Roy and Ponna - our life story

Roy, Ponna and Ricky Sebastian - serving God in India

Our Life story

Theme Verse

“The Spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted…………. They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for Generations.” Isaiah 61:1-4

I was born in a Hindu religious family and Ponna was from a traditional Christian family. My family was worshiping Hindu gods, and used to go to the temples. Ours was a big family consisting of father, mother and nine small children. My father was a strong believer in the Hindu religion and he used to do several works in temples. He was an addict of alcohol and because of that my family has suffered too much. He was against Christianity.

There was an incident which happened about thirty-five years before which has changed his life. He and his family believed that Hindu religion was the only religion which leads the to Moksha (Eternal Life) and God. One day a group of Christian people came to conduct open air preaching in his place. His father came to know about this and became angry. He came there with a group of people and severely attacked the Christian people who came to share about the love of Christ. The leader of the group, while under attack, said loudly to my father “God loves you, one day you will come to knows this truth and we will pray for you”. My father became angrier and threw his stick towards the leader.

After a few days, while he was very young, he fell ill. It started with a small headache and it gradually became more and more ill and the doctors gave him many medicines. Finally the doctors declared that he was going to die soon. Our family was in a great shock, partly because we depended only my father’s income.

While he was on his deathbed he remembered about the old incident in which he attacked the Christian people and the words of the leader “God loves you”. He cried out and prayed to God to help him. Suddenly he got a vision of Jesus Christ on the cross. He cried and confessed his sins, immediately he got forgiven his sins and healing of his body. So my father who was a Saul became Paul. This transformation has led each one of our family members into Christ. Our relatives and friends protested against it, but we became very strong believers of Jesus Christ.

Please click on picture to play

an MP3 recording of Roy

telling his life story

My salvation was another miracle. The changes that took place in my family neither opened my eyes nor caused me to believe in Jesus. During the period of my college life, I was involved in Politics and were greatly fascinated by the theories of Karl Max. Through these I was struggling hard to change India with strikes and other terrorist activities. Though my dreams about India being a distant dream, my life became more complex, lonely and troubles came to my life one by one without any peace and sleep. In order to get rid of it I planned to go into exile and even thought about committing suicide.

After parting from my friends one night at midnight I heard a cry when I entered home which was my mother interceding for my life.

That moment became pricks of conscious in my mind and hence I realized that I am sinner, I needed a Saviour, and there and then I gave my life for Jesus. More over I had great enthusiasm to share the joy and happiness with everyone.

While I was attending a Christian Youth Conference conducted by Inter Collegiate Prayer Fellowship in my town place I realized that God was calling me for the full time ministry. That challenged verse was the theme verse. Hence I joined and began to work with Operation Mobilization.

Even though Ponna was born in a Traditional Syrian Christian family, she never had any personal relationship with Jesus until she was 15 years old.

During this period she had a severe headache and couldn’t continue her studies. During that time her saved mother shared the Gospel with her and through her, Ponna received complete healing.

After that Ponna decided to dedicate her life for Him and His work and she too joined OM - this was how we met. Please click on the picture of Ponna to play a recording of her life story.

OM Experience.

Ponna and I joined the OM at different times for a 2 months summer vacation program, which was continued to 8 years. The training in OM has made a great influence in our life. The policy of OM “Seeking God's will before everything” has helped us a lot to receive many great things from the Lord in the later days through prayer. The unique OM training, which provides personality development, spiritual growth, fellowship etc. was very valuable. When left OM I was in the Training Department and Ponna in the Woman’s Co-ordination team.

Dreaming Days in Doulos.

Doing Gospel work along with an international community was a big dream for both of us. But Doulos made it a reality. In 1996 we were blessed to be two of the eight members from India as crews in Doulos. We were blessed to live with the people from 35 countries of different languages, colour, and race to taste different food to visit different nations and witness for the Lord. Also we had the privilege of meeting the Heroes of world evangelisation like George Verver, Dal Rhotten, Peter Maiden and Gareth Bolton. It was during the time I was interested to marry Ponna as my life partner.

Leaving OM and joining Bible College.

After marriage before entering the long-term ministry we had the interest to go for theological studies, we found difficulty to found the expenses and Fees needed for studies in Bible College. But God was so faithful to meet all our needs. During our second year while we were praying for to pay our fees suddenly Bro. Gareth and Malou’s picture came in to our mind. We never had any contacts with them till then. By trusting God we wrote a letter to them. Gareth gave us a positive response by helping financially through Amen. Praise The Lord! So by the grace of God we successfully completed the Master of Divinity (M.Div) course in 2001. And then we worked as Bible tutor in GFA but soon after a month I left because God prompted us to. Because of this we got a lot of opportunities to work with different Christian organizations, which would have enabled us to work without any problems with money and facilities. But because of the promises and visions from God we left all tempting offers. We decided to obey His Vision, even though it would lead us to a struggling, lonely and suffering ministry.

God Bless you

Roy and Ponna