Dearly beloved in Christ,

Easter greetings to all of you. As we move through the Lenten season our hope is the fulfilment of God’s plan as we see in the resurrection of Christ. The passion season should be more than a ritual or a reminder, but lead us to an experience of the love of God which was extended to all humanity for it’s redemption from sin and eternal death.

Yes I do agree it’s not an easy task to understand and accept the reality of our sin, redemption and new life in Christ. We always tend to have questions which continue to challenge our faith. “It is not the task of Christianity to provide easy answers to all our questions, but to make us progressively aware of a mystery. God is not so much the object of our knowledge as the cause of our wonder” – Kallistos Ware. Its my prayer and hope that each day we will grow one more step closer to this mystery and be sure that we will be found in him at the end of ages.

As a family we have been enriched with your love and fellowship as we joined your faith journey here in Thane 3 years ago. We remember with gratitude your prayers and support for the various needs of the parish and how God enabled us to acheive and fulfill the purpose He had for us. As I look back, every organization in the parish had some unique experience of growing in faith during the last 3 years. The Youth Camp, Junior Camp, Senior Citizens Camp, English Convention for our youths, Mission Tour of the Sevika Sangom and Edavaka Mission, Mission outreach programmes of the parish, Children’s worship, Family enrichment retreat by our SYF, Hindi Qurbana, Music workshop for our choir, Marathi Qurbana in our Shahpur Mission feild, Transgender Awareness programme for the Diocese, Mission outreach of our Youths in RLA, Sing Song service by our Choir, CSI – Mar Thoma joint Holy Communion services both here in Thane and Sanpada Jubilee CSI Church, are some of the unique events during this period which stands out in my memory and I praise God that he gave our parish such new experiences which I hope and pray will continue in the years to come so that as a parish we move forward being moulded in his love and faith.

Let us praise and thank God that he has helped us to complete the parsonage and the church renovation project in the best possible way. I believe that when God worked the end result was much beyond all our expectations and dreams. When we look back we were able to complete much more than what we had initially planned including a spacious and fully furnished parsonage, guest suite, executive board room, care-takers residence, Lift, New front elevation, New Fire fighting system, new office room, new Gents toilet, renovated ladies toilet, teakwood panelling of the whole church, beautified madbaha, new lights and fans in the church and a new LCD projector. All this was possible since God in his grace enabled all of us to contribute for this need. I pray that God will bless the team who worked for this successful completion and all who have prayed and contributed towards this project.

The wonderful friendships that we have made in the last three years is a treasure for eternity and my prayer is that we will remember each other in our prayers and keep in touch with a hope to meet again. We will surely miss this wonderful fellowship but we are grateful that God gave us the opportunity to serve all of you. We are also grateful to the Episcopal Synod for trusting us with this responsibility and our Diocesan Bishop Rt. Rev. Dr. Geevarghese Mar Theodosius Episcopa for his prayers and guidance.
As we welcome our new vicar Rev. Gigy Thomas who is also serving as our Diocesan Secretary let us pray that achen and his family will be a blessing to this parish and the community in the years to come.

I will be assuming charge as the Youth Chaplain of Philadelphia region in USA from May 2019. Please keep our travels in your prayers.
Neenu, Shona, Kuchi, Mishti and I were accepted into your families and you made us one among you and we will surely miss you all.

May the good Lord bless you and keep you all blessed in the years to come. May your generations to come grow this faith and be blessed. We hope to meet you all again at some point of our life and even if we don’t let us hope and pray to meet again on the eternal shores in his presence.

May we grow closer to our loving Lord in this new year.

God bless

With utmost gratitude and love
Thomas Achen, Neenu, Ananya, Ansh and Ahana