By Ryan Miller
Mennonite Mission Network

	Participants at the Golden Jubilee mela (festival) in India’s Chhattisgarh region celebrate their faith by marching about two miles from Basna to Parrapat. — Photo by David Fisher Fast/MMN
	Participants at the Golden Jubilee mela spent two hours marching and proclaiming Christ's victory. — Photo by David Fisher Fast/MMN

For the first time, participants at the Golden Jubilee mela (festival) in India’s Chhattisgarh region celebrated their faith by marching about two miles Feb. 8 from nearby Basna to Parrapat, which has hosted the gathering since 1959.

Two days later, nearly 3,000 people attended the culminating worship service.

With chanting, singing, dancing and fireworks, marchers left the Mennonite church in Basna after a prayer service. A group of police officers provided security for the marchers. Only 2.3 percent of Indians are Christian, and in Chhattisgarh, as in many regions of India, public preaching is banned, and some persecution of Christians exists.

Still, the ban did little to inhibit marchers, who spent more than two hours joyously, and slowly, covering the road.

“In the name of Jesus,” a leader would cry in Hindi.

“Jai,” came the response — victory.

“The public should know there are Christians here,” Mahendre Kulbeep, an agent of BGCMC, said. “This is a peace rally. By this rally, we are leaving a message for the name and hand of Jesus.”

Pastor Ismael Kumar of the Church of the Savior in Orisa and mela chairman, said melas are common in his region of India.

“There are so many businesses, so many things happening, but this mela is separate,” Kumar said. “This mela is worshiping. This is completely Mennonite.”

Barkat Chandu, who said his grandmother was the first Mennonite convert in India, said the mela, the march and other forms of witness are important in a time when outright public evangelism is difficult.

“There is lots of agitation against preaching, evangelism,” Chandu said. “You can do it, but many government regulations have to be gone through. We can preach what we want about God, about Jesus Christ. We can teach from the Old Testament, the New Testament . . . but we’re not able to talk about conversion.”

Officials at the mela did offer an altar call, though the ceremonies were more about worship than about conversion.

An all-night rainstorm flooded tents and the seating area the morning of Feb. 9, sending most participants off-site to dry out, but nearly 3,000 people returned the next morning for the final worship service.

Jitendra (Jay) Henry, administrator of Bethany Bible College through Mid-India Christian Mission, offered the primary messages as worshipers squeezed onto chairs or sat on beds of straw under red, white, green and blue shelters.

Speakers used at least five languages to offer messages of challenge and praise, culminating in a celebration of the Lord’s Table. Pastors in robes and parishioners in street clothes passed out juice and wafers, supplementing them with chapattis, a kind of bread, for those at the rear of the crowd.

According to Ibrahim Nand, a Jagdeeshpur Mennonite who has attended each of the Parrapat melas, the spiritual committee of BGCMC worked with Mennonite mission workers Jacob Giesbrecht and Edward Burkhalter to start a mela in nearby Naranpal in 1958.

Nand, whose small book chronicling the 50 years of celebrations was distributed during Sunday’s services, said the festival moved to Parrapat the next year.

The BGCMC formed in 1922, 23 years after General Conference Mennonites from the United States and Russia arrived in central India as mission workers. Since mission workers left more than two decades ago, the church has grown to 27 congregations with more than 7,000 members.

The melas have long included many competitions — for best songs, praise dances, debates and Bible memorization. This year, young competitors memorized 1 Peter.

In an electronic age, the mela retains its importance, Nand said.

“Here we are living as a family,” Nand said, gesturing toward more than 30 canvas tents and seven large shelters that housed participants on the 19-acre field for the five-day festival.

“This is not just fellowship with God, but fellowship with people also.”

Mennonite Mission Network and Mennonite Church Canada Witness sent representatives to the festival.