Top

Special: Pastor on a mission, serving poorest of the poor

Pastor Paul's life aim to help the downtrodden over the past two decades.

Bangalore: I first met Pastor Paul on Christmas Eve, for his church had visited 3,116 homes in 23 days to celebrate Christmas.

As we spoke that day, he talked about his life's aim – to help the downtrodden. Having done this in several ways, he has reached out to tens of thousands of people over the past two decades.

We meet in the Indirangar Church, where Pastor Paul now conducts his sermons. A battered Maruti Omni stands outside, with the name Compassion Ministry printed in bold letters across the back.

This van, I learn later, carried food to over 10,000 people across the city's slums each day. This number has been brought down to 5,000, because Pastor Paul wants to spend that money on other schemes.

Brightly lit Christmas trees adorn every room as we climb the three flights of steps to where Pastor Paul awaits us, in the innermost chamber, flanked by a tall Indian flag positioned in a corner of his office.

Dressed in his Sunday best, the charismatic man talks about his first days in Bengaluru, saying, "I help the poor because I know what it is to starve." Today, his parish comprises over 22,000 people. He started out with three.

Born into a family of Sri Lankan refugees, who ran away, like so many others, to Madurai, Pastor Paul always knew that liturgy was his path.

When he was 18, he moved to Bengaluru, to study at the South Asian Bible College in Kothanur. Although his father gave him a monthly allowance of Rs 25, this was hardly enough to make ends meet. "I worked as a grass cutter and toilet cleaner at the college," he said. In his third year, he was promoted to library maintenance and eventually became Chairman of the Student Council.

With almost nothing to fall back on, the driven young man set about building his own parish. "I remember, it was a house in Cambridge Layout that was home and church and everything," he recalled. "I would cycle to people's houses, asking them if they would let me pray with them," he said. "I'd have about six people attending my sermons, on a good day. At times, it was just one or two."

On December 18, 1994, with 200 people in his parish, Pastor Paul moved to the church in Indiranagar's Defence Colony, where he has been since.

The Grace Orphanage is his first project, located in Kothanur, near the Bible College. "I was in the middle of my three day fast and that's when I realised how little I was doing to help those who needed it," he said. The Grace Orphanage remains one of his most successful projects.

Their welfare projects are managed now by a full-blown social activity department. 800 widows stop by at the church for their monthly rice ration and a good meal. They even run a special service for the blind, who also receive this ration. 200 other families are also part of this scheme. "That's the food bit of it," he summed up.

Pastor Paul also runs a six-month diploma in computer training, which is free of cost and only for women. A daycare center in Hennur caters to children from poorer families, giving them tuitions and a meal after school.

"We also give value education to children in corporation schools," he explained (the list of his altruistic schemes runs into two pages, for he riffles through them as we speak). They are accompanied by a doctor, also a parish member, on these school visits, where they check the physical condition of the children, meet the parents and tell them what needs to be done (they don't prescribe any medicines on their own).

As if all this isn't enough, the parish runs regular health camps for the city's poorest people. "We diagnosed breast cancer in a woman once, took her to KIDWAI, helped her access her yellow card funds and made sure she was operated on. She's absolutely fine today," he said, proudly.

They meet with ministers and help yellow card holders tap into the funds to which they are eligible.

"We receive no foreign funding whatsoever," emphasises Pastor Paul, for he believes firmly in running an indigenous church.

"My parish trusts me and they give overwhelmingly," he says, quietly.

Today, the students they helped put through Bible College have set up churches on their own across the country. "We have 200 churches now," he remarked. These are scattered across Rajasthan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and the Bhutan border, too.

It's a busy life, isn't it? Pastor Paul laughs at once. "There are no holidays," he said. "I'm up at 3 am on Sundays and in Church an hour later. I get home at 7 pm. I work seven days a week. The only thing I never miss out on is going to the gym!" His family – a wife and two children, both of whom are now living abroad – have never grudged him this, for they have accepted that his is a life of sacrifice.

"I have gone as long as five days without eating," he said.

"There was a small tiffin place in Cambridge Layout, I would go there, drink a glass of water and leave before the waiter came back for my order, because I couldn't afford any food." Once, a man offered him meals at his house. When the grateful young pastor accepted, he found this generosity was very short lived. "That day, I stopped trusting people. I placed all my trust in God," he said.

Generosity stems from the heart and only from the heart. Pastor Paul has always given everything, during his time of plenty and in his days of starvation too. "Running a business is easy," he said. "Being a pastor is the hardest part." He's done a wonderful job, though.

( Source : dc )
Next Story