagreement, some say he bought the land at 6 Rupees per acre and others say the tribal town leaders gave him the land.) Either way he obtained 136 acres of land in 1933 and called it Madiriparum. He used most of the land to settle the poor, creating several plots where various poor families could build a home. The rest of the land, approximately 33 acres, was used to build a mission center. The present day pastor’s home was the mission house. Once built missionaries were stationed here until 1980. They would go around to the 36 tribal towns that surround Madiriparum and share the gospel. Slowly, town by town, they all came to believe. In 1980 it was decided that this mission field was mature enough to manage with priests and evangelists (and even send out missionaries) so the missionaries were sent to other, newer, centers to share the gospel with those towns.
St. Peter’s was built at Madiriparum (see below); however, there are also smaller churches in some of the towns. While I was here I visited with some of the people (which is how I learned the history of Madiriparum) and shared in services in a couple of these towns – one service was a gathering on a quiet town road where people brought mats or chairs to sit upon (approximately 30 came). Another was in a small church with a service led by an IMS (Indian Missionary Society) team. (There were approximately 30 – 40 here.) I attended the Sunday morning Holy Communion service at St. Peter’s (approximately 80 people) and the Baptism service that came afterwards (approximately 15 people). Of course I was asked to share a little bit (via translators) everywhere I went.
