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Hopegivers' Graduations Mark Changed Destiny for India's Dalit Missionaries

by Allie Martin and Jenni Parker
February 17, 2006

(AgapePress) - - Hopegivers International, a Christian ministry that rescues orphans from the streets of India and trains native missionaries to spread the gospel, is preparing to hold graduation ceremonies at its seminary later this month. Many of those graduating are from India's lowest social class, the Dalits, who were once widely known as "untouchables."

More than 10,000 students are expected to graduate from Hopegivers International's seminary during the commencement ceremonies in Kota, India, this month. Most of the students in the ministry's Christian missionary training programs are members of the Dalits, a group that Dr. Samuel Thomas says has faced severe persecution in their Hindu society for more than 3,000 years.

Dalits fall outside (that is, below) India's four-fold caste system and, according to that system, do not originate from or have any part in God. This sets them apart from the Brahmins, whose members, Hindu tradition teaches, originate from the head of God; the Kshatriyas, who are supposed to come from God's shoulder, the Vaishyas, from his thigh, and the Shudras, from his feet.

But since India's Dalits come, supposedly, from below even God's feet, they have traditionally been considered impure, lowly, objects of contempt, fit only for the meanest tasks and occupations. In a Hindu-dominated society, the Dalits have long been systematically oppressed and denied access to the benefits conferred upon the higher castes.

A Spiritual 'Change of Status'
But Thomas says when Dalits are introduced to Christianity and convert, they discover a new dignity in the knowledge of God's love for them and his relationship to them as their Father, even as they gain a new understanding of their worth as people redeemed by the blood of Jesus. And now, he adds, as thousands of Dalit seminarians graduate from their Christian schools, they will be gaining something else.

As the Dalit Christians emerge from their training and go out to share the gospel of Jesus Christ throughout all India, Thomas points out, with this transition many will experience -- at least inwardly -- a sense of elevated status. "When the Dalits come to Hopegivers," he explains, "they don't ask us, 'Would you build us a house?' or 'Would you buy [us] land?' All they ask us is for one New Testament so that they can say it's theirs."

All the Dalit seminary students ever ask Hopegivers for, the ministry leader goes on to explain, "is that they can walk in the community of the high-caste with a Holy Bible in their hands, because, in their [former] religion, they were never supposed to even touch the holy book of the Hindus."

Traditionally in India, Thomas notes, "Dalits were treated worse than animals." But this year, he says, for the first time the formerly untouchable, outcaste, and unwanted Dalits will become an integral part of God's plan for reaching out to all of their nation with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

"Twenty-five percent of India's population is Dalit," Hopegivers International's president emphasizes. "How can we reach them?" he asks. "We can reach them by reaching their own people and then sending them to the mission field."

Last year, Hopegivers International's graduation ceremonies faced opposition from terrorists who tried to prevent the commencement exercises from taking place. But Thomas says these faith-filled Christian seminary graduates will not be deterred. Upon graduation, he notes, each student receives a bicycle and a one-way ticket to their first assignment on the mission field.

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