✞ MEMBER’S VOICE
A Catalyst for Outreach
How a church on Kingston Street inspired a ministry that feeds and educates 3,000 children
By Sam Rajshekhar • Associated with RTMC since the 70s • Member from 1996
Founder, YuvaLok Foundation • Co-founder, Bangalore International Christian Fellowship
🌿 A Relationship That Began in 1969
It was May 1969.
I was a teenager on a visit to Bangalore, and my first service at Richmond Town Methodist Church was also, though I did not know it then, the beginning of a long relationship.
Bishop Sampath Kumar was the lead pastor.
His sermons were brief, grounded in Scripture, and quietly compelling. By the end of that first morning, I had decided that whenever I came to Bangalore, I would come to RTMC.
When Bishop Sampath Kumar was succeeded in 1972 by Rev. Theodore Williams — who was also the founder and General Secretary of the Indian Evangelical Mission — that commitment deepened.
What I valued most about both these men was the same thing:
A solid foundation in the Word of God, taught in a way that did not merely inform but drew you further in.
Through RTMC’s Sunday services and a group of friendships formed with other young members, I found myself drawn progressively closer to the Lord and to a more serious understanding of what it meant to be part of His Church.
“It was RTMC’s Sunday services and my friendship with the youth that drew me closer to the Lord and showed me the importance of attending church.”
— Sam Rajshekhar
🔥 A Place of Spiritual Refuelling
Between 1973 and 1992, my work with India Youth for Christ took me to Belgaum.
But whenever I travelled through Bangalore, I arranged to be there on a Sunday.
RTMC was, in those years, a place of spiritual refuelling — somewhere I went to be steadied and renewed before returning to the demands of my own work.
When my family and I moved back to Bangalore, we became formal members of the congregation only in 1996.
The pastors I carry in my memory from across those years are many:
Revd. Sampath Kumar
Revd. Theodore Williams
Revd. Fred Gokavi
Revd. Vinay Kumar Moses
Revd. Bob Soans
Revd. Mike Peppin
Rev. K Vasudevvan
Revd. C.A. Benjamin
Revd. Moses Mamadapur
Revd. Arun Andrews
Revd. N. Jaywanth
…and others.
It was, without question, the association with these leaders and teachers of the Word that opened doors for me to organise conventions and city-wide gatherings for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Luis Palau, and other global resource people in Bangalore.
I also served on the RTMC Pastoral Committee, was Chairperson of the Lay Committee, and organised special events for the congregation on several occasions, for over five years.
I also had the opportunity of training the Facilitators of RTMC’s Home Bible Study Groups and providing teaching material for the studies.
🌍 YuvaLok Foundation: From Scripture to the Street
The connection between my formation at RTMC and the work I went on to do in the city is, in my own understanding, direct.
The teaching of the Bible at RTMC — particularly the passages in which the Lord Jesus calls His disciples to reach out to those who are hungry and in need — was the seedbed from which my outreach ministry grew.
In 1992, my wife Beulah and I began working with street children in Bangalore and, in 1993, partnered with Oasis, a British-based NGO.
After a decade of building that work, we felt called to found an independent organisation, YuvaLok Foundation, which was established together with fellow RTMC member Shobha Luis in 2003.
Beginning with educational and nutrition programmes for street children and the undernourished, YuvaLok has grown steadily over the years.
3,000 Children and Young People
Today it provides:
Schooling
Vocational training
Nutritious breakfast and lunch
to almost 3,000 children and young people across Bangalore and Chamarajnagar District.
3,000 children fed and educated.
That number did not emerge from a development programme or a funding strategy.
It emerged from a church.
From the consistent, faithful teaching of the Word of God at RTMC across the years, and from what that teaching produced in the life of one member and his wife who took it seriously.
“It is the exposure to the teaching of the Bible — where the Lord Jesus exhorts His disciples to reach out to the needy and hungry — that led us to decide on an outreach for street children.”
— Sam Rajshekhar
🌏 The Bangalore International Christian Fellowship
As the IT boom brought a wave of expatriate professionals to Bangalore in the early 2000s, a different need became visible.
Many among the expat community found it difficult to navigate Indian church life — the cultural distance was real, and the adjustment was not always easy.
Alongside my friends from early years, Chip and Jean Kingery from the United States, who were serving in Bangalore and also attending RTMC, I was privileged to found the Bangalore International Christian Fellowship (BICF), specifically to serve this community.
RTMC members have been part of BICF from the beginning — Beena Aruldas, Shobha Luis, and Robert Khim among them.
The fellowship is, in this sense, another branch that has grown from the same root.
RTMC did not plant it in any formal sense; but RTMC shaped the people who did.
✨ 150 Years: A Moment for Gratitude and Renewed Vision
The 150th anniversary of Richmond Town Methodist Church is a meaningful occasion to reflect on the reach of what has been built here — not only in the congregation itself, but in the lives and ministries that the congregation has inspired and sustained across the city and beyond.
None of it happened without the faithfulness of ordinary members:
The people who gave.
The people who prayed.
The people who turned up Sunday after Sunday.
The people who took seriously the teaching they received.
The people who allowed that teaching to shape what they did the rest of the week.
We give thanks to God for the pastors and members of RTMC whose prayers, financial support, and encouragement enabled YuvaLok Foundation to grow and reach those who needed it most.
We give thanks to God for RTMC being a spark in the founding of the Bangalore International Christian Fellowship.
🙏 LOOKING BACK. MOVING FORWARD.
May looking back with praise and thanksgiving to our Lord motivate us to move forward with renewed dedication, wider vision, and the same faithfulness that has marked this church across 150 years.
