Build a Multipurpose Hall for a Parish in India
Friday, January 27, 2017

The parish is planning to build a multipurpose hall to accommodate parish life, but these faithful are extremely poor and can contribute little financially. Half of them live below the poverty threshold. Can you help make their dream a reality?

The Parish of Ambadochar is a remote village parish in central India, some 56 miles from the town of Khandwa in the state of Madhya Pradesh. It has close to 200 Catholic families who are ministered to by the Divine Word Missionaries (also known as the Steyler Missionaries). The people of the region belong to ethnic minorities and are known as “Adivasi,” or “indigenous peoples.”

The Catholic community is growing rapidly here and they urgently need a center where Holy Mass and other liturgical ceremonies, prayer meetings, retreats and catechetical sessions can be held as well as gatherings for children, young people, women’s groups and many other such events. It doesn’t help that the old mud building currently used by the parish is in imminent danger of collapsing and is far too small.

The parish is now planning to build a multipurpose hall to accommodate parish life, but these faithful are extremely poor and can contribute little financially to the fulfillment of this dream. Half of them live below the poverty threshold, struggling to make ends meet from their own small agricultural plots, while others work as day laborers for wealthy landowners, not infrequently forced to borrow from them and so falling into debt bondage, since they are unable to pay the astronomically high interest demanded – a situation often passed down from generation to generation. Diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis are widespread, as is chronic malnutrition. Most adults are illiterate and very few of their children are able to attend school. As a result, there is no way these people can pay for the new building.

Father Pankratius Xalxo has turned to ACN for help, so that the parish can at last build the center they need for their activities. We have promised them $31,700.

Will you help Father Xalxo build this multipurpose hall for his parish in India? We are sure he and his parishioners will remember you in their grateful prayers!

Progress: 0% Raised: $ 80     Goal: $ 31700

Code: 317-01-19

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