FRIENDS OF SERAMPORE

The UK support group for one of the greatest and most historic of India's Christian institutions, which still has a vital and unique role to play.

The almost complete June 2004 newsletter

In our last letter we made a special appeal, because we had struggled to send our annual gift to the College:
Please, please do all you can so that we may not only meet our commitments in future but also be able to send substantially more. And we need new members, especially younger ones. We are preparing a new 'Invitation to Join' leaflet, intended for those who we know have visited or have some connection with Serampore.

You will be delighted to know that there has been a very good response to both appeals (don't let that put you off continuing the good work!) – and we are very glad to welcome eight new members, most of whom have visited Serampore recently.

Here is an up-to-date report from the Principal, sent specially for this letter, along with some photos:

The College bus - here used to transport children to school
Reading FoS supplied magazines in the library!

 
Peter Singh and family

Thank you for your mail. It is so encouraging to hear that response has increased on membership and fund-raising drives. Let me give you news from Serampore from which you can select items for the next newsletter.

Theology Department:

2003 June - 2004 April session was a very peaceful year. It was concluded with a valedictory service where the Principal of Orissa Christian Theological College gave a challenging message.

Outgoing students, and what they plan to do:

34 BD Graduates: Women 9 – Missions 2; Church ministry 1 ;Teaching ministry 1; social service 1; further study 4.
Men 25 - Pastoral ministry 17; missions 1; youth ministry 3; teaching ministry 2; social service 1; further study 1.

3 M.Th Graduates: Women 1 - Pastoral ministry. Men 2 - Pastoral ministry 1; teaching ministry 1.

What a joy it was to send off such a number of young people who are committed to serve the Lord in different situations. Many of them were very talented. Some of them teamed up with younger students and produced a very good audio-cassette of meaningful spiritual songs.

The 2004 - 2005 session began with Retreat on 19 & 20 June.

Staff situation remains the same. [The Health Insurance we helped provide helps with some of the problems staff families face] We need one more Teacher for Old Testament. We had to stop Missiology M.Th. course for want of teacher.
We implement from this year a change of duration of the whole BD course from 3.5 years to 4 full years. The new batch now join from June instead of October. The total of students for this year is 121 (19 women).

Street Outreach ministry continues on every second and fourth Sundays. A seminar organized with the help of the Karma-to-Grace ministry from USA was very successful. Some professors from the ASC Dept of the College also participated.

We have received a substantial amount of gift from Dr. and Mrs. Rhodes' Church in Scotland. Rs. 8 lakhs (£10,000) for Theology Staff Salary Endowment. [Bill & Helen suggested this when their church received a large legacy – a nice bit of "steering"! Now there's an imaginative way of helping the College.]

Arts-Science-Commerce Department:

The students have done very well in University exams and sports. We have started social service extension programmes also, by organizing Free Health Clinic with the help of local doctors. We plan to introduce new undergraduate courses, viz. Electronics and Statistics, hopefully to develop them into self-financing courses.

We are actively preparing ourselves for the visit of the team from the National Assessment and Accreditation Council, an authority to accredit higher education institutions. They plan to come on 26-27 August. We need to work to get everything in the best possible condition, involving substantial financial spending to do colour wash of the walls, repair of buildings, making new furnishings, repair of the campus roads and other infra-structural items.

General:

The All India Association of Christian Higher Education gave us some grant to produce a VCD on Rare Books written and collected by Serampore Missionaries.

New Studio: A small communication centre was installed in one small room of Carey Library, with help from HCJB, World Radio. It will be used for teaching Communications to theology students.

The exterior colour wash of the Carey Library, Carey House and Mack House makes the buildings look much better. We changed the traditional yellow into grey and off-white. We expected a bit of complaint about the change, but everybody appreciates. Former Teachers and some senior teacher comment thus, "For generations we have been seeing the yellowish colour of all the buildings and now it is new, this is very good".
We spent about Rs.1 million, with help from the Bibles For The World and William Carey Heritage Foundation, Colorado Springs, USA. Having these buildings newly painted makes the other buildings look more shabby. We pray God will provide more funds to have all the buildings painted new (exterior and interior).

The leaking Carey House roof has now been stopped as a result of repair work done with the donation from our home church in Mizoram. It has been an expensive task, but we can now sleep peacefully even when it rains. We dare the coming of monsoon also. Praise the Lord.

The more-than-20 years old car is beyond repair. We need to buy a van for general use. Can somebody in UK gift it to us? [Is anyone listening?]
We cannot really maintain Carey Cemetery, St.Olave's Church and Krishna Pal's Baptism site to the level we wanted due to lack of money.

The TV department of Denmark visited last year and now they have sent us a copy of the Video covering all the places where Danish activities were seen in the past. Serampore takes much space in the video. The Danish gentleman who made it warned us to be prepared for more Danish visitors as a result of the telecasting of this in Denmark.

Visitors continue to come from all over, and my wife, Hliri, enjoys extending our humble hospitality to them.

We have Dr Rajaratnam in his eighties who continues as Master of the College Council. He is active and always on the move.

Thank you for holding us up to the Lord by your prayers. We can do what the Lord has assigned to us only because of His enabling in answer to prayers offered on our behalf.

Your email gave me a very pleasant work of reporting. I should have done it earlier. Thank you for giving me wonderful reasons to write.

Convey our many many thanks to all the members of the Friends of Serampore, UK. May God richly bless you.

With warmest regards,

Chungnunga and Hliri


 

Other Matters:

Here is last year's financial statement:

Income

Balances b/f on 1 Jan 2003
1236.79
 
Donations and subscriptions (incl. S/Os £833)
1978.00
Gift Aid refunds received via Broadmead Baptist Church
356.79
Miscellaneous and Bank interest
32.52
 
3604.10

Expenditure

Journal subscriptions
446.00
To Ser.Coll.: Support of staff member £2000, plus £500 used for Theology Dept.
2500.00
Expenses: Newsletters and postage, etc
102.26
 
Balances c/f on 31 Dec 2003:
555.84
 
3604.10

Please ask if you would like to see the inspected accounts.


The Carey Experience is the title of a leaflet giving details of places in the Northamptonshire area connected with the life and work of William Carey. For further information, contact our member Margaret Williams at 98 Park Avenue, Northampton NN3 2JD, tel. 01604 719187, Email: info@thecareyexperience.co.uk, or visit www.thecareyexperience.co.uk.

In our last letter, we included a piece by John Hudson about William Ward. This aroused considerable interest, and in particular correspondence from Ronald Ellis, son of a former manager of the Baptist Mission Press in Calcutta, who is compiling a website on William Ward! He was a bit baffled by the description of a steam printer – "Ward did introduce the first steam engine into India - in 1820. It was imported specifically for the paper mill." The reference to a steam printer was evidently the result of thinking of paper production as simply part of the whole printing process at Serampore, whereas in fact it was a huge enterprise in itself.

Margaret MacGregor has copies of a very interesting book about Dr HJ Taylor, who was Principal of Scottish Church College in Calcutta and a great friend of our College. If you would like one, contact her at 16 Learmonth Court, Edinburgh EH10 5RE or Email to mitadi@fish.co.uk.

One other snippet: we noticed an obituary that reflects interestingly on the College. Father James Stuart, of the Cambridge Brotherhood, who died aged 88 (while on leave!), was well-known for his ministry to marginalised slum-dwellers in Delhi but also, behind a curtain of anonymity, prepared much of the liturgical material for the Book of Common Prayer of the CIPBC in 1960 and later for the Book of Worship of the CNI: "Few realised the debt owed by the Indian Church to this reticent scholar. Thus it gave great pleasure to his many friends when, in 1966, the Senate of Serampore College awarded him the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity in recognition of that debt."

With that reminder of how widely in India and across the denominations Serampore College is regarded, we close this letter. Of course, as we keep emphasising, the fact that it is not the responsibility of any one church means that fund-raising is a never-ending struggle, and so your gifts are of immense value. A special word of thanks to those of you who give by standing order – this is the backbone of our income, but it comes in so quietly that we easily forget to say "Thank you". We do now!

Since the new leaflet for those who already know something of the College has proved so useful, we enclose a copy which we hope you will use in whatever way you can. And, as usual, we remind you that cheques for the cause should be made payable to "Friends of Serampore" - unless they are over £40, and Gift Aid-able, in which case please make them payable to "Broadmead Baptist Church".

And beyond the finance, please do continue to have the College and all its staff and students in your prayers.

Yours very sincerely,

Edward and Rosemary Williams


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