Kathmandu (AsiaNews) - Thirteen young people were baptised on Easter night after they chose to embrace the Catholic faith. They are Hindu and Buddhist in background, but now they are ready to be "witnesses of the resurrection of Jesus Christ" and "work for the Kingdom of God."
"When I heard about the Catholic religion for the first time, my Hindu parents forbade me from entering a church for the entire school year,” Tengee, 20, told AsiaNews.
“When I finished school and went to college, I shared with others my interest in Christianity, which I had since childhood. A friend helped me and we read the Bible between classes almost every day."
"Together we bought a Bible with money saved from our meals,” she explained, “and took turns to keep it and hide it from our Hindu families.” Then, “One day, I met a student from St Xavier Catholic College and I asked him where I could meet some Catholics and find a Catholic church.”
“Probably God guided me that day when I reached the Cathedral of the Assumption in Lalitpur, where even now I go for Sunday mass."
"I met the parish priest,” she went on to say, “and I told him that I wanted to become Catholic. He told me to join the class of catechumens.”
“I studied the Catholic religion for more than two years. This year, I completed my preparation and I was baptised on Easter Sunday."
Tengee noted that her group of new Catholics was planning a mission of evangelisation. "We 13 converts discussed among ourselves how to make Jesus visible and accessible to the people of Nepal.”
“Nepali society,” she said, “is traditionally dominated by Hindus. Yet, many people want to become Christian but they do not know how to do it.” For us, “The first thing we thought was to share God’s love – he is just and does not discriminate”.
“The second thing we have to do as converts is not hesitate to identify ourselves as witnesses of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. By reading the Bible, we understand that Jesus rose again because he was the Son of God.”
“The third thing to keep in mind is that we are children of God, and the fourth thing is that harmony, peace and respect are possible only in the Kingdom of God ".
"We want to become the champions of these four principles,” she said. “We want to spread God’s words of life to everyone and to society as a whole. These four principles are the lights of God that we lit at Easter. "
"We started our mission with our families,” said Rosan, another convert, “because we want to convert our families first.”
“Then we want to reach out to our Won Buddhist neighbours, as well as the residents of the city and the whole country.”
“We do not want to impose or force conversion, “Rosan explained, “but we believe thousands of people are living in the dark without the light of Christ."
Touched by the enthusiasm of this small group of young people, many Catholics praised their efforts and are happy to help the new Christian youth in their work of evangelisation.
