Report from BHW India Partnership Facilitators Following Visit

Key people: Joshua Raja, his wife Devi, their daughter and son 

Recent Events

Activities

Since we last visited T Raja he has navigated the Covid pandemic but far from retreating into maintenance or preservation mode, he has yet again continued to pursue a big vision in pursuit of serving those he calls “his people”. 400 people in the home contracted Covid, but only four died. 

He continues to promote his program called “I beg for my people” whereby he invites people to provide funds for the Home of Hope, and he has engaged head on with the authorities to advocate for and protect his people throughout the pandemic. He has produced some very dramatic and confronting video and promotional material that is available on YouTube. 

Since we visited last, T Raja has continued to build and expand the Home of Hope. He has:
- Almost completed a 5-storey building for the establishment of a nursing training college, including a boarding facility (funded primarily by the Hope Venture);
- Almost completed the construction of a 90-100 bed hospital facility (white building in photo - funded by a number of donors including Rotary);
- Constructed a new five room wing for the girls from the children’s home (funded by a trust called Home of Hope, Switzerland);
- Established a vocational training program whereby the more able bodied people can learn skills such as tailoring and engineering;
- Purchased a number of adjacent plots of land with the intention of building a separate boys' home and constructing 40 independent living apartments (single bedroom/half kitchen) for residents who get married. 

There are currently 800 people in the Home of Hope (450 men at two sites, 300 women and 60 children) and three significant construction projects in process. This means that T Raja’s life, and his office, is as busy as a Mumbai train station.  

He has a team of people he relies on, some of whom are residents of the home and are well educated, having come here with challenging and volatile mental situations, now they have received the adequate treatment they are able to be a part of his staff team assisting in administration and accounts. 

The cooking endeavour is a huge effort every day with over 300kg of rice being cooked and consumed daily. The cooking is done using wood for fuel and so each day they collect and split the wood to use. All the residents that are able are meaningfully engaged in the running of the homes. 

T Raja has a number of international donors and a number of past and present residents who have bequeathed funds to the mission. He uses these funds for his various capital projects and to purchase additional land. He has very few regular donors for his ongoing, and significant, operating costs. Bright Hope World is one of the few organisations that have consistently supported him over a long period of time. 

Personal Stories

T Raja and Devi have a number of people living in their own personal home with them. Gracie (the first baby brought into the Home of Hope) is now 24 years old and is officially one of their daughters. It was wonderful to meet her again. Hers is a remarkable story of the power belonging to a family holds to transform a life and a future. Raja and Devi will be looking for a husband for her to marry soon. 

Divya 

Divya (in yellow below) was brought to the Home of Hope by the police. She is originally from Delhi, but her father died and her mother and sister left her on the street. She had been living on the streets of Bangalore for a month before she was brought here and this is now her family. It makes her incredibly sad to think about her past and where she has come from. Being abandoned by your mother never loses its sting.   

Divya is a well-educated woman but when she came here she was suffering very badly from depression. She now is very well and serves as T Raja’s personal communications secretary - managing and responding to all his emails and messages. 

Smitha 

Smitha (in red) lives with T Raja and Devi in their own home. She has been at the Home of Hope for 10 months now. She was brought here by the police and was a very violent woman when she arrived. She was very troubled mentally and was violent towards T Raja.  Now, having lived in a loving stable home for 10 months and having received the support and medical care she needed, she is well and is working as an integral part of the admin and finance team. She was trained in finance in Bangalore and previously worked for some large multinational companies. 

Ankita 

Ankita came to the Home of Hope 1½ years ago. Her whole family died one after the other in short succession and she found herself living on the streets of Bangalore for 3 months. Some people in the community where she was living on the street, cared enough to bring her to Raja’s home. She was 8½ months pregnant when she arrived, and they brought her to the home to be able to deliver her baby with adequate care. When she arrived, she was in such a distressed state that she was in denial that she was even pregnant. She had not had any pre-natal care, so they did not know whether the baby was healthy. She fought with Raja saying that it was only water in her stomach. Raja delivered her baby girl 5 months ago and now they both live with Raja and Devi in their home. She has such a lively personality and is so keen to chat. She has a very active mind and though she sometimes takes sleeping tablets she walks compulsively throughout the day. She laughs that most of the women in the home need to be forced to do exercise, but she has to be forced to sit still. She loves to be active and have productive things to do.  She calls Raja “Daddy”, and he knows how much she loves chocolate, so sometimes he shares his private stash of chocolate with her. 

T.V. Ravi Kumar 

T.V. Ravi Kumar is now the security guard and watchman for the Home of Hope. He came here as a resident when he was turned away by his brothers when he tried to return home from a mental health facility. He found a home here at the Home of Hope. His brothers sold off their family land in the city of Bangalore and Ravi’s share came to Rs 80 lakhs (US$96,000). Inspired by the expansive generosity of T Raja and his family, Mr Kumar gave his full inheritance to the NAMOI Trust. He refuses to take a salary for his work at the Home of Hope and says that the money is worthless to him. He has found purpose in his work at the Home and in this place he is treated with respect.  

Ravi’s inheritance has gone to purchasing some adjacent plots of land that Raja has plans to develop in the future.  

Partnership's Influence within the Community

T Raja astounds us with his connections and his methods. Not only does he care for an extraordinary number of people, but he also has a deep care and compassion for each of them. This is evident in the way he relates to his residents in informal moments – not only acknowledging them and knowing their individual story but having a joke with them along the way. He shared that approximately 80% of the residents have some form of mental illness, psychotic disorder or trauma related damage. He says that with the correct medication and care they are able to function healthily. This is evident in the testimonies of the women we met whose stories are shared above. 

He showed us one of his recent promotional videos that showed the most extreme of his street rescue missions and the grotesque gangrenous conditions he has helped some of his residents heal from. He shared how he has delivered a number of babies in the home himself and we met one of the babies he delivered. She is now 5 months old and is cared for in T Raja and Devi’s own home, along with another baby whose mother died.  

T Raja’s mission is to provide dignity in death for those who die – to share and show the love of Jesus to the abandoned and forgotten. He has cremated over 9,000 bodies in the past 24 years, and those who have recovered and been rehabilitated now serve in the home. 

T Raja reflects on where he came from in life. An uneducated fellow, he attributes all that he does to the work and provision of God. He continues to stand uncompromisingly for Christ – sharing with others “the least of these”, the very grace he himself has received. He talked about remaining resolute in the face of persecution. He explained that he has had crosses tattooed on each of his shoulders so that if ever he was disrobed and beheaded, the testimony of Christ's love and grace would continue to be seen even in his death.  

Ideas for the Future

T Raja’s vision is limitless, and his passion for Jesus is even greater still. There are a number of strategic projects he has begun since we were here last. 

Nursing training college: 
In response to the difficulty getting nursing staff willing to work in the Home of Hope, Raja has built his own nursing training college. It has been funded partly by an international organisation and also from the gifted inheritance of a couple who were in the Home of Hope who have died.  

Construction is expected to be completed in the next 4–6 weeks. The facility is 5-storeys high and includes four classrooms, five laboratories, a library, boarding facilities for the women nurse trainees, dining rooms and cooking facilities, a cafeteria and staffroom. As yet he doesn't have sufficient funds to complete a roof on the top storey to provide a space for graduations, however this can come later.  

Raja is currently in the process of applying for the registration license for the training college. He will need to appoint teachers to run the training program. His plan is to train 40 nurses each year, with a 3-year programme, and fees of Rs 2–3 lakhs per year (US$2,400-$3,600). Each nurse will then do a 6-month internship in his hospital before being able to go and find employment elsewhere. 

Raja and Devi’s own daughter Blessy is now a trained nurse and will be involved in running the nursing college. 

Hospital:
Raja has one floor that has operated as the hospital wing with approximately 20 beds. He is now close to completing a 6-storey building with training workshops on the bottom two floors (tailoring and engineering), three floors for the hospital, and the top storey for the laundry. He plans to be able to house between 90–100 patients at one time here. 

This has been funded from many different organisations both within and outside India. Rotary has been a significant contributor. 

He plans to make use of the trained nurses in a 6-month internship programme to staff the hospital and will need to employ some doctors.

Raja’s own son is currently studying medicine specialising in psychiatry and is expected to return and be involved in running the hospital.   

Additional land purchases:
The current gate watchman named Ravi owned some family land and upon selling it gifted Rs 80 lakhs to Raja. These funds have been used to buy two adjacent plots of land that T Raja has a vision for already.  

On one he plans to build a home for the boys (the girls have a new home that is almost complete up on the top storey of the women’s home). He also wants to build an apartment complex with 40 small apartments for those residents who get married and need somewhere to live.  

There has been significant residential and commercial development around the NAMOI Home of Hope. This means that the cost of land has increased significantly, and that Raja has more neighbours than he’s ever had. A number of his adjacent neighbours are churches and though they don’t provide him any direct support, they also don’t cause any problems for him. 

Current Issues and Challenges

T Raja continues to carry an enormous load and is undeterred in his vision of what could be. He has a highly creative mind, opting often to make his place beautiful not just functional. He faces the ongoing challenge of finding adequate nursing staff to assist in the home and so he has decided to build his own nursing training college on site. 

He takes a unique stance on resistance from officials. He meets their opposition with an equal and opposite uncompromising stance. During Covid when the officials wanted to take all his children to a government run children’s home, he refused to let them. They threatened him with imprisonment, so he got 450 residents to come and sit out on the road in protest. The officials, realizing the scale of the potential issue this may create, backed down and left him alone. In addition, throughout the pandemic when many people were being given ration cards T Raja decided to publicly raise the profile of the needs of his people and for over 5 days he wore what looked like a prison uniform with a ball and chain and a prisoner number “Ps 82:3” on his chest. This represented Psalm 82:3 “Give justice to the poor and the orphan; uphold the rights of the oppressed and the destitute”. This is most certainly the way T Raja lives! He was appealing to the local officials to provide ration cards, ID cards, and drinkable water for his residents. The local authorities did not meet all his demands, but they did provide water for his people as a result.  

T Raja shares openly with us when we ask him about the impact of the stress on him personally. He acknowledges that he still struggles at times with his own mental health but shared how Psalm 121:1-2 sustains him: “I lift my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.” At times when he is tempted to look to other people or to donors for help, he is reminded to look to God for the help he needs. He finds that fleeing to the hills (often down in Tamil Nadu) to be alone helps him to re-find God’s peace and sustenance for the mission he is called to. 

Prayer and Praise Points

This place is truly remarkable. Lives are constantly being transformed in this place – spiritually and physically.  The holistic nature of the gospel is lived out here in a way that is seldom so powerfully observable. 

Praise for God’s ongoing provision over the past 4 years, for His protection throughout the pandemic, and for God’s sustaining hand in T Raja’s life. 

Prayer is required for ongoing strength for him and for his team, and for the establishment of the nursing home and hospital. 

Comments

T Raja has a number of donors and a few people who have bequeathed their inheritance to the trust. These are sizeable amounts, but he uses these funds almost exclusively for capital projects. He has a range of other income streams and seems to be managing ok – not withstanding that the cost of daily provisions for this number of people is significant and he continues to have to trust God daily for their needs.  Any funds we give will be used to good effect.