Editor’s note: The following is part of the series, "Who is your neighbor?" which runs intermittently in the SKR. The series examines people of different cultural backgrounds in the Diocese of Dodge City.

LIBERAL –They met for the first time in India in 1976, and two weeks later, Eappan and Annie Madathil, both 24, were married.

"It was an arranged marriage," Eappan said from the couple’s home in Liberal where they have lived since 1984.

"That was our custom," Annie added, smiling. "When you learn a culture, you accept it. Here it seems strange, all the dating."

Soon after their marriage, the couple moved from their native India to Wichita, where Eappan’s sister was living at the time. There, the young couple had three children, Daisy, Bindhu, and Joshua.

In 1984, Eappan was laid off his job at Cessna, and the family relocated to Liberal where he was offered a position in maintenance with National Beef. Annie, meanwhile, had attended nursing school in Germany prior to their marriage, and took a nursing position at Southwest Medical Center. Today, several of their family members also live in Liberal, including Annie’s mother, who lives with Annie’s sister.

In India, a land known for its vast Hindu population, Eappan and Annie were both reared in deeply Catholic families. They both list numerous relatives who have become priests and religious, and proudly cite nearly 2,000 years of Catholic presence in India.

"My dad talked about when St. Thomas came to India" in 52 A.D., Eappan said. "St. Thomas [the same St. Thomas who plunged his finger into Christ’s wounds] built seven and a half churches here; he died half way through his last church. A Hindu used a spear against him."

The half-built church, he said, still stands just five miles from the home in which Eappan grew up in India, and is still used for Mass. It is also an area, he said, that was only 30 miles away from the violent tsunami that struck last year.

Eappan and Annie were reared in the same region approximately 50 miles apart. The two never had met prior to their first encounter days before their wedding. While Annie, the daughter of a farmer and one of seven children, attended public school, Eappan, whose mother was a teacher and father a farmer, went to a Hindu school.

When asked if he was treated differently in school because he was Catholic, he answered, "In the beginning I had a hard time, then I told them, ‘You say what you want. I don’t care.’" And when he became one of the top students at the school – both academically and athletically (running a 3:57 mile), the other students offered him plenty of respect.

Their only son, Joshua, now 22, has taken after his father, and is currently undefeated in cross-country running at Kansas University, where he is studying electrical and computer engineering. Meanwhile, their daughter Daisy, now 26, is attending medical school in Wichita, while daughter Bindhu, 24, is studying in Chicago to become a chiropractor.

An arranged marriage was only one of many cultural differences the couple had experienced before they arrived in Kansas in 1977.

"We spoke little English," Annie said. But after having lived in Germany for nine years prior to her wedding, she said she was prepared for the learning curve.

"Families are closer in India; it’s almost like the Mexican culture," Annie said. "The parents and grandparents live together; there was no nursing home."

Like the Latino culture, Eappan commented, many Indians are struggling to come to the United States where they can earn a good living and then send money back home. But because so many youth are coming to the states, he said, suddenly senior citizens back in India are finding themselves for the first time entering nursing homes.

To be sure, the Madathils are thankful for their American life. It’s only when pressed to examine cultural differences, that Eappan admits that children in India are far more respectful in school.

"If an older person comes into the room [whether at school or at home]," he said, "you stand. It’s a sign of respect. It doesn’t matter if you are a lady or not, you just stand."

And then there’s the food. It’s not that they don’t like American food, but… "We always fix Indian food," Eappan said, laughing. "We don’t use a knife or fork. We use our fingers."

The Medathils belong to the Catholic "Syro-Malabar Rite," which, until the 1800s was known as the Church of the St. Thomas Christians. The couple recently introduced the rite to St. Anthony Parish in Liberal when they invited their bishop from India, the Most Rev. George Alencherry of the Diocese of Thuckalay, India, to celebrate Mass in July. Although there are differences in the way Mass is celebrated, the devotion to Christ, the pope, and Catholic teaching is the same.

Upon further reflection, Eappan said he missed Christmas in India – the fireworks, the 4 a.m. Mass, and the 25 days with no meat or fish leading up to Christmas. And Easter? "We had a Midnight Mass, and there were 50 days of fasting – no meat or fish every day.