The Church of God, Madhumalla, is a small church of just 60 members. To do good work, we don’t always need a big number and lots of educated people or even an educated leader in the church.
The neighbours of the church had a very negative attitude and hatred towards church members for no reason at all.Then, the church members did something remarkable for the community, and everything changed.
Khagendra Magar, Deacon of the church, relates that people in the community had never ever thought that one day the church would do something that would tie up both church and community members together. After attending a training programme provided by UMN about Integral Mission and climate change, Khagendra led his church in this community project. Church members, together with community people, were suffering from floods in the nearby river which affected their village. They had no idea that how they could protect the village from flood. Khagendra thought of planting seedlings along the bank of the river. The following year,the church itself produced seedlings and planted them on the side of the river bank. The trees by now have protected the land from erosion and more-over the place looks beautiful, because of the greenery around the river.
With the leadership and initiation of the church,the community has planted at least 600 seedlings already, and from this year they are going to plant bamboo on the side of the river. Bamboo is both cost effective and easy to plant. It has two benefits. In one hand, it will grow faster and soon become big, and on the other, in the future it can be sold and earn money. Considering these facts, this year the leadership of the church along with the community have planted 300 bamboo seedlings. For this the church contributed around NPR 10,000 (AUD 133) and the rest of the money was provided by the community. People’s attitude towards church is much more positive now.
By Arjun Tamang, UMN Integral Mission Officer