contd.... Famous missionaries and crusaders like Billy Graham and Louis Palou came to Nepal, but instead organizing spectacular healing programs, can we not use the money to build hospitals or houses for disable people? The churches encourage their members to be involved in conversion and do not offer proper advice on how to become a responsible member of the society. Non-Christian festivals and rituals are only talked about in terms of temptation. During Dasain, Tihar and national holidays churches organize events, in order to prevent people going home and being tempted of forced to participate in rituals. While Nepalis from all corners of the country and even from abroad travel home, Christian gather within the four walls of their churches. When people fail to abstain from the rituals, for instance when they cut their hair and wear white clothes after a family member had died, they are not allowed to enter the church." Q: Why did you choose to leave the church, instead of trying to transform the church from within? "Our churches have inherited a colonial type of leadership. Pastors are regarded to be God=92s representatives and their words are not challenged. Therefor it would have been a difficult struggle to change things from within. We left with a good understanding. Q: What does sagarmatha fellowship stand for? "We choose a Nepali name, because we thought that would be a good start of the Nepalisation process. Sagarmatha represents the ultimate height, and transparency and purity. As a group we try to define what the core of Christianity is, and what part of culture. Christmas for instance is not mentioned in the bible. Therefore we believe we have the freedom to celebrate the coming of Jesus Christ, the victory of good over evil, during Dasain. We motivate the members to be responsible members of society. We don't have a paid pastor, because we believe we should have regular jobs like everyone else. In our teaching we include social issues and we celebrate national events like martyrs day. We have a democratic leadership and women are equal to men. We do not accept foreign donor money, but we do allow expatriates to become members like ourselves." Interview taken by Lucia de Vries (This article was originally published in Dec 96- Feb 97s Face to Face) From: ashutosh@post.harvard.edu (ashutosh@post.harvard.edu) Subject: What if all Nepalis became Christians?