A tribal-group family(Photo: © Freda Carey/CMS)Only about 3% of Pakistan’s population are Christians and they are mostly poor and socio-economically disadvantaged.
Most Pakistani Christians are Punjabis, descendants of Hindu 'low-caste' groups, who became Christians during amazing mass movements between 1880 and 1930.
Since 1971, the Pakistan Committee for Theological Education by Extension has provided Christian Education materials for adults through a series of Biblical and theological courses combining self-study workbooks with weekly evening classes for group discussion and practical application of what has been learnt.
Local tutors, with the help of tutors' guidebooks, lead these classes.
Now called the Open Theological Seminary (OTS), this programme currently has about 2,500 active students all over Pakistan, from Karachi in the south to Peshawar in the north, with almost 200 volunteer tutors.
OTS students at Mirpurkhas(Photo: © Freda Carey/CMS)OTS has its main office in Lahore, the provincial capital of Pakistani Punjab and second largest city in Pakistan, where CMS mission partner Freda Carey has worked for seven years.
Since May 2004, Freda has been Course Development Co-ordinator, responsible for training and supervising other staff in the work of writing, revising, editing and testing OTS courses in Urdu, the national language of Pakistan, as well as preparing tutors' guides and workshop materials for tutor training and study skills/research methods.
Following the mass exodus of Hindus from Pakistan at the time of Independence in 1947, Hindus now comprise less than 2% of the population of Pakistan, and almost all of them live in the semi-desert regions of the south-eastern province of Sindh or southern Punjab.
They are mostly poor farm labourers or nomadic herdsmen with their own colourful and distinctive dress, language, culture and way of life.
Worship at Rattanabad Church, Sindh (Photo: © Freda Carey/CMS)
Because these tribal believers have a very different cultural and linguistic background from the Punjabi Christians and the majority Muslim Sindhis among whom they live, OTS has been translating its basic Discipleship courses into Hindi Sindhi and contextualizing the artwork.
Hindi Sindhi differs from the usual Sindhi language by using Hindi terms derived from Sanskrit for the religious vocabulary — such as the words for ‘prayer’, ‘worship’, ‘church’ and even ‘God’ — rather than the Sindhi terms derived from Arabic, which are considered Islamic by the tribal people and are therefore unacceptable.
Tribal Christians at a rally(Photo: © Freda Carey/CMS)
The courses are proving very popular with the tribal believers and evangelists working among them, helping them to build a solid foundation for their Christian lives as individuals and families.
They are mostly poor farm labourers or nomadic herdsmen with their own colourful and distinctive dress, language, culture and way of life. In recent years, God's Spirit has been working among these Hindu tribal groups and many have turned to Christ. Because these tribal believers have a very different cultural and linguistic background from the Punjabi Christians and the majority Muslim Sindhis among whom they live, OTS has been translating its basic Discipleship courses into Hindi Sindhi and contextualizing the artwork. Hindi Sindhi differs from the usual Sindhi language by using Hindi terms derived from Sanskrit for the religious vocabulary — such as the words for ‘prayer’, ‘worship’, ‘church’ and even ‘God’ — rather than the Sindhi terms derived from Arabic, which are considered Islamic by the tribal people and are therefore unacceptable. Five courses have already been translated by OTS field staff in Interior Sindh, Paul Dev Raj, in consultation with church leaders and Christian workers from various tribal groups and church denominations. The courses are proving very popular with the tribal believers and evangelists working among them, helping them to build a solid foundation for their Christian lives as individuals and families.