A chapel in the village of a vast parish

The parish of the Immaculate Conception in Moharpara, in northeast India, lies close to the border with Bangladesh. It includes 31 different villages and serves a population of around 5,000 Catholics, most of them relatively young in age.

The parish is vast, and many of the villages are remote and difficult to reach. The priests sometimes have to walk up to five miles in order to reach these villages.

One such village is Twicholong. There have been Catholics here since 1969—just a handful of families at first,  but now there are around 50 families and 245 parishioners.

The village has its own very small chapel, built by the people themselves from mud bricks and with a tin roof. It is now in a bad state of repair and has also grown too small to accommodate the congregation, but because there is nowhere else to go, the faithful continue to gather here every day for prayer.

In the meantime, they have begun work on a new chapel, which is to be dedicated to the Divine Mercy. But these people are extremely poor. As members of one of the Indigenous tribal groups, they barely manage to scrape a living from working the land or slaving away as day labourers. And while they all contribute what they can to the construction of this new chapel, their means are limited.

As a result, Father Arbok Lyngdoh has turned to us for help. He assures us that the parish is very active, and the women and young people in particular are very committed. He is hoping that a larger chapel, in which various pastoral programs can be organized, will contribute to further revitalizing parish life. He writes: “The faithful are hoping that their dream of a bigger and better chapel can be fulfilled by next year.”

We cannot let these Catholic faithful in Twicholong down. And so—with God’s help and yours—we would like to contribute $19,320 towards the completion of their chapel.