Pastor Bellamkonda Shivaji Raju — Life Testimony

I bow to the spirit that dwells within the body. I serve the all-pervading soul that fills everything. My childhood came to an end steeped in this very philosophy.

By the time I reached my teenage years, singing along to "Red flag, red flag, red, red flag," I had joined the Communist Party and drawn close to atheism. By the time I moved from my teenage years into youth, I was introduced to the Bible. Within that scripture, the Book of Proverbs was what first set me thinking.

In my early childhood, without my fully realizing it, my father, Venkataraju, suffered from poor health and obesity. My mother's family was from Poduru, her native village, in Achanta Mandal of West Godavari district. My mother, Rudraraju Surramma, was the daughter of Rudraraju Somaraju.

My father was Bellamkonda Venkataraju. He worked at the Raju's Hospital — the Osler Hospital — in Poduru. My mother gave birth to me at the Osler Hospital in Poduru in 1962. My mother had five children — three sons and two daughters. The first was my brother Bangarraju, a servant of God; the second was my brother Subbaraju, also a servant of God; and I was the third. According to the caste order laid out in the Manu Dharma Shastra, ours was a Kshatriya family, belonging to the second varna — a family that fully practiced traditional idol worship.

While I was still a small child, my mother enrolled me in a gurukulam that imparted traditional learning. About two kilometers from Vegiraju Ramakrishnam Raju's nature-cure ashram, near Vissakoderu in Bhimavaram, West Godavari district, our Raghu Gurukulam stood on several acres of land amid groves of mango, cashew, and casuarina trees. My childhood memories of that gurukulam remain vivid to me even now.

Traditional learning, sun salutations, yoga practice, growing our own vegetables, storing rainwater in recharge pits, and preparing our own compost — alongside all of this, we thirty students lived and grew up together through games, songs, stick-dance, kolatam folk dance, and devotional singing. Living alongside us, running our Raghu Gurukulam and caring for us — the man we called our father — was Shri Swami Chaitanyananda Saraswati, and with him lived Shri Kalidindi Narasimha Raju garu, a scholar of Sanskrit, Telugu, Hindi, and English.

"Sahanavavatu, sahanau bhunaktu, saha viryam karavavahai, tejasvi navadhitam astu, ma vidvishavahai" — this Sanskrit verse, meaning roughly "may we be protected together, may we be nourished together, may we work together with great energy, may our study be filled with vigor, may we never have discord between us," was the founding principle of the gurukulam. Built on that very foundation, our daily life together, as teachers and students, went on. My life's journey continued at the gurukulam from roughly 1970 to 1977.

By the time I joined the gurukulam, our family had fallen into financial hardship. By the time I was seven years old, I already knew what hardship meant. Because of that, when I asked my mother to send me anywhere at all, she learned of the gurukulam and enrolled me there. On the very first day I set foot in the gurukulam, the Swamiji interviewed me there. In that interview, he asked me to recite some verse. I did, and he was pleased. On my wrist and around my neck I wore protective amulets. Seeing them, the Swamiji asked what they were. I answered that I had once had typhoid fever, and my mother had had the amulets tied on me as a charm.

The Swamiji personally told me to throw away my amulets, have my head fully shaved, and come wearing nothing but the clothes on my back. Before a week had passed, my mother, following exactly what he had said, brought me to the gurukulam and handed me over, and then left.

By then, ten to fifteen boys of my own age were already there. The first two days I felt somewhat afraid, but after that I blended in with them. They called in the doctor from the nearby nature-cure ashram to give me a health checkup. He said the boy's heart was weak, and left. From that day, for a full month, they did not enroll me in any class at all. The ground where we lived was pure sandy soil. For that entire month, every morning and evening, as much as I was able, I was made to turn over the soil with a spade. They fed me three parts leafy greens to one part rice, and told me to eat my fill. It was hard, but there was no way around it. After a month, they called the nature-cure doctor again for a checkup. He examined me and declared that my earlier weakness was gone, and left.

From the very next day, I was seated in the first grade. At the rate of two grades completed each year, by the time I reached the age appropriate for the tenth grade, I had finished my secular schooling right there. Alongside secular education, traditional Oriental learning came first. Our daily routine ran fully from five in the morning until nine at night. Early morning began with prayer and Vedic recitation. We studied for an hour. For another hour we did sun salutations and yoga postures. After that, as part of our garden work, we tended our own dairy cattle. As part of our education, we were made to memorize Vedic verses and select chapters of the Bhagavad Gita. Sanskrit texts such as the Raghuvamsha epic, Svapnavasavadattam, Kiratarjuniyam, and the verses of Bhartrhari remain in my memory even to this day. But in secular education, especially in the English language, I fell behind. For roughly seven years, the Swamiji, with a single-minded purpose, did not even send us home — raising us, like caged birds, entirely within the gurukulam environment.

We lived out our days amid trees, anthills, snakes, and scorpions — playing, singing. Mangoes, cashew fruit, tender young vegetables, palm shoots, date-palm fruit, and tubers were our snacks. It was while I was still studying at the gurukulam that my father passed away after a long illness. I was not even allowed a final glimpse of him. The Swamiji did not send me home, thinking that it would ruin my education. In those days, whether it was fever, a cold, or an injury, we knew nothing but nature-cure remedies — no medicines at all. Our Swamiji kept the company of prominent figures like Acharya Vinoba Bhave, the Frontier Gandhi Ghaffar Khan, and Morarji Desai. The Devadayam Minister of that era, the Gandhian Chintalapati Varaprasada Murthy Raju, was very close to the Swamiji, and Murthy Raju garu provided some financial support to the gurukulam.

In this way I continued my gurukulam education until 1977, when, for the first time, I was sent to sit for the tenth grade exam through a private convent school in Bhimavaram, and then sent home to my family. From there, like birds freed from a cage, we all scattered in different directions. Not one of us ever went back to the gurukulam — the Swamiji's hopes came to nothing, and our education was left incomplete.

Taking flight from there, I landed in Vijayawada. Looking back on it today, I understand that, in my case, it was God's own will.

My childhood, tied up with the Raghu Gurukulam nature-cure ashram in Bhimavaram, West Godavari district, came to an end with my traditional-style tenth grade education. From Bhimavaram I boarded a train straight to Vijayawada. I was young and completely unfamiliar with the world — this was my very first train journey. I boarded the night passenger train. It was all new to me. The train began to move.

A blind beggar's song, "You call it yours, but where is your own nest, little bird?" rang out, full of philosophy, as he begged his way beautifully through the carriage. For as long as that beggar sang and begged in the compartment where I sat, my eyes and my mind stayed fixed on him and on his philosophical song. Because I was sitting by the window, a jolt of the train made the window shutter suddenly slide down onto my right hand. The middle fingers of my right hand were cut open and began to bleed. The people sitting near me immediately wet their handkerchiefs, bound the wound tightly, and gave me first aid. I only came back to myself after being lost in the beggar's philosophy. Gudivada arrived. Whether because of my injury, or because I was young, or simply out of pity for me, the elders in the compartment brought me tea and water and looked after me, putting my shyness to rest.

From there, questions came one after another — who was I, where was I coming from, what was I studying, where was I going — and answering them, before I even realized it, I had reached Vijayawada station. They put me in a rickshaw to my address and waved me off. It was early morning, around six o'clock, the sky just beginning to lighten. I sat grandly in the rickshaw. But soon my heart began to pound, and fear set in. I did not know Vijayawada. The doubt crept in — was he really taking me to the right address? Just then the rickshaw driver said something to me — "Good... there is." I broke out in a cold sweat. Innocently, I told him I was going to my elder brother's house in Chuttugunta.

I sat quietly for a while, holding my breath. From the Chuttugunta center, along Viswalandhra Road, near the entrance across from the Venus Shutter Company, at the street tap, I heard my sister's voice calling out, "Brother! Brother! Brother!" I turned, and it was indeed my sister. Life came flooding back into me. I silently thanked the rickshaw driver. My sister, too, had come to stay a few days at our elder brother's house.

My brother Bangarraju's house stood atop a hill. Near the main road at the foot of the hill was the street tap where my sister, waiting in line with her pot for water, glanced around and caught sight of me. The moment I saw her, my eyes welled up. Our brother's house was on the Chuttugunta hill. Climbing that hill was itself a new experience for me. That is how I arrived at my brother's house in Vijayawada. Just a few days after I got there, my sister went back home to Poduru.

From then on, my sister's household duties at our brother's house fell to me. I grew used to fetching water at the tap. In this way, Bezawada — Vijayawada — became familiar to me. About a week or ten days passed like this. My brother Bangarraju set about trying to find me work. Because he was acquainted with someone who worked at the nearby Visalandhra daily newspaper office, through that connection I was sent, on a temporary basis, to learn hand-composing — the setting of type by hand — in the Swatantra Art Printers division, which was affiliated with the Communist party's Visalandhra newspaper. I learned it with great interest. Within six months I had become a compositor, and reached the point where I was earning a salary of sixty rupees.

Along with my introduction to the press and the daily newspaper, I was also introduced to communism. My senior co-workers at the press supported me well and encouraged me — though they would sometimes tease me over my Godavari-style pronunciation of certain sounds. A large share of the printing work at the press involved books built around communist ideology, atheist writings, and critical essays — the works of great revolutionary writers of the day like Sri Sri, Cherabanda Raju, Tapi Dharma Rao, and Kodavatiganti, along with progressive poets, and books critical of religious scriptures. Because I worked in the composing section, I drew close to the Communist Party. Speeches and political classes by well-known figures of the day, like Dasari Nagabhushanam and Giriprasad, were held once a week for all the workers. Influenced by those speeches, I drew fully into the Communist Party, and eventually became a member myself. Sri Sri's epic poem Mahaprasthanam influenced me deeply — I memorized the whole thing by heart.

By then my second elder brother, Subbaraju, had also come to Vijayawada with his family. I moved from my elder brother's house to stay with brother Subbaraju instead. Around this time, something strange unsettled me at my elder brother's house. A Christian prayer meeting I knew nothing about was being held once a week on the veranda of my brother's house. It did not sit well with me. I came from a tradition rooted in Sanatana Dharma, and this ritual made no sense to me at all. Sometime later, my brother Bangarraju once took me along to church as well. There, the pastor criticized the very figure I regarded as God. That was my first experience of a church, and it only made me hold my ground more firmly.

One day, a book came in to Visalandhra for composing — a work by Etukuri Balarama Murthy titled "Bharatadesam — Matalu" ("India — Religions"). I remember reading, in its account of Christianity and the Roman Catholics, that they had won people over by giving the poor clothes, bread, and wheat. That reading turned me against Christianity. After that, I read Velaga Venkatappayya's critical essays on many episodes from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. From there, a certain contempt formed in me toward both Christianity and Hinduism alike. From that point on, I devoted myself almost entirely to communist literature, atheist writings, and ideas about building an equal society.

I grew close to the communists in the area where my brother Subbaraju lived. In a short time, I rose to become a local youth leader. From there I was introduced to the Praja Natya Mandali, the people's theater movement, and continued locally as a member of its song troupe. I knew hardship myself, and I stood by the side of the poor. Because of this, I was even part of occupying some government land and allocating it to about seventeen poor families — all of those plots have since become permanent homes. In this way, as a young man, I became fully immersed in the lives of the people.

As my life's journey went on, bound up with both Swatantra Art Printers in Visalandhra and the Communist Party, the Swatantra Art Printers where I worked was shut down. I found myself out on the street. I was troubled — how could this happen, when it was the Communist Party's own press? For several months I worked at a private press, and then, with help from the A.P. Finance Corporation, I started a small press of my own. I printed pamphlets, wedding invitations, and receipt books. Around that same time, Christians began coming to my press to have gospel tracts and meeting handbills printed. Through them, I came to know several Christian friends.

Among them, I grew especially close to my friend Indupalli Shyam Babu. One time, this friend told me to read the Bible. Even before that, my elder brother had given me a New Testament and asked me to read it, but I never managed to. The reason was that the genealogy at the start of the Gospel of Matthew stopped me from reading any further. I shared this with my friend. He gave me, as a gift, a complete Bible containing both the Old and New Testaments, and told me to begin instead with Proverbs. Proverbs drew me in. As I read it, parallel Telugu verses and Sanskrit shlokas kept coming to mind. Proverbs held me completely captive. I read it with great devotion. After that I read the Gospels. Christ's manifesto given on the mountain moved me far more than the Communist Manifesto ever had. From there, I grew willing to go with my friend to gospel meetings and gatherings.

As I grew willing to attend gospel meetings through my friends, I drifted further and further from communism. It was around this same time that my mother, Surramma, arranged my marriage to her niece. My wedding, and my sister's wedding, were both held on the very same day, at the very same hour, at my maternal uncle's house in my native village of Poduru, in West Godavari district. After that, I gradually reduced my activities within the Communist Party.

After I began attending gospel meetings and reading the Bible, one question rose up in me — why had my elder brother become a devoted follower of Christ? After his marriage, he and his wife had longed for children. Coming from a Hindu family, they had made vows to the countless gods. Whatever advice anyone gave them, they followed it faithfully. Even so, they were met only with disappointment where children were concerned. A Christian sister who observed all this first introduced Christ to my sister-in-law. My sister-in-law yielded to her words and began praying to Christ. Later, though my brother knew of it and did not approve, he too, for the sake of having children, appealed to the Lord. A few months later, their prayers were answered. First they were given a son, and after that a daughter, as God's gift of children. This was a wonderful work God did in my elder brother's household.

When I learned of this, I was reminded at once of the Sumati verse: "Meeswata — the relative who is of no use to you when you need him, bows and grants you a boon; the horse that will not carry you into battle should be given up at once, O Sumati." This verse brought me comfort. The reason they came to trust in the Lord was not that any other god had granted them a boon when they bowed to it, but that the blessing given by the Lord Christ Himself was what let them come to trust Him. It gave our families the courage and the strength to testify that Christ alone is the God who grants blessings.

Every time I read the Bible, all sorts of other things would come to mind alongside it. For example, when I read Proverbs chapter 17, verse 12, it says, "Let a man meet a bear robbed of her cubs, rather than a fool in his folly." Bhartrhari's verse, as translated by the poet Enugula Lakshmana Kavi, reads something like this: "Striving, you may draw oil from sand; struggling, you may drink water from a mirage; in time, you may even win the rabbit's horn — but you cannot win over the mind of a fool." The close kinship between that verse and this proverb set my mind racing. I developed a deep fondness for the Bible. The more I read Proverbs, the more my desire to read grew. I found in Proverbs the truths of life and all the wisdom a person could need. I made the Bible my very own.

At one place I read, "One who is surety for a stranger will suffer for it," and I was struck completely still. I once heard of a dispute in our town. Two men came before an elder for judgment. One man had vouched for another and gotten him a loan. Because the loan went unpaid, the person who had given the loan pressed the man who had stood as guarantor to pay it back instead. The guarantor's father grew furious and, in the common village manner, hurled the insult, "standing surety and grazing on grass" — as good as calling him a fool for it. That very insult sits close to Proverbs chapter 17, verse 18. In this way, so many things, from Genesis all the way through to Revelation, began appearing to me with striking clarity. After studying the Bible in this way, I came to believe in it completely. I came to believe that God exists. And I came to know clearly that He is Christ. I no longer needed to go chasing after arguments. But whatever I had come to believe, I now believed it fully. Drawing on First Thessalonians chapter 5, verse 21 — "test everything; hold fast to what is good" — I accepted Christ in my heart.

Around this time, some pastors who had been coming to my press had become my friends. My Christian friends, noticing that I was reading the Bible and attending meetings, encouraged me — let us pray together at the press for half an hour every Saturday. I agreed. After some days of these prayers, one day, at the end, they asked me to pray as well. I agreed to that too. Prayer was new to me. But perhaps because I had listened to them praying, I knelt down, bowed my head, and began to pray. Without realizing it, I was in tears. Remembering so many things, crying out to Him, pouring out my pain, I found myself asking forgiveness for certain things. My flowing tears bore their own testimony before me. I said amen and lifted my head. I did not understand what had happened to me. Praying, weeping, asking forgiveness — all of it had simply happened.

The next morning, being a Sunday, my friend Pastor Moses invited me to bring a change of clothes and come to his church in the Vijayawada Police Quarters at ten o'clock. I went. I was baptized in the canal running alongside it. And so my baptism was complete.

I began reading the Bible deeply. After that, I came to understand how great a difference there is between our traditional teachings and Christ's philosophy of the heavenly kingdom, and His philosophy toward earthly, social life. To read the Bible is to draw out wisdom itself. Reading the Bible takes real labor. A single lifetime is not enough to read the Bible fully. The Bible is a manifesto for both this world and the world to come, spanning the whole of humanity. One must understand that the wisdom gained is exactly proportional to the labor put into reading it. In my view, simply looking at it with your eyes and reading it with your mouth does not mean you have truly read the Bible. I had to labor hard to understand the Bible, and I am laboring at it still.

I had served society as a communist worker from a young age. Now that I had become a Christian, what was I, as a Christian, meant to do? Christ offered his service to society in just three and a half years, and by the age of thirty-three and a half, he had already gone to be with his Father. He became known to the whole world. From that day to this, the world cannot be imagined without his presence. At that time I was thirty years old. A restlessness grew within me — that I, too, should accomplish something within three and a half years.

With this thought on my mind, Pastor Babarao, of Singnagar in Vijayawada, came to my press with an idea of his own. What he said to me was, "Brother, I am thinking of starting something like a city-edition newspaper — a Christian newspaper of our own." He shared his thinking with me. I told him it would not be possible for him to do it, and that he should hand the idea over to me right away — I had a press, I had experience from Visalandhra, and I would start a Christian newspaper that brought together all the denominations. Without another word, he replied at once, "You do it — we will stand behind you."

Without delay, within a few days I had prepared three fitting titles and shared them with my friends. Of these, the first title, "Swarnadeepika" — "Golden Lamp" — was the one they proposed. Along with it I sent the other two titles for registration approval. The first title, Swarnadeepika, was the one that was registered. With the full support of my Christian friends, I launched Swarnadeepika at Suvartha Vani in Vijayawada, in the presence of the elders of the state's Christian community.

I was baptized on Sunday, October the 3rd, 1993. The very next day, Monday the 4th, at four o'clock in the evening, in the Suvartha Vani hall, the magazine was formally unveiled by the hands of leading figures serving in Christian literary work across Andhra Pradesh. Among those present were the prominent Narsapur Jeevanjyothi publisher and writer Shri K. Wilson; the well-known poet and writer Shri Endluri Sudhakar; Shri M. M. Prasad of the House-to-House Gospel organization; Shri G. R. Prakash, editor of Vedapatham; the well-known gospel singer Rajababu; the then Commercial Tax Commissioner, retired, T. S. Vijayakumar; and leaders of local congregations from every denomination. The Suvartha Vani hall was packed to overflowing. And so "Swarnadeepika" began to shine, resplendent, within the Christian community.

Within just three years of its launch, the magazine had carved out its own distinct place in Andhra Pradesh. From that day to this, it has continued without interruption, and it still runs to this day. In time, it went on to publish articles, stories, poems, and speeches by an ever-growing number of celebrated Christian writers, theologians, and voices of Dalit consciousness. From the day the magazine began until today, I have continued on as its publisher and chief editor. In the beginning, for three years, I did appoint someone else as editor. After that, I have written the editorials myself and run the magazine personally.

I have always stood in the front line, using the magazine to raise spiritual and political awareness among the Christian and Dalit communities. Our magazine, "Swarnadeepika," which began in 1993, has now completed twenty years. In 1993, believing fully that Christ is God, that He is the light of this world, that He is the Savior of humankind, and that there is no other God besides Him, I began the ministry of Swarnadeepika, a magazine carrying Christian spiritual content and news.

From the day it began until today, there have been more ups and downs than I can put into words. Threats came from both inside our own community and outside it — from within, from fellow Christians; from without, from the R.S.S. and its affiliated wings. Once you call something a magazine, you must write both the good and the bad, whether it concerns the Christian community or the wider society — only then does it truly deserve to be called a magazine. A magazine ought to serve as an instrument of social awareness. It is with that very aim, that very goal, that this magazine still works today.

Over these twenty years, Swarnadeepika has worked from many different angles, sparing no effort in raising awareness among Christian congregations and among weaker sections of society. It has firmly condemned the attacks carried out against Christianity. It has cried out against the murder of democracy. It has repeatedly demanded that religious organizations like the R.S.S., Shiv Sena, and Bajrang Dal be banned. It has submitted memoranda. Through organizations such as the All India Christian Council and the Global Council of Indian Christians, it has carried out road blockades, silent demonstrations, relay hunger strikes, and many other such programs, submitting petitions to the government against anti-Christian forces.

In the course of all this, I personally faced abuse from anti-Christian forces, threatening letters addressed to me and to my family, and endless streams of abuse over the phone — a great many difficult situations. On some occasions I even hesitated to travel alone. From that day to this, God alone has been my support.

I was deeply hurt by the taunting words of my own blood relatives, who looked down on me, saying, "Why does he need this magazine business instead of running a printing trade?" Perhaps it was because they did not understand social awareness or the true purpose of a magazine; or perhaps it was simply that they thought — why does he need all this instead of settling down financially through business? If the pain from relatives was one thing, the whispers from outsiders stung even more. There were even those, envious, who from the days of our grandfathers and great-grandfathers had been Christians themselves, who asked what business this man had making such a fuss with his magazine.

The only thing I have had to run this magazine is self-belief and sheer boldness. When it comes to money, it has always been a struggle. There has never been a bank balance, not even to this day. I have never asked anyone for financial help for the magazine. Whatever state I was in at home, it is thanks to my wife Padmavathi's graciousness that I could still walk out the door with dignity. It was my wife who shaped both me and our two children with such poise. Proverbs chapter 31 fits her exactly. If I have been able to move through society with this much courage, it is entirely because of her encouragement.

Many regard me as incapable, since in twenty years of living in Vijayawada I was never able to set up a home of my own. To this day I have changed my home address and office address across nine different places. Setting aside the financial hardships I faced in this magazine ministry, the outside attacks were many more still. Some sent threatening letters, others made threatening phone calls, and still others worked quietly from within, trying to turn old subscribers and writers against the magazine and against me. I always found satisfaction in the way the magazine did its work, and because of that satisfaction, I never counted the cost to my own finances. Two house plots were sold specifically for the sake of Swarnadeepika's ministry. The magazine has never brought any special financial profit. Of whatever comes in through subscriptions and advertisements, fifty percent goes straight to expenses. The remaining half, I have had to bear myself.

This magazine has never worked for the sake of flattering individuals, nor for extravagant publicity advertisements. Some magazines are released more like souvenirs, and perhaps that is profitable for them. Swarnadeepika, though, has never gone looking down that road. What has been done must be told; what has been said must be done. One must recognize whatever gift the Lord has given, labor unceasingly for the good of the people with it, and in that way be a blessing to oneself, to one's family, and to the church.

"A single newspaper is worth ten thousand soldiers; a single newspaper is worth a million friends; without a newspaper, the people have no protection" — so said the eminent journalist Narla garu. In these words he laid out exactly what a true newspaper ought to be. But another poet offered a sharp criticism — that today's print media and electronic media alike show a reluctance to reveal the truth, and are simply being sold for money. "It buys the newspapers, it buys the people, and by sheer stubbornness it calls itself the master; what does having wealth matter, when the whole earth bows before it — this, believe me, is no lie, but a poet's own words." These words make it plain that even the media has bowed down before money.

These days, the media seems to exist only for advertisements, filling the entire front page with them as if that were its purpose. Electronic media has gone a step further still — driven by the greed to make sure everyone watches their particular channel, one even ran something resembling a militant training school, under the guise of "how to make bombs at home." When the media strays this far off course, it is certain the country will lose its progress and slide into dangerous conditions. Media bosses say, "we published it, we broadcast it, because the people wanted it and welcomed it." This is nothing but blatant deceit. In their eagerness to present something new to the public, showing what exists as if it did not, and what does not exist as if it did, more evil than good has come to be on display. Because of this, respect for the media keeps declining.

As for our own Swarnadeepika, it has always labored, day and night, for the awakening of the Christian community's poor and weaker sections, which it chose as its own cause from the start. A candle may be small, but its light reaches far and wide. I can say with pride that Swarnadeepika has been just the same.

In carrying forward such a lofty purpose, this magazine has had the backing of the pens of so many poets and writers. In this way, the ministry of Swarnadeepika has shaped many people in Andhra Pradesh into writers. It has encouraged many more emerging writers among us. It has held Christian poetry gatherings, literary conferences, and Christian conclaves on a grand scale. It has fittingly honored many prominent Christian figures. Whenever national calamities struck, it served with unwavering courage, to whatever extent it could. It has laid bare the attacks of religious fanatics. It has voiced, in a loud voice, the tearful stories of the afflicted. It has fought an uncompromising fight for the rights of Christians, and that fight continues still.

Along this path, it has endured no end of accusations and abuse. However many wounds still ache, however much blood still runs from its feet, it keeps running on, standing as a champion for the Christian people. There is no Swarnadeepika without me, and no me without Swarnadeepika. Who else knows the sweetness hidden in streams of tears, if not I? That is exactly why I am always joyful. My Lord provides me with everything I need to live. He is preparing all things toward His own work through me. That is possible only because of Him. My Lord made me rich from the very moment of my birth — though not by this world's reckoning.

"I have spent my days like a schoolmaster who cannot make ends meet; my greetings to Swarnadeepika, which gave the opening words to the closing chapter of my own story" — these were the words written, with quiet resignation, by the poet Shri Boodala Adam, a self-taught natural poet, along with what he wrote on a postcard.

"Dear Editor! I am on my final journey. My health worsens with each passing day. I do not know when I will fall. I believe that your prayers, and the prayers of your readers, will strengthen me. Sir, I am a poor man, an old man, and my eyesight is gone. I suffer from sugar and blood pressure. There is no treatment left for me. I cannot say which poem will be my last. I will hold my pen until my very last breath, and then I will go. Please pray."

This final letter from the poet Shri Boodala Adam shook me deeply. That same month, at Swarnadeepika's tenth anniversary celebration, with the permission of the family's doctor, the poet — then undergoing treatment in a Vijayawada hospital — was brought to the gathering. Swarnadeepika honored him there, conferred on him the title "the Vemana of the Christians," and gave him whatever financial help it could. I have always thought of my bond with the poet Adam as that of father and son. Not long after that, he fell asleep in the Lord.

The poet once wrote a verse about me and about Swarnadeepika, expressing, in these words, the affection he had come to hold for me:

"Whatever mother nursed and raised him, he crossed beyond the bounds of his Kshatriya lineage; whatever father's love he grew up within, he passed beyond the door of his grandfathers' and fathers' affection; whatever woman's embrace once held him, he crossed the fence of custom and caste-mark and rule; whatever family's summit he had climbed, he left behind the dwelling place of a warrior's ambitions — he became a father and kinsman to the poor, Shivaraju, turning back to carry the glorious cross; that his Swarnadeepika's voice should rise up into the very sky is a truth found only in Jesus."

That Swarnadeepika's readers, poets, and writers hold such affection is nothing but God's grace.

Alongside the Aradhana Bhakti channel, Swarnadeepika's journey, from the year two thousand to two thousand twenty, received many honors, felicitations, and cash awards. I have continued as the shepherd of the Deiva Sannidhi Sangham, on the embankment at Sundarayya Nagar, Tadepalli, in Guntur district, since 1996. At present, together with my wife Padmavathi, I serve as a partner in the social and spiritual growth of the poor people alongside them, in the Deiva Sannidhi Sangham founded by my brother Subbaraju and by Atmananda Raju garu.

Even as financial hardship presses upon my desire to press further ahead in this Christian, guiding work of church service, I carry on, casting my burden upon God and pressing forward. Please pray for the spiritual growth of our congregation, and for land and a building for our church.