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My Tribute to K.P. Yohannan

First, K.P. lived a life of daring, total obedience to the commands of Christ. Second, he did so in faith knowing that God is on his side. Third, he trust the Lord to complete what had been started. Fourth, he never forgot that success comes from a life of prayer and obedience to the Holy Spirit. And Firth, he lived a life of Thanksgiving and praise to the very end.
My Tribute to K.P. Yohannan

MY TRIBUTE TO K.P. YOHANNAN, Founder of Gospel for Asia -- GFA World

By Bill Bray, CIS News

       With the death of K.P. Yohannan on May 8, 2024, we have not just lost a true, 20th Century apostle but we have gained a model of how the Great Commission of Christ will be fulfilled for many generations to come.

        Because I was there from the beginning of his call to missions, I cannot honestly let him be buried without recalling my decades of service with him and GFA World. 

         And I want my words to be more than a mere tribute. Knowing K.P. as intimately as I do, I know he would want it this way. It must be a call to follow him in a life of obedience, faith, trust, prayer, and praise. So, what can we learn from his life that applies to all of us? What does K.P. leave as a legacy to India and the church around the world.

         My personal recollection of his leadership lifestyle dates back to 1965. He jumped aboard my van and joined our all-student team for nearly a year of evangelism – distributing literature and street preaching in the then anti-Christian villages of Rajasthan.  After I was forced out of India, he carried on the ministry for years which was according to the plans we made together by faith.

         He was an answer to all our prayers on the OM team – prayers for a “faithful man” who would carry on in the footsteps of Christ. George Verwer – and the rest of us expatriates on the international OM team – knew from the start that we were only short-term. We would, at best, be only temporary visitors to Asia and India.

         So, my time with K.P. in India only lasted through most of 1966 before I was forced to flee to Pakistan when local bigots turned down my visa renewal.

         At one time, I even moved in with K.P. and his wife Gisila, most memorably when I collaborated with him on writing his first three books in Texas.

         The most notable of the three books was the classic: The Coming Revolution in World Missions, now published as "Revolution in World Missions."  The two were Road to Reality, and Why the World Waits.

          Amazingly, millions of copies of these daring and challenging books were distributed in multiple languages around the world – over 400 million copies of The Coming Revolution in World Missions alone! 

          These books heralded and solidified the new era in missions which he personified – one led by local church leaders rather than foreign outsiders. This was still a daring idea in a time when all missions were seen as foreign missions, both in the sending and receiving countries. 

          For the record, while I was often the ghost-writer for large segments of these books, they were all genuine collaborations between K.P. Yohannan and me.

           Meanwhile, K.P. was struggling to shake off the foreign image of missions in India. He more and more identified with the more orthodox Mar Thoma Church of South India which had been active in India since the first century of Christianity. 

           Let me close with the five take-away life-lessons I learned from K.P.  His total obedience, his unwavering faith, his complete trust, a life of prayer and praise. 

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