BISHOP'S MESSAGE
BISHOP'S MESSAGE
Warm greetings from the CSI South Kerala Diocese. It is with great joy I greet the CSI Congregation of South Kerala Diaspora in Dubai.
It has been a historic reality that people from South Travancore has been travelling across the globe and settling down in different countries all through the last many decades. It is yet a matter of regret and concern for me that we have grossly failed in the proper pastoral care of our people. They were left mostly to tend for themselves or to seek pastures in churches of other dioceses or denominations. Many of them were lured away by para church movements and many opted to keep a safe distance from the church.
The CSI Church of the South Kerala Dioaspora in Dubai was a humble initiative of the Diocese to address this pressing need.
I have seven prayers for the congregation in Dubai
- It would cater to the spiritual needs primarily of all the Diaspora Christians of the South Kerala Diocese in Dubai and then reach out to others as well
- It would be a comforting and counseling centre to all those who struggle with the hard realities of expatriate living
- It would be an inclusive community where the needs of the children, youth, women, elderly and the marginalized will be addressed
- It would be a reaching out community specially to the people suffering in the camps and without proper jobs
- It would be a serving community and witnessing community where the gospel would be lived more than it is preached
- It would truly be identified as the connecting point of the diocese between the people in diaspora and their roots here amidst us
- It would be an eschatological community bearing witness ti the life and witness of Jesus Christ is a genuinely pluralistic and cosmopolitan context.
I also sincerely appeal that there shall be no spirit of competition with any one. We should be able to work in close communion with all churches within the CSI fold and outside towards a harmonious witness
May God richly Bless You
Rt. Rev. Dharmaraj Rasalam
