As a result of prayer, a few young students of the Bible College, Bangarapet, started the Hill Tribes Missionary Prayer Band on 31 July, 1962. On 20th May, 1979 it was renamed as the Diocesan Missionary Prayer Band (DMPB) of C. S. I. Kanyakumari Diocese. The DMPB is an evangelistic wing which works mainly among the tribal in the hill tracks of North Tamilnadu.
Rev. D. Elias, Rev. A. Selvaraj and Rev. K. R. William were the pioneer missionaries who started the work at Thekkampattu, a village in Kalrayan Hills, Tamil Nadu. Later other missionaries were appointed to work with them. Presently the DMPB is doing missionary work in Kalrayan, Yercaud, Kolli and Bothai hills of the Eastern Ghats spread over Salem, Dharmapuri, Villupuram, Vellore and Thiruvannamalai districts of Tamilnadu and some parts of North India.
Presently, 14 medical centers are serving the tribal who were without any medical facility before the establishment of our missionary work. 10 Schools are being run with 2893 children and 87 teachers at nursery, primary, middle, high and higher secondary levels. 10 hostels are also being run accommodating 1345 students. There is a heavy rush for admissions in these hostels. But we are not in a position to admit more students due to lack of building facilities.
Missionary work in North India too was started. In the first phase, work was started in Orissa from 2003. One field coordinator and 42 missionaries are working among the 200 villages in Bolangir, Kandhamal and Kalahandi districts. Recently we have deputed 11 Missionaries to Chhattisgarh state. Furthermore, we are planning to depute missionaries to Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Uttaranchal states.
At present there are 239 field missionaries, 15 medical missionaries, 87 missionary teachers and 13 Deputy Wardens aggregating to 354 working in 204 mission fields. Further there are 13 Promotional Workers and 7 Office Staff working full time in addition to many volunteers working in various fields. We have constructed 65 Churches and 55 houses in our mission fields. We have to construct more Church buildings and houses where they are highly needed. From this academic year we have started one English Medium Nursery and Primary School at Serapattu.
We are proud to report that we get 100% result in the SSLC public exam and above 87% in the Higher Secondary examination. Much is accomplished. Yet more has to be achieved. In fact, we have miles to go. God, who has been enabling us to make inroads into the deep forest, will definitely help us to move further.
President : The Rt. Rev. Dr. A. R. Chelliah, Bishop
Vice President : Adv. C. Dennison, M.A.,LLB., B.Ed. – 9443314019
General Secretary : Rev. V. David Robby Jacob,M.A.,B.D. – 9486271023
Treasurer : Mr. T. Joseph Chandran, M.Com., CAIIB – 9443122221
Superintending Missionary : Rev. P. Ravi Rajan, B.C.S., – 9443628747
E-Mail : secretary@dmpb.org
Website : http://www.dmpb.org
