Growing up as an ‘untouchable’ Dalit in a poor, remote Indian village, Yesupadam turned to communism at the young age of 11 as a means of taking revenge upon a society that rejected and hated him. For 13 years he lived as an atheist and alcoholic, given over to violence, rebellion, and communist gangs. He rejected Christianity, a ‘Western religion’ that his father had embraced after hearing the gospel from a Canadian missionary. However, on January 26, 1976, Jesus appeared to Yesupadam in the clouds, hanging on a cross with blood dripping from his nail-pierced hands. Jesus spoke to him audibly saying, ‘Son, I have done all this for you. What will you do for me?’ Instantly converted and completely transformed, Yesupadam responded, ‘Now I know you are God. Until the last breath of my life I will believe in you and will tell my people that you are God.’ Since that time, his life has been passionately devoted to that mission.
After his radical conversion, Yesupadam spent three years in Iraq working as a medical technician. He did this for the purpose of sharing the gospel with Iraqis. Despite the political and religious opposition there, Yesupadam planted three underground churches and baptized many new believers who responded to the good news of Jesus Christ through his ministry. Upon his return to India in 1983, Yesupadam left his job to pursue full-time ministry serving believers in the local church as well as lost people in nearby tribal villages. Yesupadam’s ministry has been marked by a burning heart to see India reached with the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ.
In 1990, Love-N-Care Ministries was incorporated in India and began planting churches and training young men to be evangelists, pastors and church planters. LNC began doing ministry in nearby ‘tribal areas’ which are recognized by the U.S. Center for World Missions as ‘unreached people groups.’ LNC currently has over 800 pastors deployed throughout this tribal region, and over 100,000 church members.
Sensing God’s direction to ‘penetrate the communities’ in order to meet the spiritual and physical needs of the people, LNC began taking in poor & suffering children, caring for the elderly and providing vocational training to disabled polio-affected young adults. LNC offers computer, printing and tailoring training, disaster relief, and support for HIV-positive families. Love-N-Care Ministries also constructed a 25-bed hospital and began a Nursing School, while regularly conducting free medical outreaches in poor villages.
Dan Stolldorf first got to know Yesupadam 1998, spending a month with him in India preaching at crusades and street-preaching in villages. He developed relationships with other LNC leaders at formed a deep love for India and its people. Following a plea from Yesupadam to bring ‘teachers’, the following year Dan began to do just that – recruiting other American pastors for 2-week mission trips to provide high-quality bible-teaching at LNC pastors’ conferences. In 2007, Dan’s daughter, Terri Whitaker, wrote a well-received biography entitled, “Yesupadam: The Foot of Jesus” that has helped to explain the Love-N-Care story. (See Amazon for a copy.)
Fast-forward to 2018: Dan was pursuing a Master’s Degree in Theology, and Love-N-Care Ministries was growing astronomically. Now with over 3,500 pastors serving 7,000 churches in urban, rural and tribal areas of Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh, the need for robust pastoral training & equipping was greater than ever – and increasing rapidly. Working with Yesupadam to address this need, Dan formed Global Equip Ministries in November of 2018. Its purpose is to: 1) provide well-rounded curriculum for LNC’s four pastor-training schools, 2) work with the Indian trainers at these schools to upgrade their capacity, 3) travel to India to teach in these schools as well as to regional pastors conferences, 4) recruit other American pastors to do the same, 5) facilitate their travel schedules and give direction for the specific teaching needs they will address while there, and 6) serve as a U.S. ambassador for Love-N-Care Ministries by networking pastors & churches in support of God’s work through Love-N-Care in India, Africa and Europe.
