Growing up as an ‘untouchable’ Dalit in a poor remote Indian village, Yesupadam turned to communism at the young age of 11 as a means of taking revenge upon a society that rejected and hated him. For 13 years he lived as an atheist and alcoholic, given over to violence, rebellion, and communist gangs. He had rejected Christianity, a ‘Western religion’ that his father had embraced after hearing the gospel from a Canadian Baptist missionary. However, on January 26, 1976 Jesus appeared to Yesupadam. He saw with his naked eyes, the form of a man hanging on a cross with blood drops falling down from his nail pierced hands. Jesus spoke to him audibly, ‘Son, I have done all this for you, what will you do for me?’ Instantly converted and completely transformed, Yesupadam responded back, ‘Now I know you are God. Until the last breath of my life I will believe in you and will tell to my people that you are God.’ Since that time, his life has been passionately devoted to that mission.
After his radical conversion, Yesupadam spent more than three years in Iraq working for the government as a medical technician, for the purpose of sharing the gospel with Iraqis. Despite the political and religious opposition there, Yesupadam planted three underground churches and baptized many new believers who heard the good news of Jesus Christ through his ministry. Upon his return to India in 1983, Yesupadam left his job and gave himself to full-time ministry to believers in the local church and the lost people especially in the tribal villages. Yesupadam’s ministry in India has been marked by a burning heart to see India reached with the good news of Jesus Christ.
In 1988, Yesupadam saw a vision of two hands holding the globe, with the words ‘Jesus Cares’ across, and the names of 5 countries written below, namely U.S., Canada, West Germany, Sweden, and South Africa . Thus Love-n-Care Ministries International was birthed, with a burden not only for India but also for the world and specifically these 5 nations.
In 1990 Love-n-Care Ministries was incorporated in India and began planting churches and training young men to be evangelists, pastors and church planters. With a word from the Lord to ‘penetrate into the communities’ in order to meet the spiritual and physical needs of the people, the ministry began taking in the poor and suffering children, caring for the elderly and training disabled polio-affected young adults in various vocations. Love-n-Care Ministries also constructed a 25 bed hospital and began a Nursing School, while regularly conducting free medical outreaches in poor villages. In addition, they facilitate computer, printing and tailoring training, printing literature and recording music, evangelism, crusades and pastor’s conferences, flood and disaster relief, starting small businesses and working with HIV positive families.