In 1896, Esther Baird, Delia Fistler and Martha Barber started the American Friends Mission in Nowgong, Bundelkhand. There was a famine and orphans were brought to the mission house for care. Thus the orphanage was born which later became the nucleus of a Friends meeting.
In 1897, Eliza Frankland of the British Friends Mission joined the American Friends and started the first girls’ school in the area. In 1931 the first women’s hospital was built in Chhatarpur.
Many of the members of the present yearly meeting are descendants of those who were brought up in the orphanage and others who came to work in the hospital.
An independent yearly meeting, officially Bundelkhand Masihi Mitra Sarmaj, was established in 1956.
There are three English medium schools at Chhatarpur, Nowgong and Harpalpur, serving more than 1,000 children, most from non-Christian homes. There is a Hindi medium school at Chhatarpur, teaching 350 pupils up to junior high school standard.
The Christian hospital which has served the people of the area for over 50 years has 80 beds and is now in the care of the Emmanuel Hospital Fellowship.
The Yearly Meeting has continued to engage itself in the ministry of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Preaching camps in the villages are organized, Christian literature is distributed by church volunteers and camps and conferences for young people and women are held. Many people have been told about Jesus and some have made open confession of faith in Christ.
The Yearly Meeting is a member of the Federation of Evangelical Churches of India which a previous Yearly Meeting General Superintendent has served as General Secretary.
The Yearly Meeting maintains a relationship with Evangelical Friends Church-Eastern Region, Ohio, which continues to support some of the Yearly Meeting’s ministries.