Wednesday 1/10 – Off to Beawar to visit with Veer’s family and check out the land where they are building their new school. Right now they meet in a rented building (and the lease is up in May).
Brief political background: There are two major political parties in India: BJP (a Hindi religious political party which is currently in power in the state of Rajasthan), Congress (a secular party who tends to be more on the “free democracy”-spectrum). Coincidentally, the political party most in support of Christianity is called the “Marxist Party” although they are very much a minority (of the 200-some seats in Parliament, they hold only one). Back in February, the BJP party (who was in control in Rajasthan), persecuted the Emmanuel School Society, claiming they were publishing anti-Hindi books. They imprisoned the President of the organization and held him in prison for about 3 months before releasing him due to political pressure from outside of Rajasthan. During that time, there was damage done to many of the Emmanuel Schools around Rajasthan, and many of the students un-enrolled.
Veer’s school took quite a hit, and actually closed for about a month. When they re-opened, many of their students enrolled in other schools. Many of the families are leery to enroll their students in the Emmanuel school because of the bad press they’ve received, however, as they continue to offer excellent education, hopefully families won’t be able to ignore it, and will begin to become attracted to the school once again. Veer’s ministry owns 2 acres of land, and is in construction to build a new school building on the property that will hopefully be ready for the next term of school. That will bring a lot of credibility to the program. We were able to visit the school (we even got a full-on greeting with flowers, and an all-school song presentation) and we also went to check out the new school site. It was neat seeing the plans, and many of the walls completed already.
3 comments:
Sweet wish i could go. I'm jealous for all the people that are going.
Johnny Juliano
that is really cool that God has allowed veer to continue his ministry. i think this new school he is helping to build with be a great way to share the gospel and help many children. through all this, God will benefit him and India by remaining strong in their faith.
I wish that i could go again. I am glad that God has opened doors to building this school, and knowing how much these kids are going to enjoy and love it so much. Veer is a man of God and does anything that he can to help. This school is going to open up doors for many things like getting the Word out and giving children the privelege of the school life.
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