Dear Prayer Partners,

This month we have welcomed to New Zealand Lun and Ngaiching Misao from Manipur and Kolkata. Lun and Ngaiching lead the Ohfi Kolkata ministry in Kolkata, and it is with them that we in New Zealand partner. I would like to write an outline of their story.

Lun came from poor rural circumstances in Manipur. He was a school boy herdsman when Athang Touthang, the founder of Ohfi work in Manipur, found him and brought him as a boarder/student to the newly established Ohfi school in Kangpokpi. Lun did well in this new environment, making good academic progress despite his initial lack of primary schooling. He also showed leadership skills.

Ohfi sponsored Lun to undertake tertiary study in Kolkata which he completed well. It was Lun's experience of the intensity of slum poverty in Kolkata that led him to offer to stay in Kolkata and to work with Ohfi in the slums. Shortly after, he was appointed Director despite his young age. His appointment was made on the quality of his dedication, compassion and leadership skills.

For 20 years now, Lun has worked in Kolkata joined by Ngaiching from Manipur, whom he married a few years after starting his ministry. Like Lun, Ngaiching too came from poor circumstances. Today the couple have three children—Sarah, Malachi and Samuel. Together they have served faithfully and well in Kolkata.

For reasons relating to their children's best interests, recently the family decided to rebase themselves back in their home village in Manipur, with Lun spending time between his family and Kolkata. This was not an easy decision for the family to make. One consequence is that Lun, and Ohfi in Kolkata, are seeking a new leader for the Kolkata ministry.

The Kolkata Ministry

The work flows from the Ohfi house based near the Kolkata airport. The top floor of the house is used to teach young women sewing on treadle machines. This training gives these young women the opportunity to develop skills that will enable them to earn a living and lift them out of poverty.

A major feature of the ministry is the tuition centres in six slum areas within the region of Ohfi house. The tuition centres operate with the help of community volunteers after school hours. They are there to lift the standard of education received by the children, and to provide care for the children until their parents or guardians return some hours later from their menial day jobs.

Ohfi also brings medical services into the six areas, mostly on a monthly basis, staffed by a doctor or sometimes by a nurse or clinician. Lun, Ngaiching and their team also work to get refugees from Bangladesh in their centres registered with a hospital so they can receive vaccinations, medicines and pregnancy services.

Social work-related visiting to families, especially those in need, is another feature of the ministry.

All the above is only possible because of the way Lun and Ngaiching have worked hard to gain the trust of the various communities who are overwhelmingly Hindu or Muslim. One outcome of the Ohfi ministry is that there has been no trafficking of children from any of the six communities served, unlike neighbouring poor communities.

Prayer Requests for Kolkata

Please pray for:

 - A strong, spirit-filled leader who identifies with the Ohfi vision, to release Lun to be with his family full time in Manipur.

- The continued well-being of the children and young people of the six centres—that they can grow up knowing they are safe and loved and are receiving good health care and education.

- Safe and aware communities where traffickers can have no influence.

Manipur

Manipur at present is a divided State. Two years ago, violence broke out between Hindu radicals and Christian tribal people, with much killing, burning of villages and churches, and displacement of people. Today the Indian army patrols a buffer zone between the two groups, meaning that the capital city of Imphal and the airport are off-limits for the Christians. They have to travel a 16-hour journey to the capital of the neighbouring state of Mizoram to access services and an airport.

As a consequence of the violence, the Christian communities have become disjointed. The influx of displaced people and their search for a safe and secure home along with work has contributed to this. Families hold guns and children learn to use them. Unemployment is high and school attendance is low. People have resorted to growing drugs—marijuana and poppy/cocaine—both of which grow and are sold easily. This leads to high drug use amongst the people, including children.

Ngaiching spoke passionately about children away from school and being high on drugs. She urged us to remember this situation in our prayers before God.

To help correct this desperate situation, Lun and Ngaiching have started an Ohfi service, including a tuition centre in the village of Khousabung. At this stage, there is no secure funding for the Centre, but it has begun in faith. Already a request has come from a neighbouring village for a similar service to start in their village.

Please remember Lun and Ngaiching, this outstanding couple of God, in your prayers.