Sundar Singh – Footprints Over the Mountains
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Leader’s Edge: Missionary Biographies
Sundar Singh – Footprints Over the Mountains*
By Janet and Geoff Benge
YWAM Publishing, 2005
*As an Amazon Associate Missio Nexus earns from qualifying purchases.
Who is this person?
Sundar Singh, born into a well-to-do Sikh family in north India, grew up in a devout home influenced by his mother, one of the holiest women in the region. From an early age, he showed interest in religion and memorized large chunks of the Hindu Bhagavad Gita, despite being a Sikh. He avidly read the Sikh scriptures wanting to know God. As a little boy, his mother took him to meet a “sadhu,” a holy man. From the many religious influences, he grew to value honesty, humility, self-denial, and generosity.
At seven, he was enrolled in an American Presbyterian mission school near his home in Rampur, Uttar Pradesh. For the next seven years, he studied at the school while not forgetting other religious influences. His mother felt that he was “on a path that will lead to God.” Tragically, she died when he was fourteen. He became embittered with God, arguing with the missionaries, quoting from Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist scriptures to refute their teaching.
Leaving the mission school, he burned a Bible in rebellion and unbelief, gradually becoming more and more desperate to know the truth. After challenging God to reveal Himself or he would commit suicide, a bright light appeared in his room with a man in the center of the light that he recognized as Jesus Christ, which led to his becoming a Christian. So, he cut his hair and was baptized.
This dramatic conversion changed his life and set him on a path to become an ardent gospel messenger to Tibet, and over time to Nepal, Burma, Singapore, Japan, China, England, and North America. However, his life’s burden was for Tibet, where he trekked over the Himalayas many times during the summer months, winning a few here and there to Christ, before his mysterious death at 40.
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