Am I Cursed?
An Indian Pastor Shares His Story
Was baby Vivek cursed? Was his life causing the family tragedies?
When one family death after another occurred, Vivek’s Hindu Indian family blamed his birth for these tragedies, and they cast him from the family home.
Shortly after his birth, his grandfather died. According to his Hindu family, Vivek’s birth was the cause of this tragedy. When another grandfather and his father died within the next few years, the family believed that Vivek was to blame. Consequently, at just age four, Vivek’s family sent him away to live in a hostel, similar to an orphanage.
Young Vivek was sickly, weak, and not expected to live. For two years, he suffered loneliness, cut off from his family. At that time, a Christian uncle took him to live 500 miles away. Vivek continued to suffer poor health, battling tuberculosis and mumps. However, this new Christian family served his needs with “so much love.”
Within a year, he became healthy and strong! At age 11, Vivek pondered his identity, wondering about his mother’s love for him. He experienced a crisis of loneliness and fear. It was then that God showed Vivek his need for Jesus the Savior, revealing a “video-like review” of his life. Through his aunt’s counsel and reading Isaiah 41:10, Vivek found faith and new hope by committing his life to God.
Later, after high school, Vivek sensed God’s call to serve. Following two years of Bible training, he served for several years doing outreach, sharing the Gospel with people back in his native state of Uttarakhand. God even opened the doors for Vivek to share God’s love in the village where his life began.
The local people spoke warmly of his father’s helping hand and relatives assured him of his mother’s love. The boy who once had been cast out of his home as a scapegoat has now found God’s peace and love!
Vivek, now a 32-year-old assistant pastor at Allahabad Biblical Seminary in India, is seeking God’s chosen partner for marriage. Please ask the Lord to bring just the right woman to complement his life and ministry.
Story courtesy of OMS missionary and church multiplication facilitator for India, Roger Kruse