Into the Light

Out of darkness and into the light.

Kamala Jesu Dass became a pastor's wife at age 16 and has worked with her husband in establishing many churches in their native India. Kamala has three children and works as a teacher. Her hobbies are singing, reading, painting, cooking and housekeeping.

Ngamma—whose name means "the god of serpents"—was a Hindu ritual woman in India, a land of varied religious customs where the people worship gods of many different forms as well as gods without any particular shape at all. And Ngamma knew all about the worship of the various Hindu gods.

In time, she married a young man named Pannasayya, whose family also practiced the Hindu customs and traditions, They had married according to the Hindu practices and they performed all the rituals to their gods. Ngamma and Pannasayya went here and there to make pilgrimages to get "Moksha," or salvation.

One day in 1925, they saw a Christian preacher beside the road preaching the gospel of Jest's Christ. They stood and listened for a little while. However, they believed that if they worshiped another god, their snake god would cause them to die, so they did not want to accept any other god.

Another day, this preacher conducted gospel meetings in their own village. Without letting anyone know that he was attending, Pannasayya went to the meetings. Having been adopted after his mother died in childbirth, his adoptive parents forbade him to attend the meetings. The young man decided to go anyway to the meetings along with his wife, Ngamma. The family cast them out, but they accepted Jesus as their Savior and were baptized into the Christian church. They started living their new-found faith. Every Sunday they would go to church, so happy for their new God and entirely different life.

One Sunday, however, they saw the two teachers who cared for the church fighting over the offerings. One man said, "The offerings belong to me because I am the one who established this church."

The other man got angry and told him, "You wait and see, l will bring another church and establish it in our village." And he did. Soon he found a Seventh-day Adventist pastor and persuaded him to come to the village of Mandapeta. The new pastor began holding seminars. Ngamma and Pannasayya wanted to attend the Adventist meetings. This time it was their pastor who forbade them to go, but this did not stop them. They regularly attended the meetings. After six months of Bible studies and learning about the Sabbath truth, they and 14 other members of their church were baptized. Finally Pannasayya gave up his smoking habit and Ngamma took off handfuls of jewelry and sold it. At the baptismal service, Pannasayya took the name Moses, and Ngamma changed her name to Rachel.

From then on, these two lived a life of witnessing unto the Lord. Mr. Moses was chosen as the first elder of the church and served in that capacity for 55 long years. He established many churches around the village of Mandapeta. The couple were blessed with four children, and two of their sons served as ordained ministers. Once they came out of darkness to the marvelous light, this couple witnessed for the great and true God.

This story really happened about 100 years ago, for it was my father-in-law whose life was totally changed by the gospel message. I am happy to tell you about him and how until his death he stood for Jesus and lived a life of witness for his Lord.

Kamala Jesu Dass became a pastor's wife at age 16 and has worked with her husband in establishing many churches in their native India. Kamala has three children and works as a teacher. Her hobbies are singing, reading, painting, cooking and housekeeping.