WHEN THE LORD CALLS | KAIROS GLOBAL | OCTOBER 2019

Author: Sharrol Jose

Intro: Being a witness to the love of Christ in their life – Rajesh Moses and Sowmya has been living this life as fulltime missionaries for the past many years. Sharrol Jose speaks with them about their life and mission.

Rajesh Moses, Sowmya and their six children Haya, Pio, Gian, Evan, Kizito and Ekiza live in Nagpur. They are full time missionaries spreading the Love, Peace and Joy of our Lord wherever they go. They share with us how our Lord chose them and send them as a family to share the Good news. 

Rajesh, could you please share with us how you had a Christ encounter and your initial days in the Jesus Youth movement?

I come from a typical Hindu background, and used to live in a joint family with cousins. One of my cousins who had an earlier experience of the love of Jesus inspired me to go for a retreat when I was 18. I was curious and went with a lot of questions but I returned with a lot of peace and joy from my encounter with Jesus.

"Though the Lord may give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself any more, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left, your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it" (Isaiah 30: 20 -21). This word gave me the confidence to start walking with Jesus in the initial days of my faith. 

From 1992 - 2000, I shared my faith in different ministries like Charismatic Groups, Charity and Social Services, Reach-outs to Non-Christians, Reach-out to Street People and so on. Eventually in the year 2000, I came to Jesus Youth through a yearlong formation program called "Sunday Fulltimers". 'Formation' was very hard for me to digest initially! But, the 'Spirit of God' worked through different youngsters in the movement and through mentoring, meetings and follow-ups, I survived and came up gradually. I then initiated a prayer group in my Parish with more than 30 youth participating.

Later on, the ‘Cultural Exchange Program' (a one month Mission exposure program in Kerala, for the tribal youth of North and Northeast India) influenced me, and I started orienting myself to a ‘mission’ centred life. This opened my eyes and I saw the need to work on myself and to come out of my comfort zone. I started taking initiatives to travel and meet the youth in North India – to pray and plan with them the possibilities to grow in the love of Jesus. This experience increased my faith and missionary zeal. But, by this time I also started recognising an emptiness in my spiritual journey due to the absence of sacraments in my life. So, I turned my focus and prayers and started preparing myself to receive the sacrament of Baptism. I was baptised in the year 2003, on June 3.

As a family, you took up a 3 year mission commitment to go to Uganda. How did you make this decision especially with four children at that time? Did you have any concerns?

In 2006 we got married. I was active in JY for four years, but could not take part in any mission activities due to family commitments. But I knew God was keeping something in store for us. We attended the Jubilee conference as a family in 2010. Later on, in 2011 during a mission orientation program for families, we received an inspiration to pray strongly for mission. At that time we understood God was expecting something more from us. As we shared together and prayed over it, we were inspired to do fulltime mission for 3 years. We discussed this with the senior leaders of the movement and they also continued to pray for us and discussed many options.

In 2012, Most Rev. Robert Muhiirwa Akkiki, Bishop of Fort Portal Diocese, invited Jesus Youth to Uganda. I went there by myself in July 2012, and spent around 3 weeks there. I met with the religious, and tried to interact with the youth. The time was an eye-opener, and made me realise that we could do things there with the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  In September 2012, myself, Soumya and our 4 kids at the time, moved to Uganda.

Please share some experiences of yours from your mission in Uganda.

Uganda mission was not an easy one, but it was also a time when we received a lot of blessings. Jesus Youth was a new movement for the people of Uganda. Initially, there was a lack of support from the youth directors and the Church. The Bishop took care of us and supported us but grassroot ground support was less, as the movement was new to them. But the Holy Spirit was there, guiding us throughout.

We reached Uganda in September 2012 and in October conducted a retreat for the nursing school students. 21 people attended the retreat including a priest and a religious sister. We stayed in Port Fortal diocese, and concentrated on the youth there. By 2014, we shifted to Kampala, the central part of Uganda, where there were a large number of universities; and we focused there. It was challenging as the students were not interested in spiritual matters and we were inspired to use social media to propagate a Facebook gathering. We started a Facebook page, which slowly began to pick up. The announcement of the FB gathering enabled us to bring youth from campuses for the program in a new way. It was a very positive experience and we were able to reach out to a lot of parishes and other institutions too. Slowly, we got the support of many other Bishops and priests in the region. The experience was challenging as well as satisfying. We even faced a burglary at our house and lost many things and money. But we found God’s guidance and protection over us all the time.

In 2015 we started the first Ugandan Full-timership and 16 candidates took commitment for one year and many continued for one more year.

After coming back you continued your mission and then decided to take full time mission commitment. Please share how and why you do this.

We had three special intentions when we took our 3-year commitment. The first one was our own personal formation because we felt the need to change and form ourselves. The second intention was the desire to share our experience with all whom we met. And the third was to learn how the Holy Spirit works through us. The three years taught us a lot – our strengths as well as those areas to improve in our spiritual lives. God gave us the opportunity to look at ourselves and change.

We had planned to return to our careers after the commitment and had started planning on me returning to my profession as an interior designer. I met many people and found a few clients to begin the work. But I felt something holding me back. I got a strong urge not to move forward with the plans and so I discarded it. We decided to pray for some more time to discern the way forward.  From 2015 to 2018, for 3 years, we prayed, and then, we got a conviction and decided to continue as full time missionaries. We are currently in central India, on a mission to spread the Love of God.

What is your current mission? Please share your experiences.

Currently we are in based in Nagpur, but we travel to different dioceses in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and meet the Jesus Youth there. We have had quite a fruitful time by bringing the youth together, accompanying them, encouraging them and helping them move in a new direction. During the lent season, we made a cross and took this to 16 parishes in Nagpur. It was a great opportunity to bring the youth closer to each other and to our Lord. We are seeing a revival of the movement in these places as we meet them. 

What would you like to tell other families who are thinking of mission?

After the Jubilee in 2010, many families got a conviction to go for mission and we see many families going for short-term missions and mission exposure programs. A lot of families are open for mission in Jesus Youth. 

Pope John Paul II says, “Every Christian is called to be a missionary and witness.” 

First of all, we should carry this desire within us. A desire to share our experience with others! This should be in our hearts. The rest everything is secondary; your availability, talents, time etc. Secondly, there is a very special blessing from God; He protects our children and us. We see this in our life. His protection on our family, from accidents, attacks of the world, health, children’s health and everything. Mission, is a call to be blessed and I invite you to come and experience this blessing in your life. Thirdly, when we live a life of a missionary, we are giving a new hope to the lay people in the Church; to all the ordinary lay people everywhere. 

When we look at ourselves - not highly educated, with our limited qualifications and knowledge of languages, and just around 15 years of being a catholic, - If an ordinary couple like Moses and Soumya can do it, then surely everyone can do a better mission than us. So I invite you to come and be a missionary and be a motivation to others. Come and share your lives for Christ.

Sharrol Jose has been actively involved with Jesus Youth movement since her college days and is currently part of the National Formation Team, India and the Executive Editor of Kairos Global. She lives with her husband and three children in Chennai, India.