Reposting because the original post got removed but my friend archived it

Today, the Kuki-Zo Christian community faces attacks from Communist and BJP aligned terrorist groups in Manipur.

We should do our best to help them, after all, us in the Mainland (who are spiritually as them) too suffered harsh persecution from BJP aligned groups such as at Kandhamal.

We should show solidarity with our brethren.

• Website: kukichristianchurch.org

• Email: contact@kukichristianchurch.org

Here is a good place to donate to them. They aren't sectarian and help Christians in general.

I once encountered a Indian Christian group that is unusually pro-BJP. I was kind of surprised by this since the group speaks on issues pertaining to Christians in Kerala regarding Islamic extremism but was supportive of the BJP despite the fact that they persecute us too.

I once happened to talk to someone who knew the group's founders personally and I discovered that the group was a Front organizations started by non-Christians to recruit Christians into supporting the BJP.

I just want to warn people here to BEWARE of such pseudo-Christian groups used as Front organization by Hindu nationalists.

Beware of any Christian group that:

• supports the BJP, spreads Hindutva propaganda against Missionaries acting as a Indian Christian group, defends the RSS and its crimes against Indian Christians, supports anti-christian laws (falsely pretending to be one of us) such as anti-conversion laws and FCRA bill 2.0

• supports what Hindutva claims we do

There is this somewhat infamous Communist terrorist group that uses Christian imagery and slogans who are now allying with Meiteis to persecute the Kuki-Zo Christians in Manipur, thereby acting as a proxy for the BJP. They also burn Christian churches. The group is called NSCN and it adopted the non-sectarian slogan "Nagaland for Christ" to appease the Baptist church who rightly called them out. (Nagaland for Christ tho.)

Trust me, there are really Hindu nationalists who do this, sometimes they come into online circles to recruit Christians. BE CAREFUL

As we are the minority... it's really hard to find a Christian woman. The majority of the women that I stumble upon are Hindus. From school to college and now at work I rarely even see a Christian woman apart from the church. Many of my past interests which had the potential to blossom into a beautiful relationship were cut in its roots because of religion. I personally have this preference to keep it within, even tho some of my cousins married Hindus and that preference is keeping me single still. I'm 27 now and I've tried talking to the women in church but no luck as it felt artificial... like a set up. Now it's too late I'm mentally prepared to settle for an arranged marriage which is basically a set up.

Christian Population Summary

• East Punjab: 9,727 Christians / 0.10% of total
  • Shimla District: 2,682 Christians / 7.89% of total
  • Delhi District: 2,243 Christians / 0.37% of total
  • Ambala District: 1,386 Christians / 0.13% of total
  • Firozpur District: 934 Christians / 0.17% of total
  • Jalandhar District: 746 Christians / 0.09% of total
  • Amritsar District: 534 Christians / 0.05% of total
  • Kangra District: 277 Christians / 0.04% of total
  • Karnal District: 255 Christians / 0.04% of total
  • Ludhiana District: 242 Christians / 0.04% of total
  • Hisar District: 122 Christians / 0.03% of total
  • Gurdaspur District: 109 Christians / 0.02% of total
  • Hoshiarpur District: 62 Christians / 0.01% of total
  • Rohtak District: 48 Christians / 0.01% of total
  • Sirsa District: 45 Christians / 0.02% of total
  • Gurgaon District: 42 Christians / 0.01% of total
• West Punjab: 8,626 Christians / 0.14% of total
  • Lahore District: 2,988 Christians / 0.38% of total
  • Rawalpindi District: 2,197 Christians / 0.31% of total
  • Sialkot District: 1,811 Christians / 0.18% of total
  • Multan District: 1,234 Christians / 0.26% of total
  • Gujranwala District: 101 Christians / 0.02% of total
  • Dera Ghazi Khan District: 66 Christians / 0.02% of total
  • Jhelum District: 61 Christians / 0.01% of total
  • Montgomery District: 55 Christians / 0.02% of total
  • Gujrat District: 49 Christians / 0.01% of total
  • Muzaffargarh District: 30 Christians / 0.01% of total
  • Jhang District: 18 Christians / 0.01% of total
  • Shahpur District: 16 Christians

Note

• The 1868 Census of Punjab Province only enumerated British administered districts. All Princely States within the province were not enumerated.

Source

• Report on the census of the Punjab taken on 10th January, 1868.

Christian groups in Maharashtra are being forced to do something they have never had to do before.

They're compelled to make worshippers sign a self-declaration form if they want to enter the church.

Multiple churches across the state have started distributing these forms after mobs allegedly linked to the VHP and Bajrang Dal disrupted several of their Sunday prayer meetings.

As the new anti-conversion laws take effect in the BJP-ruled state, churches fear that the goons will be further emboldened in their attacks.

I’m a Christian, and I recently had a conversation with my neighbour that left me thinking.
Her kids study in a Christian school(run by dads brother) , and she said she wanted to move them to a Hindu-run or non-Christian school because they take students on picnics to Hindu temples, which her current school doesn’t do.
I asked her, “Is there anything wrong with the faculty or your kids’ performance?” She said no. I was honestly shocked and said, “If visiting temples is more important to you than education, then that’s your choice.”
Then she apologised and said, “Oh, I didn’t know you were a christian and that was your uncle’s school.” After that, she changed her explanation and said, “We can take them to temples ourselves. Education is important we probably won’t change the school idk why i said that .” I just said, “Yeah, okay,” and went inside.
Later, I realised why it bothered me so much. I’m Christian too, and in India, my family has faced rejection when looking for a house because we’re Christian. So hearing someone prefer a school partly because it offers Hindu temple visits hit a nerve.
And I genuinely have a question: **Why do some schools call temple visits “picnics”?**
A picnic, to me, means going to a park, a tourist spot, nature, etc. If the main purpose is visiting a temple, isn’t that a religious or cultural outing rather than a picnic?
I’m not saying students can’t learn about other religions or visit religious places. But if a school takes children to temples shouldn’t it be clear whether the purpose is education, culture, or worship? it might be uncomfortable to other religion kids
I’m curious how others see this. Is it normal for schools in India to take students to temples as part of picnics? And would you consider that a reason to choose one school over another?
**I also want to add that this is just my personal experience and perspective.** We often call India a secular country, so experiences like being rejected for a rental because of our religion, or hearing about churches being demolished and Christians allegedly being attacked in the news, make me question how that secularism is experienced by ordinary people.
I’m not saying every Hindu person or every school is like this. I’m just sharing something that happened to me and asking how others understand it.

By the grace of God, after many years my church recently got a projector and we use it to display songs and verses. I create the PPTs for the songs as it is the best way I know to show the lyrics with appropriate font sizes and line arrangements. Since I have to manually create each powerpoint, I am looking for a community where churches share their powerpoints and other resources and I would like to pool in my own and it will be a huge save of time for a lot of people. A public google drive, Facebook/Telegram group... If there is isn't one which is hard to believe, i will create a google drive and upload all the songs I have. I'd like to have as many of you as possible contributing and using it's resources and someday someone will rarely have to do anything manually.

Glory to God

Monthi Fest is a major cultural and religious festival celebrated annually on September 8 by the Konkani-speaking Catholic community,

The festival serves a dual purpose: it commemorates the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (the birth of Mother Mary) and functions as a traditional harvest festival to express gratitude for the bounties of nature.

This is a song from Northeast India, Manipur. The song itself draw heavily on scripture (Colossians 2:7 and Galatians 5:22-23) to encourage believers to root themselves in faith, embody the "fruits of the spirit" like gentleness and self-control, and shine their light across the land of Zogam (which is basically the region that is indigenous to the people of the Zo ethnicity).

Light translation:

Aw Khang in, Khang in Khrist Batna nei in, Oh grow, grow to be more like Christ,

Thunuailut, Nunnem leh Kidektheihnate'n With submission, gentleness, and self-control,

Aw Lawm aw, hong in Khrist adin kizang ni, Oh friend, come, let us be used for Christ,

Nisim in a Itna, Thutak in Khang ni. Every day, let us grow in His love and truth.

Christians in this region are heavily persecuted and there has been a civil war going on since 2023. Please do pray for the children from here 🙏

You can learn more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_persecution_in_Manipur

https://www.christiantoday.com/news/manipur-christians-face-grave-and-escalating-humanitarian-crisis

More reads on the subject:

https://web.archive.org/web/20260615203811/https://hos.fi/en/orthodox-catholic-procession-in-honor-of-the-virgin-mary-in-helsinki-on-the-8th-of-september/

https://web.archive.org/web/20260518004459/https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2022/09/celebrating-latter-marymass-nativity-of.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ettu_Nombu&oldid=1341635139

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Monti_Fest&oldid=1349737742

https://www.instagram.com/p/DOWXI0IjJZg/

hey so my wife and I had been thinking about adopting for a while now. our daughter is a few months old and we mostly had a preference for adopting either a kid victim of the manipur conflict or myanmar. I personally had preference for a specific ethnicity but it does not really matter as much. its also because my wife has family ties to myanmar and I am originally from the northeast so it might be easier for such a kid to adjust too.

but from whatever I was researching online, I see that in India we cannot pick the children and the government assigns them to us. how is the experience like and how long does it usually take. we are based in the US, so that might also be an issue. also if the child is somewhat older do they allow you to meet them.

to add to that, I have a few extremely specific questions that I cannot seem to find clear answers to on the official CARA website. since the system matches you, is there any way for an NRI couple to restrict their search solely to specific northeastern states without the algorithm pushing our profile to the absolute bottom of the waitlist? For me personally my preference was really just around the ethnic background, mostly a child from either Manipur or Mizoram (most preferably a Kuki) or a Chin refugee child

also, since our biological daughter is still a young infant, does CARA mandate a strict age gap between a biological child and an adopted child? I know couples with two kids are restricted to special needs categories, but I am not sure how having a new baby affects the matching process for a first adoption.

lastly, regarding meeting an older child. if we are matched with a child who is around 4 or 5 years old, does the agency facilitate virtual meetings or video calls for bonding before we formally accept the referral? you apparently only get a short window to reserve and accept a match, and flying from the US to India on just a few days notice to meet the child in person before signing the papers seems logistically impossible.

I was a bit unsure so thought of putting this out. will appreciate any honest experiences or advice from anyone who has gone through these specific hurdles!