namahatta.org - Congregational Development Ministry

Following this year's Gaura Purnima celebrations, two serious road accidents took place, involving seven ISKCON devotees—five left their bodies, and two have been critically injured. All of them have been working with ISKCON's Congregational Development Ministry, as community preachers (Mathuradesh) and editorial staff (Mayapur).

Both accidents took place the day after Gaura Purnima, 12 March 2009.

By Govardhan Giri das

At Krishna-katha Desh, we are experiencing new highs in the field of training Krishna's children.

A few years back, we had a small children's class with about 15 students, mostly children of our congregation members. It had to be stopped due to unavoidable reasons (read - caught by the authorities !!!) and somehow it took us years to get back again.

However, with some good planning and homework, we started our "Bhaktivedanta Paatshaala" with 40 students last April. We have four groups divided age-wise and a separate syllabus for each group. Now the paatshala has a strength of more than 80 students. Our congregation members children are only about half of that number. The others are "outsiders" - so to say.

[Some Moslem countries are refered to by internal names, like Kainai-desh or Mathura-desh, per example.]

I am from a Moslem country where preaching other religions is forbidden. Devotees introduce Krishna consciousness is by covering it with terms like "Vedic instruction," "Self- realization," or " bhakti-yoga". People here like yoga and many different classes are teaching hatha-yoga, meditation, mind exercises, and natural remedy (energy remedy).

Srila Prabhupada visited my country twice, and he recommended prasada distribution; people accept prasada nicely. There is a tradition in Islam called nazri: after Eid or on other festive occasions, such as a birth of a child, families distribute food to their neighbors. We have vegetarian cooking classes and three vegetarian restaurants.