I was born to my missionary parents as their elder daughter, the eldest being my bother and the youngest my sister. From my early days, life was not very smooth for me. My dream of becoming a medical missionary was shattered when I failed to get a seat for the MBBS course. Later on, I was astounded to hear a similar story from my husband that, he too had an ambition to become a doctor, but God’s will worked out for him differently.

However, I surrendered myself to the will of God and took admission in B.Sc. degree course. After completing my degree course, I obtained P.G degree in English. After a brief stint as a teacher in a school, I joined an honours course in system management in NIIT. More recently God enabled me to secure MBA (HRD) as well as B.Ed degrees. After my studies at NIIT, I joined as a Centre Manager of a computer education firm in Mumbai. After my successful tenure as centre manager, by God’s grace I became a Divisional Executive of a computer education institution at the age of twenty-five with the responsibility of overseeing forty centre managers at Trivandrum. Though I was busy with my professional responsibilities, I had an earnest desire to fulfill God’s sovereign plan and purpose in my life. God was wonderfully working in my life moulding me to yield to His will.

It was a turning point in my life when I got married in the year, 1999. As my husband was working then, as a Senior Lecturer in a GovernmentP.G.College in the sovereign Country of Bhutan I had to resign from my job at Trivandrum and join him there. After a year, our daughter, Pearlyn Chris was born. Soon after her birth, I got an opportunity to work as a teacher in Bhutan in a GovernmentHigh School. Both my husband and I served there for about Four years. Even though we were serving the government of Bhutan in the field of education, we always considered ourselves as God-sent self-supportive missionaries, i.e. tent-makers for God since both of us were committed to the Lord’s ministry. We tried to do the Lord’s ministry while continuing in our careers wherever the Lord placed us. As the country of Bhutan is closed to the gospel, God enabled us to do His ministry with the help of a pastor of the local church in the Indian border. God graciously used us to do Christian literature ministry, village outreach ministry, youth ministry and personal evangelism. God taught us to adjust in the cross-cultural situation. We had the privilege to serve among people from different language groups of Hindi, Bengali, Nepali and Dzongkha (Bhutanese). Besides, my husband gave Bible to his colleagues, and friends in the college campus.

In Bhutan, though we were well placed in terms of all facilities and finance, we never had a sense of absolute fulfillment of God’s sovereign plan in our lives as both of us were committed to do the Lord’s ministry in North India. In the meanwhile, we were all the more sure that we were on a God-ordained nomadic journey and God had been training and equipping us in that journey for something new (Isa.42:9) according to His sovereign plan, which was imminent in the near future. As the desire to move to North India grew in us, we earnestly prayed for God’s direction in this regard. When opportune time came, God opened a door for us to go to Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh. My husband joined as a Principal of a reputed, well-established senior secondary English medium school affiliated to C.B.S.E., New   Delhi and I joined as a coordinator of the Primary section of another school under the same management. Our first sojourn in Varanasi for about 2 years was not that easy. We could sense the snarling jaws of the enemy. I was terribly grounded with severe jaundice. Our daughter was afflicted with recurring typhoid and malaria. However, the Lord graciously enabled us to cope with those adverse situations. Amidst all such severe trials and pains, we felt that God was in absolute control of the situation and His sovereign plan and purpose for our lives was unfolding seemingly. In Varanasi we gathered for weekly fellowship and missionary prayer along with some Tamil Christian friends. Occasionally we got opportunities to do youth ministry. God used us in the Christian literature drive program organized in the city by the Blessing Youth Mission in the year, 2004.

When we were thinking that Varanasi might be the last stop of our nomadic journey, an invitation came to us from the Gospel Echoing Missionary Society (GEMS), Bihar to serve in one of their educational institutions at Dehri-on-sone.  As led by the Lord, we both decided to move to Bihar. We also felt that since there is no other state in our country which is needier than Bihar God was perhaps directing us to Bihar as the State of choice for our future ministry. However, we were prepared to heed to any further directions from God. My husband took up the responsibility as the principal of GEMS English school, which is a senior secondary school affiliated to CISCE, New Delhi and I was given the responsibility of the vice-principal. God gave both of us sufficient grace and enablement to rebuild the said day-cum-boarding School with the full co-operation of the teaching and non-teaching staff. It took almost three years for the rebuilding and renewal process and to regain its lost name and luster. Along with the educational ministry, God enabled us to organize village ministry, student’s ministry, and staff prayer meetings.

Once God accomplished His rebuilding task in GEMS school through us, His direction to return to Varanasi was very clear. I did not like to go back to Varanasi because I and my daughter had physically suffered a lot in our previous sojourn over there. But God’s direction was so clear that we had no other alternative except to obey His voice and follow Him in faith. Though our vision is to serve the Lord by reaching the unreached with gospel primarily through educational mission services in Varanasi, we were not fully aware of His plans. Yet we put our trust on Him and proceeded to Varanasi. When we reached Varanasi in the midnight of 30 July 2008, we were told that the owner of the house, who had agreed to rent out his house for us had at the last minute changed his mind and refused to rent it out to us. However, emboldened by the Lord, we peacefully slept for a couple of hours in the night in the house of a friend of ours. By next morning the truck containing our things had also arrived from Bihar.  After a brief search for another house, we were able to locate one, the owner of which consented to rent it out to us on a condition that non-vegetarian items should not be cooked in that house. Though I was a little unhappy about that house, we decided to occupy it, appreciating the way God persuaded the owner of the house, to give it instantly to strangers like us.

Varanasi known as Kashi, is in the eastern part of Uttar Pradesh. People often refer to Varanasi as “the city of temples”, “the holy city of India”, “the religious capital of India”, “the city of lights”, “the city of learning” and the “culture capital of India” and so it attracts people who are in the pursuit of spiritual enlightenment from all over the world. Though Kashi means “light,” one can find darkness in every sphere of a man’s life in this area and much so with reference to the field of education. The population in the State of Uttar Pradesh was over 166 million as per the census in 2001, which crossed 180 million in 2007. About 40% of them (roughly 70 million) live Below the Poverty Line. There is a very high percentage of people who do not know how to read and write. Uttar Pradesh has the highest infant mortality and maternal mortality in India. It is also one of the few states, where polio has not been eradicated. Varanasi is one of the most populated districts of Uttar Pradesh with a population of 3,147,927 people as per the census in 2001.

As our vision is to serve the Lord primarily through an educational mission in an unreached area, we were earnestly searching for a suitable building on rent to start a primary school. To begin with, we started a Spoken English class for school and college students from July 2008 which went on up to December that year. I looked after the spoken English Class as my husband took up a part-time lecturer job in a Paramedical college. Simultaneously, we were looking for a building to start an EnglishMediumSchool in the new academic year. However, we spent full 8 months in praying and searching for a building before we could find one. Since we did not have any financial support, we had to sell the wedding chain (Thali) to meet with the initial expenses. By God’s grace within a month, we got everything ready to start the school. We decided to name the school as the True Light English School since our aim is to shed the True Light of the Gospel in the dark world by providing the children with wholesome education founded on the wholesome truth i.e., Jesus Christ, the true light, (John1:9) for the wholesome enlightenment (physical, intellectual, spiritual, moral and social enlightenments) of the children. After an inaugural prayer the school had its maiden start on 6^th April 2009 with an initial strength of 12 students. Currently there are about 100 students in the age group of 3 to 10 years. Almost all of them are from non-Christian background. We teach them Bible songs and Bible verses as a part of school assembly program along with other spiritual and moral education programs based on the teachings of Jesus Christ, the True Light. Recently God enabled us to launch out a branch school with six students in a village called Aurhey. Presently 12 staffs are working in these schools. These educational mission services are run under the aegis of a Charitable Christian missionary organization namely True Light Educational and Charitable Trust (T.L.E.C.T) registered under the Indian Trust act. The T.L.E.C.T. aims at reaching the unreached with the gospel primarily through its educational mission services. Recognizing the services as charitable activities, the Commissioner of Income Tax department of Government of India has granted 12A and 80G provisions to this Trust.

Apart from doing educational ministries, whenever we get opportunity, we go for preaching ministry. We also gather along with some friends for weekly missionary prayer and fellowship. Kindly pray for these ministries as the needs are ever increasing. It is our earnest prayer and hope that this ministry will grow like a branch of the mustard tree as referred to by our Lord in Mark 4:32 so that many souls may be brought to perch under the shadow of the Most High God.