DORCAS DAY AND MOTHERS DAY MAY 8, 2016
Nu Mankhodim addressed the congregation by reading out the word of God from Hosea 10:11-15 and opened the service with a prayer. Praise and Worship was led by the worship team of the Dorcas dept. Singspiration was concluded with an offertory prayer by Deacon Damsomthang.
DORCAS DAY GREETING: Nu HAUMUANKIM
On January 11, 1950 the Dorcas Pawl was formed by Pu(L) Nengzachin, Pu(L) Tunvum and Pu Siamkung at Mission Compound. When they started out they had collected an amount of only Rs5- Rs.2 was given by Pu Nengzachin and Rs.1.5 each was given by Pu Tunvum and Pu Siamkung and now God has blessed us immensely that even the poorest one is able to contribute more than Rs.5.
On April 2, 2000 at the 11th Dorcas Joint Meeting a proposal was made for “Dorcas Day” and on 23 August 2000 at the 152nd BOT Meeting it was passéd that “Dorcas Day” would be celebrated on every 3rd Sunday of January which was later changed to every 1st Sunday of August for convenience. Later on it was combined with mother’s day and since then it has been celebrated with mother’s day as a convention.
The purpose behind the formation of the Dorcas Pawl was to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep them from being polluted by the world.
SERMON : As it being a special day we had a guest speaker Ms.Liankhoman (Dorcas Coordinator for EBC). Today’s sermon has been taken from Hosea 10:12 -
“ Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy, break up your fallow ground; for it is time to seek the LORD, till he come and rain righteousness upon you.”
We all as human beings need to break off/ break up from so many things in our lives which have become a part of us that it has become hard to let go of those bad habits and characters. She said that while singing the worship songs, one of the songs really touched her and made her ponder upon how at times or many a times we ourselves are the ones that deface GOD and his blessings. For example with respect to women by looking at your own relationship with your husband you will find that in many ways you may have defaced God through your habits or at times simply the way you live. Considering all of this we may have to break up from all these habits and our way of living so that Gods own image can be reflected through us and that we can become a channel of blessing to others.
If we look at a broader aspect we all know about the problems back at home. At one of the Dharna’s she visited with her friends, there a person asked them whether our God can really save us from our problems. If so then why are you doing all the things that we (non-believers) do to make our voices heard. This made her think twice if we really have strayed away from God and his words and defaced Him? The way other people (non-believers) look at us is that we have already defaced God in so many ways even when we as believers are not aware of it. Like for example these days we are witnessing different kinds of natural calamities like earthquake, thunder, lightning and even hailstorms in our own mother land. Such things have come down on us too which we thought would never happen to us. Such incidents make one to think what if God’s wrath is really upon us.
If we look in Hosea 10:13 it is written, “But you have planted wickedness, you have reaped evil, you have eaten the fruit of deception. Because you have depended on your own strength and on your many warriors.” This very verse was written in the context of Israel who have cheated and lied and have strayed away from God. They had accepted and followed the ways of the non-believers, forgetting the very own God who brought them out of their misery in Egypt. Because of their actions the result was complete destruction of Israel. If we look at our present situation with all the problems back home. If we are to find the root cause of the problem then these are the effect of all the seeds of evil, lies and deception that have been planted in ourselves since our childhood. The parents play a very big role in planting these seeds. Like for example when an infant cries, in order to make him quiet the parents tells them to stop crying or else a ghost will come and get you or a child hunter will come and fetch you if he hears your cry or lets go and see that helicopter etc.etc. All these are nothing but all lies which have been planted at a very young age from time immemorial. But it is never too late to repent and ask for God forgiveness and turn to Him as He is always willing and ready to forgive us. He still cares for us and always willing to give a second an even a third chance to change ourselves. Maybe that is the reason why out of all the earthquake affected places in Manipur, the place where we who call ourselves His people live have been saved and have not been touched. All this proves that we are still precious for Him. And that it is time for us to break up from our sinful ways and to sow the seed of righteousness for it is written what we sow so shall we reap. Let us plant the seed of righteousness so that we may reap the fruit of unfailing love and righteousness.
To sum it all one needs to break up / break out from these things:
- not being able to keep secrets to oneself
- being a blabbermouth
- spreading news without confirming the facts about it.
The importance of a good mother:
- ABRAHAM LINCOLN said that all that I am I owe it to my mother.
- DL MOODY said if all mothers were like my mother then there would be no need of a jail or a prison.
- Napoleon was once asked, what is the one thing that France is lacking at the moment? He replied by saying, “we lack good mothers.”
- H BENSON said it is better to have good mothers than to have great soldiers.
- The bible itself talks about a good mother in Proverbs 31:10:
“A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies.”
After the sermon Pastor N TuangLang read Proverbs 31:30 “Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.” and then prayed for all mothers present today.
After the prayer the children gave a token of love to all the mothers and sang a song in the honour of all the mothers.
The worship team led the congregation with a song and the worship service was closed with a benedictory prayer by Pastor H. Biakson.
- Esther Tunglut, Content Writer
