How Christianity Transformed a Village

It was in 1942 that one white missionary, Dr. Broad, came to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to an obscure village. The name of the village was Phuba (Phyabu in local language), in present North East India, which was then 8 hours of walking from the nearest conveyance available. Similar kind of preaching by missionaries continued on and off in 1943. In 1944, seven families decided to follow Jesus Christ. And among those 7 families, one of them was  my paternal grandparents.

The obvious thing for these 7 families was to set up a new pattern of life in a new village. So in February 12, 1944, they moved some 3 kilometres away and set up a new village which is now called Phuba Thapham (Khyoubu, the village is shown in the picture). In this new village, they gave up drinking completely. And this was a very significant step for them; and this continues to be significant even today whenever someone becomes a follower of Jesus in that particular context. This was so because drinking was so much part of their life. In fact, the local dialect for someone of my place who was and is not a Christian is "drinking people". Since people would be drunk for many hours of the day, they were not hygienic. They did not have time for learning too and therefore literacy rate would probably have been around 1%. Roughly 40%-50% of the children that were born would die due to lack of medical facility and unhygienic way of life. But often the villagers would attribute death to the work of the spirits. So it was common to give filthy names ( of filthy words) to the children thinking that spirits would not take away children with such names.

Here I wish to mention that those who converted did not receive "rice" from anyone. They were not all rich, but the reason for them to convert was not because they were offered "rice" by anyone. 

In the new village they quit drinking. They lived hygienic life. The children mortality rate went up.  My dad was 12 years old then when his parents shifted to this new village. The same year my paternal grandfather went around to neighbouring villages to preach the Gospel and help those who converted to set up new homes. In 1946, after WW II, the Allied troops were pulling out from the region. My grandfather and many others served as porters for the troops who were going back home. While returning to the village in rainy  July after his service as a porter my grandfather developed a certain sickness. Few days later he passed away leaving behind 3 sons and 2 daughters.  But the new church and the village these 7 families have started by then have more than 5 times the original number. My grandmother lived till 1994.

In 1948 my maternal grandfather came as a missionary- teacher to the village, with his family members. Besides teaching Bible to the youth group of the village,  he was the first man who taught women of the village how to read and write. The following years he taught people of this village how to build orchard and also how to plough the fields using buffaloes. He also taught them how to cultivate many items of vegatables and pulses. Till then villagers relied mostly on wild plants for food. (Even today plants in the forest continue to be an important source of food items). After roughly 10 years of fruitful service to this obscure village my maternal grandparents left the family with their children, leaving behind my mother who by then had got married to my father. This grandfather died in 1979; and grandmother is still alive.

Today the village has over 1800 members; more so because new converts came to live in the village and mortality rate decrease significantly. The literacy rate would be somewhere around 98%.Seeing the significant differences between Christian and non-christian almost every family  in the mother village has become Christian now. Some people criticise Christianity for destroying the tribal way of life. Well, I would very much prefer this life to the life then. My parents would say the same. And my grandparents would not disagree with the preference, I know!