Churches Planted in Sadhu Sundar Singh's Home Area - Summer 2002

The village of Rampur Katni in the state of Punjab where Sadhu Sundar Singh was born now hosts several Christian cells planted by India-based missions.

"Sadhu Sundar Singh...must have offered much prayer for the salvation of people in that village," the leader of a mission based in Punjab State told Christian Aid recently. The ministry started work in Rampur and surrounding villages two years ago. Already the missionary has established a house church in Rampur, now a village of 6000, and several house groups in the surrounding villages, though there are yet no church buildings there.

Sundar Singh was a member of a staunch, well-to-do Sikh family and was sent to a Christian mission school to learn English. After his mother died in 1903, Christ came to him in the night when he was about to commit suicide. As a result Sundar became His lifelong disciple, though he was rejected by his family.

He adopted the saffron-colored robe of the Hindu sadhu, and walked barefoot everywhere preaching about the Lord Jesus Christ. Trekking rocky mountain paths and snow-laden mountain passes in India, Nepal, Afghanistan and Tibet, he became known as "the apostle of the bleeding feet." He is said to have done more to "indigenize" the churches of India than any other figure in the twentieth century. He remarked, "You have offered us Christianity in a Western cup... Give it to us in an Eastern bowl and we will drink of it." He disappeared on a trip to Tibet in 1929.

Another Punjab-based ministry recently opened the Sadhu Sundar Singh Memorial Church in Doraha, a town near Rampur Katni. That ministry, which began in 1972, has been working in this area of Punjab since 1984 but only last year was able to assign a married missionary to that particular place. The work of the missionary was highly effective and last year, with help from Christian Aid and others, the mission was able to construct a beautiful, permanent church building in honor of the famed apostle to India and Tibet. See photo of the week.

The Church of North India also has constructed a "Sadhu Sundar Singh Memorial Church" in Faridkot, about 24 miles (40 km.) from the Pakistan border. The Evangelical Church of India operates an English language seminary offering a graduate in theology course in Solan to the east in neighboring Himachal Pradesh.