Loving others is our calling



Love one another as I have loved you. John 15:12

Traveling from Kolkata to Malta, India in West Bengal, near the border with Bangladesh, we visit the villages of Fattellapur and Bamanpukur.

A year ago, a cyclone destroyed thousands of homes in this community. Several months later, a devastating flood affected thousands more people.

MCC is working with the Economic Rural Development Society (ERDS) on new housing for more than 100 families in these two villages. The families we meet are proud of their new tin roofs and stronger housing structures. Some of the new homes are positioned higher than they once were so that they will be less affected by future floods.

For villages like Bamanpukur, there are many advantages of being near the Mahanada river, but it also means that there is always the possibility of flooding. 

In these villages, ERDS is also working with community leaders to help break the cycle of poverty through education, microfinance, health and sanitation, access to water and housing.

A young woman in the village of Bamanpukur tells us she and the other girls in class nine each received a bicycle so that it will be safer for them to travel further to their new school each day.
One of the mothers says her family is now healthier and her children can go to school more regularly because the new tube well means they no longer need to drink water from the pond.

New toilets are constructed outside some of the new homes. Before the toilets, a woman tells us, her children had more stomach problems and the family had to spend a lot of money on medicine.

In a village meeting, the women talk about the new savings and loan program ERDS has helped them develop. With their

savings, some of the women have been able to start their own business by weaving baskets and selling them in the marketplace.

ERDS is also helping these families get government benefits for employment, healthcare and food that are rightfully theirs.

Back in Kolkata we visit the mother house of the Sisters of Charity where Mother Teresa lived and worked for more than 40 years.

We sing and pray with the sisters and share communion. After prayers, we visit the tomb where Mother Teresa’s body now rests. Etched in the stone is John 15:12 – Love one another as I have loved you.


Later we visit Tender Heart, a home for the dying, one of four homes Mother Teresa established for people on the margins of society. The Sisters of Charity continue this work.

Loving others, as the Apostle John implores us, is what the sisters are still doing today. Loving others as Jesus loved us is what ERDS and MCC are doing in the villages near Malta. And loving others is what we are called to do today as well.


Ron Byler is executive directors of Mennonite Central Committee U.S.

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