In the Presence of the Poor: Changing the Face of India

"Why does God make so many poor people?" That was the question that B.E. Vijayam, recipient of India's highest national science award, kept asking as he grew up. He could not get over the suffering and despair that seemed to pervade his native India. It eventually led him to embrace Marxist Communism as a hope for the poor. In this deeply moving biography by Kay Marshall Strom, you will be profoundly challenged through the life of one man who, after giving his life over to Christ, took his talents and training and put them to work right where he was--"for such a time as this." Reaching across the cultural chasms of caste and class, Vijayam pioneered the idea of harnessing technology for the poor and using it in combination with cutting-edge micro-enterprise concepts. He and his wife worked to free bonded laborers. To fulfill his vision of seeing the Gospel spread to each of the 4,000 unreached people groups in India, Vijayam established a center dedicated to raising up "master trainers" who in turn train grassroots workers in the most inhospitable of areas. Providing a new template for missions biography in the West, Kay Marshall Strom introduces us to the indigenous missionary hero .