 MARCH/APRIL 2003 (XXXXI 2) |
Last fall, 10 Friends from Philadelphia Yearly Meeting spent three weeks in India, visiting Indian Friends and hearing about their lives, their concerns and some of their hopes for the future. The first four days were spent in New Delhi where we visited the small New Delhi Worship Group. This was the only unprogrammed meeting that we attended.
After a quick trip to Agra to see the Taj Mahal, we traveled by van into Madhya Pradesh, home to India’s three Yearly Meetings and most of its Quakers. We visited evangelical Friends in Chhatarpur and saw their Hindi-language middle school. They are part of Bundelkhand Yearly Meeting, and are geographically isolated from the Friends of Mid-India and Bhopal Yearly Meetings. We attended the 4th All-India Gathering of Friends held in Sohagpur at the Friends Girls’ School, and then visited Itarsi, home of newly renovated George Fox Hall (their meetinghouse), and Friends’ primary, middle and boys’ high schools. We also spent a few days in and around Pachmarhi, a hill station, where a local Quaker teacher took us on a tour of the surrounding forest reserve.
After leaving Itarsi, we made a stop at the Friends Rural Centre in Rasulia and at the Hoshangabad Meeting House on our way to Bhopal. In Bhopal we attended part of the Asia-West Pacific Section meeting of Friends World Committee for Consultation and were privileged to hear personal accounts from Bhopal Friends of their experiences during the Union Carbide factory disaster in 1984. We joined Bhopal Friends for Sunday services in their old church. We learned that most Friends in India have programmed Meetings for Worship. Chhatarpur Friends have a pastor; elders conduct services in other Meetings. In our travels we also met members of the General Conference of Friends in India (GCFI), an organization for “scattered Friends” which meets once a year for worship and business.
We are grateful for the warm hospitality we received from Indian Quakers, and we look forward to a continuing relationship with Friends in India.
Anne Briggs
Chester River Meeting (MD)
Last modified: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 at 08:18 AM