It was
during the 20th century in early 1950 that God sowed the
seed of the remnant truth in a most amazing way.
Elder
Ninghei Luikham spearheaded the SDA movement. Elder Ninghei Luikham was
then a prominent Baptist church regional director. While on one of his
tour to churches he came across the book "Bible Readings For The Home"
SDA publication at Tolloi a Tangkhul village in the Ukhrul district from
his host Mr.Luikai. The book was left behind by an UNKNOWN SOLDIER
belonging to the Allied force of the south East Asia Command (SEAC)
during World War II .
After
Elder Ninghei read through this book he was convicted of the truth.
Elder Ninghei took up the challenge as a light bearer and began
reforming the churches in his jurisdiction. Still today it is known as
the "Church Reformation Movement Age" in Tangkhul Naga history.
Meanwhile Elder Ninghei came in contact with Pr. T.M. Ashlock through
correspondence. This correspondence led to a coming together in
1951 of three white missionaries, Pr. T.M. Ashlock, Pr.N Dohlsten
and Elder Spice. They visited Kohima and Ukhrul and met with the
reformed movement members. This involved 10 churches and over 845
members. Since then the SDA movement has been spread and
led by the Holy Spirit all over Manipur and Nagaland.
We have
recently celebrated the Golden Jubilee of the SDA presence in our area.
The statistical composition of our Conference is 37 organized churches
and 58 company churches with almost eight thousand baptized members.
The NORTH CENTRAL CIRCLE:
The Manipur Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists was formerly called The
Manipur /Nagaland Section and came into being in 1982. Presently
the Conference is divided into 4 circles to which North-Central is one.
North-Central covers four districts. The Senapati district, Imphal East
district, Imphal West district and the Bishenpur district. The
former district
is predominated by Christians and the latter three districts are
predominated by Hindus and Muslims. As per the 2001 census of India
there are 888,658 non Christian and 211,782 Christians out of a total
population of 1,100,440. There are over 1,200 baptized Seventh-Day
Adventists and over 1,700 Sabbath School members with 7 organized
churches and 15 company churches. One newly established company is the
church in Sapermeina.
More is
coming soon!
