Paul & Leela Dawson
Members of RTMC, 1960s–2002 • “We are truly blessed”
A tribute by their daughter, Shanthini Dawson
My parents, Leela Elizabeth and Paul Deva Dawson, were members of Richmond Town Methodist Church from the 1960s through to 2002, when they left Bangalore to join my sister in Oman. Those four decades at RTMC were not a backdrop to their lives; they were woven into the fabric of them.
My earliest memories of the church are of being brought to revival meetings as a small child, walking down the aisle beside my older sister Ranjini during altar calls — not really knowing what it meant, but drawn along by the music and the warmth of the occasion. Later, my brother Daniel would bring me on his scooter to Sunday school, where Pam Sumitra taught our class on the porch of Stephen’s Hall. She gave out gold, silver, and bronze stars on coloured ribbons to children who memorised Bible verses. I was nine years old. I have not forgotten it.
But this piece is about my parents, and what RTMC was to them across a lifetime.
My parents were close friends with the Peters family, and the connection with Mary Aunty, Dorothy, and Bishop Sampath Kumar goes back to those early years and continues to the present day. Rev. Theodore Williams was the preacher they never missed. He preached at my sister’s wedding in 1979, which was presided over by Rev. Vinay Kumar Moses.
When their children had all left Bangalore, my parents turned outward rather than inward. Their empty-nest years, from the early 1980s through to 2002, were full of quiet, sustained mission: weekly Bible studies at home, my mother leading Bible study for nursing students at Victoria Hospital, and my father adopting a rural family in Kumbalgod. They were cared for and supported through these years by Pastor Vinay Kumar Moses, Pastor Vasudevan, and Pastor Arun Andrews — pastors they adored and who adored them in return. Through the mid-1980s and 1990s, they continued to attend the morning service faithfully, as they always had.
“With all their children out of Bangalore, they turned outward rather than inward — Bible studies, hospital ministry, a family adopted in Kumbalgod.”
— Shanthini Dawson on her parents’ empty-nest years
In 2002, they moved to Oman to be with my sister Ranjini and her husband, Devananda Babu Ganta. My father passed away there in 2003. The church facilitated a memorial service for him in Bangalore a couple of months later, in August 2003 — a gesture that meant a great deal to all of us.
My mother was diagnosed with dementia after my father’s death and was cared for by my sister until 2015, when she came back to India and I took over her care. What followed were years of remarkable grace from the RTMC community. The senior citizens’ group visited regularly, singing and praying with her. Pastor Jonathan administered home communion. Pastor Vasudevan came to visit. Bishop Sampath Kumar came with his accordion and sang with her — and she sang back, her voice still carrying the hymns she had known all her life.
The culmination of all of this was the funeral service for my mother in May 2026, presided over by Pastor Rajesh Anand, with a message of hope by Bishop Sampath Kumar. My siblings, their children and grandchildren, and I were united with the church again. Around us were people who had known my parents, who had prayed for them, who had sung with my mother in her final years when she could no longer remember much else but could still remember the words to the hymns.
There was something deeply fitting about that final gathering. After decades of worship, service, friendship, and fellowship, the church was once again gathered around our family. The people who had known my parents through so much of their lives were there to honour them, pray with us, and give thanks.
We are truly blessed.
✞
Paul & Leela Dawson
Theirs was a quiet, sustained mission.
