Sunday Saint Thomas

After the Hindu temple, we were able to go to a small cathedral that had the amazing remains of the apostle Thomas, doubting Thomas. There are only three places in the world that have remains of apostles and this is one of them. St Peter in Rome is the most well known and then one in Spain. Thomas came to India and preached for twenty years before he was stabbed in the back by a sword. The tip of the sword is also here. Compared to St Peters in Rome, this cathedral looked like your local parish. In the basement is the tomb and there was an English mass with the priest officiating right over the tomb. There was also a mass going on above in the cathedral. In the museum there were these amassing relics that were quite accessible and lightly guarded.







Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

School prayer time Sunday

Image
Every day he Rising Star school has a 30 minute inspirational non denominational prayer time before dinner We went with them today. My sponsor child, 12 year old Pria took me by the hand and we walked there. They take off their shoes and gather in classes on the floor of the cafeteria and have an opening song- this one was in English - then a man gave an inspiration message  about 15 minutes in Tamil. We had individual prayers and another song in Tamil and then a closing group prayer led by an older student. The girl who prayed was the same girl who was baptized at the Mormon church earlier that day. After prayer time it is dinner and everyone washes their hands,and gets a metal bowl. Each class is in a circle and a large vat of rice and another bowl of curry are brought to each class. Today is the one day that they have non vegetarian curry. It was chicken curry reserved for Sunday. The washing water is not drinking water so they have drinking purified water. No one has gotten &quo
Read more

Last day at Rising Star Sept 7

Image
Thursday  September 7 last day at Rising Star In the morning, we visited our last lepracy colony, Chettipunniyam.   A young woman, Abby or Ambica who usually accompanied us in the colonies was with us and this was her home so people were excited to see her.  We went to the community center (built by Rising Star) and played Jenga with some of the kids. I massaged and oiled the legs of the community leader. She had leg muscle pain that I massaged and she said it felt a lot better.  The day before our facilitator, Natalie, went back to college at CalPoly San Lois Obisbo  so we were down a volunteer. The dance master Susie came to the colony today and the kids at the colony were excited to see Susie. She taught them all in her dance classes so she knew most of the kids.  We also got out the nail polish and Camille painted those who wanted their nails done.  There was a boy and girl there that were home because their father had just passed away from a heart attack. So sad. The
Read more

Micro businesses in a large Colony

Image
Wednesday September 6 Bharathapurem   Wednesday we traveled to a larger leprosy  colony, Bharathapurem,  that Rising Star Outreach has had a significant amount of influence. 500 people live here. Who lives in a leprocy colony? Because people live together in extended families, people who have a family member with leprocy would live there. Not everyone who lives here has leprocy.  We met with the head of the community, Mary Pria. She told us that for the past 10 years Rising Star has helped this community. Mary has been the colony leader for eight years, so much of the improvement happened under her leadership. Rising Star has helped with structural improvement and businesses.  The structural improvements we saw were a community computer room to teach basic computer skills, a community garbage receptical, a well, a covering for the sewer, bathrooms, a community hall, and a day care center. 18 people have gotten jobs from the computer skills learned alone.  Each infrastruct
Read more