by Rosie Schefe

Pastor Pandila Santa describes his parish as his university, but he is hungry for more — new ways to solve old problems, new ways to stretch slim resources, and new ways for the Holy Spirit to work through him.

Pastor Santa came to Australian Lutheran College (ALC) for three months this year and hopes to return in future to learn more after a crash course in a culture so different from his own.

He comes from the Indian state of Orissa — one of the poorest and least developed in the country — and from a people who have been largely left out of India’s political and economic transformation.

Pastor Santa and the members of his parish are Khonds, the indigenous people of India, who, over centuries, have been pushed into its more remote, less fertile regions and to the margins of the dominant, Persian-influenced, Indian culture.

With ancient animistic beliefs not displaced by Hindu, Buddhist or Islamic influences, until the arrival of Christianity the Khonds led lives very different to the Bollywood-style images modern Australians associate with Indian culture.

You can read the full story in the December 2011 edtiion, available from LCA Subscriptions. Full stories become available online three years after publication date.

For more information about the Adivasi Christian Samaj (ACS) and the work of Saptamaha parish, please contact Pastor Ian Kleinig on 08 8374 2987 or email: iankleinig@hotmail.com