Two visiting Jesuits discovered a little about their Creighton counterparts this week.
“We are exchanging the brotherhood,” said the Rev. Hector D’Souza, S.J. “What we call friends in the Lord has come alive because of the twinning.”
Hector and the Rev. Charles D’Souza, S.J., are Jesuits in the Kohima Region of northeastern India. Their region signed a formal twinning agreement with the Wisconsin Province, to which Creighton belongs, in 2002.
“The Wisconsin Province and the Kohima Region, as two Jesuit, entities have grown together over the years because of this twinning,” Hector said.
Hector is the former provincial of South Asia and president of the Jesuit Conference of South Asia, while Charles is the current regional superior of the Kohima Region.
Both men are from Mangalore on the western coast of India, but serve the poorer rural area of the Kohima Region. They answered the call from the government to help the missionary there.
“India is not one single country,” Hector said. “It is a continent. You might think of Europe. We have people of different cultures, different ethnic backgrounds, languages. And therefore, think of India as multicultural.”
Kohima itself is made up of five Indian states: Assam, Meghalayan, Nagaland, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh.
India as a whole has seen an industrial explosion in the past 10 years.
“A new development has taken place,” Hector said. “People are becoming more conscious of their rights, as well as their duty.”
The states of Kohima, however, have not seen this same industrial explosion. The region is located next to some of the poorest countries in the world, namely Burma, Tibet, Bangladesh and Bhutan.
“Tribal are indigenous people, like the Lakota, having their own identity, their own culture and also traditions,” Hector said. “Most of them are animistic religions. They have a great sense of spirit. The whole ecology is part of their life. Mother Earth is very important to their identity.”
Christian traditions and songs were incorporated into the tribal religions when Christianity was accepted.
“You’ve never seen anything like a celebration there,” said the Rev. Andy Alexander, S.J., who spent 14 days in the Kohima Region in 2006. “These languages are tonal—so when they sing, the harmonies are an incredible sound you can barely imagine. Everyone sings.”
Education is the main goal of the Jesuits.
“Most of our schools are in rural areas,” Charles said. “The people are poor and they need more help.”
The Jesuits set up the Teacher Training Institute in Phesama, Nagaland, to train all the teachers serving in the Kohima Region. They also work with catechists in each tribal village, which could be home to anywhere from 5,000 to 400,000 people.
“A catechist is a lay religious leader of the church,” Charles said. “We do not know the language, so he is the interpreter. He also takes care of the church when we are unable to reach them. He conducts the services.
“These are our collaborators.”
Both the catechists and the teachers work independently of the Jesuits once the schools and churches have been set up because there is so much other work to be done, Charles and Hector said.
The Jesuits in the Kohima Region rely on the Northeast Social Research Centre for research and direction for information on the socioeconomic conditions of the villages that need the most help.
Although the conditions in which they work are very dissimilar to those at Creighton, both Hector and Charles were excited to be exposed to the students.
“The freedom you have here is tremendous. The facilities are amazing,” Charles said. “It’s very heartening to see. Students can put their hands to anything and they can go—
“I just wonder how this generation will grow up into something beautiful.”