St.Josephs Church,Gudlavalleru

Gudlvalleru is one of the major panchayats in Krishna district. It is located near Gudivada around 12 km from it. It is one the way to Machilipatnam, a coastal region of Andhra Pradesh. It was under the diocese of Vijayawada till 2006. Jesuits are invited by Bp. Mallavarapu Prakash, then Bishop of Vijayawada to work here from 2006 onwards Fr. Esthaky was the first Jesuit parish priest here succeeded by Fr. Peram Peter SJ and Fr. Jagadish SJ.

No of substations: 17

People are from Dalit community and they are strong in their catholic faith. They are poor labourers. They depend upon their daily wages. New generation is being educated. Some have reached the stage of Engineering and Polytechnic. 150 families at the centre and total catholic families in the parish is 400.

 Fr. Nagothu Showri Kishore Kumar SJ is the parish priest.

The objective of the mission is to deepen the faith of the people here. Every activity is towards fulfilling this objective. ‘Faith need to be strengthened and people need to be faithful to God’.

So in order to achieve this goal we do take care of childrens’ education. All the children need to be educated properly so that they in turn to be the wealth of God to continue His plan through them. To facilitate this we have given school bags and books to all catholic child of this Parish. Next year onwards we are starting a long term education programme, i.e. educate one child of widows and those who have 3 girls till they get a job, and in turn they need to become an ambassadors of this programme.

Secondly Youth need to be properly guided and helped to become responsible citizen for the country and for church. They need to be leaders of calibre and guts to live the Gospel values. Our aim is to prepare them to be better leaders who make the difference.

Thirdly Family is the foundation of the Church therefore to make them understand their call to participate in building God’s kingdom through families. There are so many broken families, second marriages etc. It is because of their lack of knowledge of the sacramentality of marriage.

Fourthly we have Self Help Group running with the help of Rev. Fr. Selvin and Fr. Bosco. we have six groups who meet regularly to discuss various problems that affect the society.

Another programme that we have started is aged and widows group. They need to be supported spiritually to keep up their call so that they understand their vocation. These are the major long term programme that we have taken up since my coming to this parish in order to inculcate Gospel values and spread His kingdom.

Address

Church of St.Joseph the Worker

Gudlavalleru

Krishna – 521356

Tel:08674-273724