View source for Sankra (Zion) Mennonite Church (Madhya Pradesh, India)

Sankra (Zion) Mennonite Church ([[Mennonite Church (MC)|Mennonite Church]]), located in Madhya Pradesh, 18 miles west of Dhamtari, a member of the [[Mennonite Church in India|India Mennonite Conference]], began as a mission in 1908, under [[Lapp, Mahlon Cassius (1872-1923)|M. C. Lapp]], [[Friesen, Peter Abraham  (1879-1967)|P. A. Friesen]], and [[Lapp, George Jay (1879-1951)|G. J. Lapp]], and was at first called the Zion Evangelistic Station. The first Christians came from other mission stations. Worship services were conducted on the veranda of the bungalow. In 1912 the Malguzar of Sankra offered a small plot of land in the hamlet for a church building, and in 1913 a small meetinghouse was built. The Christian community grew rapidly during the famine of 1920-21 when many people came to this and other mission stations for relief and responded to the appeals of the Gospel. A new and larger church was built in 1925 at the mission station, a mile from the village. Under Dr. Friesen a larger medical dispensary with an operating room and several wards was built in 1926. The missionaries also conducted roadside medical clinics. Soon after the Christian community was established at Sankra an elementary school for the children of the community was opened. The government school was some distance away. The children received more kindly consideration in the church schools. In 1946 the name appeared in the Yearbook (Scottdale) as Zion. In 1957 the membership was 102, with O. P. Lal and S. Paul Miller as ministers.
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