A Spiritual Journey to Roha (MGOCSM Global Conference)

MGOCSM GLOBAL Conference Indian Malankara Orthodox Church 
Febin John James – Descriptive Narration 
OCP NEWS Service
3/1/2012

25th December(Night)

Everyone gathers, we divide ourselfs into groups according to the different compartments we were bording the train. Then instructions were given. Then people were made learn there proxy names. Our group were so called all mens group and our compartment was S12 (Me(Febin),Fr.Bejoy,Tiji,Jacob,Rijo&Shebin) . And yes now we are inside the train.

 

Everyone settles up

 

Jacob : Acha, Wher are you basically from?

Fr.Bejoy : Hyderabad

Febin : Achen has come to our church when he was a shemasan.

Fr.Bejoy : Oh yes , i remember but why did i come?

Febin : I remember you gave a speech during the meeting and you were talking about naxalates and all.

Fr.Bejoy : Oh u remember even that?

Fr.Bejoy : Everyone has broughtup something to eat?

Febin : I have Rum Cake, Wine Cake & Kabab

Rijo : I have mutton biriyani

Shebin : I have few chicken roles

Fr.Bejoy : I think this will be enough for todays dinner

Fr.Bejoy talks something about the new beed rings he were preparing with tiji.

 

Later it was time for dinner and we all take out the food items we bought and we begin sharing.

Febin : I need to share kabab with ashly , i need to go to her compartment

Fr.Bejoy : Wait for 5 minutes mone , we will go together

Jacob : Even i am comming .

We start walking form S12 to S2. That was really a long walk.

On my way i meet Roy

Roy : Febin , Wait

Febin : I need to deliver this

Roy : Give me the thing in your hand and you go.

Atlast i reach S2. And then i handover the kabab to ashly. She shares with everyone in the compartment. Later we recognize that no one in the other compartments were having food. We tell them what all we ate . And we could see water coming out of their mouth.

Fr.Bejoy : Message them our Menu we had for dinner.

Jacob : I will do it.

We walk back to our compartment

Jacob types the menu and send it to all of them

Roni(SMS) : Have a great time in Indian Railway Toilet.

Fr.Bejoy : Message them our tommorows BreakFast Menu Also.

Someone : Say we have bananna chips.

Jacob : It is not they  way to present it. Instead we will write fruit flakes dipped in oil.

Between our jacob got a new name IPC. Which was given to him by Roy. But he loved the name and he still loves people to called him the same name.

Later we all go to sleep.

 

26th December

We all gets fresh and we were about to have breakfast. Suddenly two people appears from no where Libin & Roy.

Fr.Bejoy takes out bread and sandwitch spread, He prepares it and serves others. Later he serves it to all of us. Later we all have Pav Baji. Then Fr.Bejoy,Tiji &Shebin leaves to other compartment Me, Jacob & Rijo were left behind.

We get bored and we sleep.

They return back soon than expected. I start to walk towards S2.

Roy : Da, I need to learn more about the history of our church .

Febin : You need to Go For COLT. It is conducted by Fr.Philip Kuruvilla. Where the first 3 days you will have lectures and the rest 3 days you will taken to our old churches.

Roy : Da , let me know when registration begins.

Fr.Bejoy Joins Us, He asks me to take his laptop and come. I then start to S12 to get the laptop . I reach S12 takes the laptop and gets backs to S2. Fr.Bejoy then shows us the documentry of Jesus Prayer.

Jesus Prayer Contained much more about the orthodox monastatries and their life. We watch with a lot of curiosity.

It was around 12.30

 

Tiji(Call) : Lunch has arrived

Libin : All Mens Club go back to your compartment your lunch has arrived.

We then get back to our compartment to have lunch. With great difficulty we finished it.

Fr.Bejoy : One Ice Cream would have finished this.

Jacob : Let’s wait , those people will be comming.

I can’t wait for someone to arrive. I say them i am going to have it. I then start walking in search of ice cream.

I arrive at S6. Sees a guy with ice cream and i purchase 6 cup ice creams from him. In between i met with Rini,Sophia & Ashly who were on their way to S2. Later we all travel to S2. Where those people were already having cone ice cream in their hands.

Ashly : It was so difficult to get here.

Rini : All mens club is so booring (Yawns)

Febin : Go Away Then 😛

Sophi : Steffi is screaming to come back to their compartment.

All the 3 girls plans to leave

Fr.Bejoy : Can some one escort them?

 

I and Shebin goes with them. We reach S2. But the train almost reached Pune. We Couldn’t go back to get our luggage because we were out of time. We reach pune. Somehow we managed to get our luggage back.

Jacob so called IPC leads us out

 

Jommy : There is an orange cow.

Jommy : This even knows how to climb and walk on the walls.

Someone from mumbai calls to say that they have arranges a yellow color bus to travel. We wait near the road for the yellow colour bus with the last 4 numbers as 7640 or something. Later we see the bus. We puts all our luggage into it. The Bus Moves.

Shiney : I need to go to the loo.

Suddenly bus stops near a school and goes out to somewhere.

Shiney : Where did the bus conductor go?

Roy : He went where shiney wanted to go 😛

Roy : He went to take permit (Number 2) 😛

Annu : He went to take pass ( Number 1) 😛

 

We sing songs to kill time, after few hours we reach balikagram . We see hyderbad guys over there. I greet with few of my old friend (Rinu,Ajo,Melwin,Rijo,Rinto,Cyril & Sabu) We take time to get fresh. We move to have snacks.

 

Febin : I have noted a pani puri stall on our way here. Come lets go out and eat it.

Shebin : Lets go.

We both rush towards the pani puri stall. The sun begins to set down and it was getting darkened everywhere.We reach the spot but couldn’t find the guy.

Febin : Bhaiya , Yahe pe pani puri kaha milega?

Localite : Pahale Yahe Se Seeda Jana. Fir Aisa Jana Or Fir  Aisa Jana.

Shebin : Aisa Jana , Aisa Jane??

We again moves to the place he said. But unfortunately that guy has left.

Shebin : If someone ask we ate pani puri ok 😛

Febin : Ok

We reach back and saw everyone getting into the bus.

Steffi : Where did guys go?

Febin : We went to have pani puri.

Shebin : Yeah, What a taste.

 

We take our seats. Now the bus is filled because we had hyderbad people also . We play Anthakshari. The hyderabad guys pulled liturgical song to this. Bangalore guys were so irritated and had a hard time in bringing them out of it. After some time we get to know some other people have missed the way around 40 KM. And our people guides them to proper way. Now the bus was filled with silence. Most of them goes to sleep. But a few people learn some carol songs as they had to present it in the conference.

We reach roha.

We then see few people with walkie talkies. They were volunteers . They only spoke in hindi. Libin takes care of the registration things.  I call Naveen (My Friend). He arrives . {HUG}

 

Febin : Who all have come?

Naveen : Rijo,Anil,Jom & Asvin are inside.

Febin : Wow !

Naven : Where is koppa(Ashly)?

Febin : Points here.

We begin to have dinner. I loved the chicken over there. It was so nice. Later we all get our id cards.

Ria : You have the shedule?

I get the shedule from my friend and we both scans it to find totally borring.

Febin : I am gonna sleep through out .

Ria : I know this is so boring

Later one of the voulnteer He consider him to be strict. Takes us all to the room.

 

We saw a big room with four beds. The rest had to sleep on the floor. The room was covered 3/4th with wood. But again the top and bottom portions were uncovered. It was explosed to the cold air. And we has to sleep on the floor . Which means most of our heads were exposed to the cold . But people near the edges had a hard time because they were completely exposed to cold. We all settles down.

We sleep.

 

27th December 2012

Roni was the first to wake up and to take bath. He then called rest of them . We had around six bathrooms. We could take bath soon since no one else were awake. Some one says coffee is served. We all go out to have them.

 

Libin : Tastes the coffee. He said this must be called black water.

Libin was somewhat rite. it tasted as some sugar cyrup mixed with water.

We plan to go to the river side.

Volunteer : Stop , Vaha math jane ka.

Libin : Bhaiya Hut Bhaya Hut.

Volunteer : Towards Hut is ok , But don’t go beyond that.

Later we all enters the conference hall for the morning prayer.

Later Bhava Thirumeni Arrives

Prinu(Calls) : Where are you, I have brought the pots can you come neat the chapel?

Febin : Yes, We are coming.

Me & Libin Rush toward the chapel

Volunteer : You are not supposed to go out.

Libin : We have got pots from prinu , we need to carry them.

 

One of the volunteer escorts us. Prinu hands the pots to us. We keep it inside the chapel.

Later it was time for break fast. I stayed away from it. I fasted so that skit will turn out good. Later we gather inside the chapel where thirumeni asks us to maintain discipline through out. He also prays for our skit.

 

Libin : As thriumeni said we couldn’t miss our sessions. So we need to skip our lunch to get ready for the skit.

Sophia : We don’t mind skipping lunch.

We were then introduced to the Divine Ragas. Later it was time for us to have lunch.

Now it was open forum with metropolitans and three thirumeni sat on the diaz.

Kurilos Thirumeni : You can ask us anything under the sun..

Someone : Why don’t we give what is necessary and keep the enemity away from the jacobites.

Kurilos Thirumeni Explained the different approaches they made through out the years made to get united with them. He explained each and every approached in detailed. Also he mentioned all the tries was failure.

Theophilus Thirumeni : Your neighbour wants some part of your land? And will you mind to give it away ?  I want to ask the person who asked this question.

Silence

Febin : That guy wont open his mouth again in any of the conferences. 😀

Then we were divided into groups mine was Cyber Influence on Youth by Prof E.John. I and Roni was in one group. We went near a tree for the group discussion.

Voulunteer : We have Professor E.John here, He is the principal of a college. He also takes Be Positive lectures in Sharon T.V. We are very much glad that you are with us sir.

Volunteer walks away for some other job.

Prof E.John takes the class. He explains the good parts of the technology and the internet. He explains how usefull it can be for the young generation.

Then he comes to the negative part of it.

Prof E.John : Once a teacher was taking a class and  she sees a student using mobile phone. The teacher catches him . The teacher open the mobile of the student . And she finds ugly pictures. She also finds her photos merged with those ugly pictures. And she takes it and comes weeping to my room. The boy has now commited a cyber crime. We immediately called his parents and said its not possible for your son to be continue in my college. Again i was unhappy that i spoiled a kids life. I again called the boy, I spoke with him for few hours. And stretched how things must be properly used. He promised me to use it in the rite way. And i allowed him to continue.

Prof E.John spoke much more about this. He mention that the world out is very bad. We need to live life in a good way.

Volunteer returns backs she ask each of us to introduce ourselves.

 

Later we had discussion

 

Person 1 : Professor i think there must be a class on how to use things? Where to go and where not to go? Then i think we might be able to reduce this.

Professor : It’s you who must recognize what is good and what is bad. It’s upto you.

Person 2(Teacher) : I take class for the Kinder Garden. I often got complains from the parents that the kids used to watch Cartoon & Pogo Tv. I said them it’s you are responsible for this. But again i tried . I asked one of the kid to watch discovery chanel. The next day he came and explained about the snake he saw in the discovery channel. And rest of the kids got intrested in it and began watching. In the next parent meeting i got a very good response from the parents that they were watching usefull things.

Professor : I am very glad to hear that from you.

We gave the teacher appauloses

Professor : It’s solely parents who are responsible for this. When they are upto some work to keep the kids away they give them this remote and T.V . And they are only spoiling the kids.

 

Finally the volunteer gives the token of gratitude to Professor.And the group discussion was over.

We really took a long time to gather towards the chapel for the skit practice.

We tried practicing it once again but we were too late for it. Somehow we arranges the things. We get ready.

Hyderabad People Presents It First.

It’s time for our skit and we all were ready for it.

 

During the beginning of the skit we had crowd laughing at us. But again when the skit continued. People beginned to become so serious and they were completely into it. We almost reached the conclusion of the skit. And we got a appauloses standing ovation from all the audience out there.

We were hungry, we then leave for lunch.

 

Binu Alex: You people did an awesome job. Hats of to you. No words..

We: Thank you.

Binu Alex : Who is the person behind this?

Steffi : He is ajith , he couldn’t come he had some work, He is a journlist.

Binu Alex : Why is he not here man??, Ok lets take a photo of your team.

We have a little photo session then we leave for lunch.

 

Also we noticed he was one among the very few guys who treated people very well.

We reach back to the conference hall. Later we had meditation at the river side.

Ashly , Me, Jacob & Shiney were together, we only could manage to get seats at the last row. We were completely distracted with the crowd behind. We couldn’t see what was happening in the front. We were provided with candles. I used my id card as my candle’s base because i hated hot wax falling on my hand.

Evening Prayer

This was a mixture of all languages Hindi, English  & Malayalam .

I used to go with the languages i was confortable with rather than going through the main flow.

People around me was thinking what was i upto…

 

Kurilos Thirumeni : This is a dangerous area. Please don’t go near the water.

Kurilos Thirumeni : Those who want to Die can Dive Here 😛

Later we all leave to have our dinner.

I was really hungery that day. And goes for a second time to have some more food as I took only a little amount for the first time. But the volunteer gives a very little amount of rice. I had nothing to say. I leave with whatever i got.

Later we had cultural programs from different diocese .  Also Rijo painted an Icon of jesus christ. He asked us to write “Jesus” on his painting and keep it in roha as a Sovieneir that the conference and happened and we all attened it. The painting was really beautifull. He aslo got a standing ovation from the crowd for this.

 

And yes i remember some bombay guy came up with a rap song. EK Number … The lyrics he added.. well that was not good for a conference. I was totaly distracted. We get into the spiritual feel of silence till evening. And these songs completely destroy the purpose of the camp.

Later we all leave to sleep.

 

28th December 2012

It was thirumeni’s birthday, we all go to greet him.

Later we all leave to morning prayer.

Later Fr.Philip Kuruvilla was given the token of appretiation from Kurillos Thirumeni. He was asked to speak two words about the conference. He also stretches to what thirumeni said. He then leaves the camp.

Then we had a bible study .

We then leave for breakfast.

Later we had Mr. Jiji Thomas IAS officer who gave a marvellous speech. He explained about the neccesity of reading the bible and following it. He also said he himself spend atleast 30 minutes for the bible study in his busy schedule. He present to us John 3:16 “For god so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoover believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life”

 

Jacob : I think bible must be explained by only priests , Why give it to an IAS officer?

Febin : Hmm, But i think he is here to share his life experiences.

Later we had Q&A session with him

Person 1 : What is your opinion about corruption as an IAS officer.

Nithin : Can you please tell us the story you said once you came to St.Mary’s Jallahali?

Mr.Jiji : What is your name?

Nithin : I am nithin.

Mr.Jiji : Ok Nithin, Well corruption is how you define it. There are many faces of corruption it is not just taking the money under the table. Even using official item for person purposes is also corruption. Nowadays the government officers wants their kids to have nice A4 size papers and they give them it from their offices. Even this is corruption. Using government vehicle for non-official purpose is also corruption.

Mr.Jiji then explained about the tree near his house which was harmfull to his house. And the efforts taken by his brother to make it cut. And the efforts he made to write many letters to the officer. Time passed away and he became that officer. And he then used to go and cut any trees which was harmfull. He also used to go to many houses for complaints once it happened that he met a old lady.

Mr.Jiji : Do you have any complaints.

Old lady : Called out their 5 daughters . These are my complaints

Mr.Jiji : But i am already married :P, I am not talking about these complaints anything related to the issues of resources etc.

Old lady : But you said about complaints, go away .

Mr.Jiji talked with another person about this. He then planeed a social group marriage. He took help from many rotary clubs. Who helped in providing the help for the marriage. He also explained a story in which he got 71 Sovereign gold coins. And finally everything was ready but only thing was left behind.It was the grooms. He met a bishop who was very happy to hears this. And he provided with many grooms. And finally the social group marriage happened for the first time in the history of kerala. And in that 5 of them were the daughters of the old lady. The old lady came and gave a hug to Mr.Jiji. Mr.Jiji says it was the best gift he ever had in his life.

Later Mr.Jiji was given a token of appretiaion from Kurillos thirumeni. He then left the camp.

 

 

We all leave for lunch. The next thing we had is to visit the hill side.

 

Jacob : I am sleepy i think i am not comming for the hill side.

Febin : Confirm it, Even i am . Even i am not intrested going there.

But it happened so that we had to go to the hill side. We reached there in a bus.

And only a few people from bangalore were there in the fist trip they were Steffi, Rini,Sophia, Shiney , Jacob , Febin & Rejo.

Steffi : Let’s wait for others.

Febin : They will come later, We will go and have some water.

But everyone decides to stay back.

Shiney had a blue umberlla with her. She began to sit and pose like an actor. Me and jacob decide to make her go away from that seat so we could sit on that.

Febin : Your camera is lost , Libin is on the phone , It’s with Steffi , Go attend it.

Shiney smelled something fishy and never bothered to get up form her place. We had no other option that adjusting ourselves there.

Febin : Let’s do something , There is no point in waiting here. Tell these girls that thirumeni has warned not to sit here.

Jacob : People , You are not supposed to sit. You must be moving. We have been warned.

 

This actually worked out and we began walking to the top of the hill. I was very doubtfull of reaching there . I was afraid to suffer one more ligament tear. But fortunately nothing happened as such. We reached the top of the hill. The place was very beautifull. We then reached a small chapel over there. Where we could find some place to sit and we sat there for a while. Since chapel was fully filled we couldn’t get inside it. Later we moved to another place in the hill. One our way we saw the other people comming.  We then gathered at a place in hill side . Where the achen said about their life experience there . They said they were here for around two years. Then we had evening prayer. Later we were provided with snacks. The place was getting filled with darkness and all were provided with candles. I and shiney used to go to the people with candles and blow it off.

The group in which we boarded was full of kids. Somehow we managed to get back with them.

We reach roha, still only a part of us have come. Many are yet to come.

We began speaking about our experience in roha,

 

Rini Explains What Happened to her when she wanted to go to the loo.

{

Volunteer : We are given strict orders you are not supposed to go to the loo now.

Rini : What am i supposed to do then?

}

 

She explains another such incident in the bathroom when the water was turned off

{

Please on the water.

Volunteer : Achen Said , Wipe and come out

}

 

Later we move forward to find three volunteer using walkie talkies to talk with each other . Though they were so much close to each other. Later the other group arrived and say that they had camp fire.

Later we had Birthday Celebrations Of H.G Abraham Mar Seraphim. Were people who celebrates Birthday & Wedding Annuversary were called upon the stage.

Later we had cultural programs. The bangalore diocese planned to do another skit. But we couldn’t get time as it was already over.

We then leave to sleep

 

December 29th

 Again we were the first to gather for the morning workship. We then had a Marvellous Speech by Rev.Fr.O.Thomas.

Rev.Fr.O.Thomas boldly explained the the wrong things happening in our church infront of the crowd. He explained that Padayatra which was used to generate a lot of crowd and to show off. He explained that you must be ready to surrender yourself to God. And do his will. He explained that taking a decision to become a preiest is not god wants you to do. But it is to pray to seek his will. His speech was an outstanding one. He also asks us to be humble no matter what position we get. Also it was in his speech we get to know that the delhi rape victim passed away. He also mentions inhumanly ways of punsihing the prisonors is not the rite way. He aslo mentions that government have no rite to hang anyone.

Later we leave for breakfast.

 

Another Scene { Volunteer 1:  Close the food counter,

Volunteer 2: There are more delegates.

Volunteer 1: Chuck It

Volunteer 1: The breakfast is closed.

They keep food for themselves and drive the delegates away .

}

 

Then divine ragas dedicates a song to the delhi rape victim.

 

MC : Hope to meet you all in the next conference, I don think next time it will be held in Mumbai next time

Anu : We are not comming even if it’s held here.

 

Later Roy and Bipin from bangalore diocese walked to the stage . Roy sang two beautifull songs. Bipin read the guitar.

We then had a skit by the ahmedabad diocese. This was about the people who leave the mother churches. The way they are dragged into the other churches, etc. In a part of the skit yulios thirmunei himslef came upon the stage and he gave responsed to most pentecostal question about our faith. He also mention the history of the holy bible which was translated by the orthodox church. And the same bible is used by pastors to question the church.

Later Fr. Dr Verghese Verghese gave a speech on confession and asked people to confession and have the holy qurbana

Later we were supposed to attend the divine liturgy in the evening. But thats when Bejoy achen mention we wont be able to stay for the liturgy we need to leave. We all have our lunch and we pack up our bags.

Later we have a photo session with kurillos thirumeni.

Then we gather near the conference. We were given 2 minutes to speek about the conference. It was an open forum and so didn’t insult any one of them . Instead thanked them for each and every thing.

We had little photosesion with the hyderabad guys. We (Bangalore) became so much close to them due to this conference. We were sad that we were leaving them.

Rony & Libin Calls us to pray.

Everyone gathers , eveyones face is seious for the prayer. The libin & Roy begins to sing non-sense songs. We undestood we were trolled and the person who was behind this was non other then Rony Chayan

Later a tempo which is usually used to take goods comes to take us to the railway station.

 

Prinu : People , we can’t miss the train , Please Adjust in this.

 

We were so happy to go in that. Girls also joined us. But by that time another bus came, which took us to the railway station.

We boarded a local train to Panwel. From there we travelled on another one to vaashi. Bension Samuel  ,Naveen  and more person were among the few good volunteers of bomaby helped us to reach their.

We reached vaashi. We were in St.Mary’s School. The person over there welcomed us with lots of love. This was also the Aramana. And our stay was arranged here by Koorilos Thirumeni. We go inside to see a beautifull chapel.

 

Roy : I can feel the holy spirit.

Febin : This is amazing.

 

Later Naveen says a good bye to me. I could see his eyes filled with water. Gave him a close HUG. Then Naveen left .

We all sat to have dinner. We were served food with lots of love. Later we were provided with rooms to sleep.

But Roni Chayan wanted to go for the ATM. And all the guys were there to give him a company. We all go out to have chats , ice creams & Sweet Pan. We return back earlier to that Aramana because we were guest to that place.

We leave to sleep. Next day we rise early morning and were planning to leave. We finally reach CST. We had only 10 seats confirmed out of 23. We adjust ourselves. Aaron really played a great role in helping us get the ticket.

We had 3 births in S2, S3 & S12 . We had a lot of fun in the train. The rony chayan who seems to be silent person came out witty . We actually came to know wach others in the trains. It was much similar to the Noha’s Arch where creatrues of all kinds were there in the train. It was so much pain to leave all of them after we reached bangalore.

The message and feeling i got in the conference was to give priority to god. And maintain a close relationship with him rather than anyone in the world. Immitate him to the world.

 Source:
Febin John James