Sister Akkamma Banished for not Worshipping Idol
Global Council of Indian Christians
4/16/07 India (Persecution Update India) Akkamma- Hyderabad
A sister named Akkamma from the village called Pilla vagu, 15th ward of Palvancha municipality, Khammam district, Andhra Pradesh, was cast out from her own community (koya tribe) for accepting Jesus Christ and not giving a donation in the tribal goddess festival.
This incident has been continued for the last 10 days, some how we tried to solve the issue but we could not. The history of the incident is – according to the villagers word, for a few months younger ones of their families are dying to due to some reasons. For this cause the villages altogether called a priest and asked for the reason then the priest given suggestion to install a tribal goddess called Muthyalamma in the village and offer Pujs for three days. For this reason the villagers started the collecting the donations. But the sister Akkamma refused to give the donation and participate in the construction of building the tribal goddess temple. She is a widow, out of her two daughters elder one is married and the younger is living with her mother. At present these two are living in a small hut. The village people are teasing and mocking her, criticizing and torturing her with bad words. No one of the village is speaking to her, even the village people are not allowing her to fetch the water from Government tap. She is bringing the drinking water from the village which is 1.5 km away and taking her bath with the Christian family near by the village.
The Palvancha town pastors tried to reconcile but the tribe head person and villagers are not taking heed. They are so strong in the decision made about casting out. But the sister is very strong in faith and still stood with the teachings of the bible not to give any donations to idols and participate in installing the idols.
Please keep praying for the sister.
Bless you
Sajan George
