K.P. Yohannan's Long Road to Helping India's 'Broken People'

An interview with Dan Wooding

The Gospel for Asia founder describes his life in a tiny, remote village in India, his time in Texas, and his call back to Asia where his movement has more than 16,000 workers in the heart of the 10/40 Window

It’s been an extraordinary long and winding road for K.P. Yohannan. He has gone from a life in a poor Indian village, to being invited to study God’s Word in Texas, to running one of the largest mission groups in Asia and is now involved in a huge project to help the Dalits, or “untouchables,” of India find the new life that can only come through Jesus Christ.

K.P. Yohannan is the founder and president of Gospel for Asia, a mission organization involved in evangelism and church planting in the unreached regions of South Asia. Currently GFA supports over 16,000 church planters in the heart of the 10/40 Window.

GFA has grown rapidly and has quickly become one of the most effective mission forces in Asia today. The ministry now supports native missions in 10 Asian nations. At the 54 Gospel for Asia missionary Bible colleges, over 8,000 church planters are being trained to reach the unreached. 

In an interview in Dallas, Texas, where he took time out from speaking at the Gospel for Asia “Renewing Your Passion” missions conference, K.P. first of all talked about his early life in India.

“I was born and grew up in a very small rural community in the extreme southern part of India,” he began. “When I came to America in 1974 I happened to read in a large textbook on Church history and there I came across the name of my tiny village.

“This village happened to be one of the places that the Apostle Thomas, Christ’s disciple, came to preach the Gospel in A.D. 52. He planted seven churches and one of them is still in that community.

“So I was born about three kilometers from where that church was established. The privilege I had more than anything else is that my mother was a very godly devout follower of Christ, and my father was also a believer. So in a land where you have millions and millions of people and hardly two and a half percent are Christians, what a privilege it was for me that the Lord allowed me to be born in a home where my parents knew the Lord.

“It was at the age of eight my mother explained to me about Jesus dying for me, and that is how I gave my heart to the Lord. That was my beginning of understanding about Jesus and then growing of course you know later it is again my mother’s prayer that the Lord answered in calling me to serve Him.”

K.P. Yohannan said that he joined Operation Mobilization, founded by George Verwer, and traveled 2,000 miles north from his home and spent eight years serving God. He said that at the end of 1973, he was planning to go to a Bible college in England, when Dr. W.A. Criswell, pastor of the huge First Baptist Church in Dallas, heard about him and invited him to come to America to study at Criswell Bible College in Dallas.

I asked him if this was a huge culture shock for him, and he laughed and replied, “Oh my goodness, yeah. You know I must tell you for the first two weeks when I was here it was like I was kind of spaced out—not on drugs. I mean the loud roads and the people.”

He recalled his early experiences with American food.

“I remember my first day in America, I was at the airport in New York and I was so hungry that I went to the cafeteria and sat there forever waiting for someone to come and serve me. Finally, a lady saw me sitting there and said, ‘Are you here to get some food?’ I said I was and she told me to go and stand in line to get the food.

“For me, in India, you go and stand in line for food in front of a temple or some other festival and only beggars would do that. I never knew there was this thing called a buffet system.

“Do American people eat dog meat?”
“I finally got to the front of the line and had a tray in my hand and the lady standing behind the counter asked me what I wanted. I didn’t know any of the names of the food and I said I didn’t know. She then raised her voice and asked again, ‘What do you want?’ So I pointed to something behind the counter and I asked her what it was. ‘It’s a hot dog,’ she said.

“I was so shocked that I took three steps back and I said, ‘Madam, you mean to tell me that in America, people eat dog meat? She shook her head thinking that I was joking and I was not. Of course, I didn’t buy the thing but picked out something else, but now I know what it is.”

K.P. Yohannan stayed the Dallas college from 1974 to 1979 and I asked him if was tempted to stay in America.

“Well, you know, within six months of my coming to America, besides my studies, I was called to pastor a local church and ordained by Dr. Criswell at the First Baptist Church,” he said. “I was quite busy teaching my people, visiting homes and counseling. A couple of years went by. America is a wonderful nation, but unless one is very careful, the affluence and materialism can ruin one’s life. And I didn’t know this was happening to me.

“Within two and a half years, I found myself so lost in a world of education, philosophy and Greek and Hebrew and also so busy with the church and all this stuff, that I found my heart was no longer soft and tender. I no longer had tears in my eyes for the lost world. Of course, as a Baptist minister, I talked about Heaven and Hell and missions and all those things, but they became just a matter of fact to me.”

“Then too, because the resources now available, I was able to buy whatever I wanted to buy. So money was there.”

He then explains the German connection.

“My wife Gisela is German. She was with me in India before I came to America,” said K.P. “So you know, Jesus said, ‘You cannot serve God and money.’ I think the enemy has these things called materialism, affluence, a new house, a new car, new clothes. It’s the American dream and I had all these things, but I was dying on the inside, spiritually.

“In my head I knew all the answers, and Bible became the tool of the trade for me that I would use to teach and preach and I was doing very well. People liked my sermons, but finally I said to myself, ‘I’m not the same person I was when the Lord called me to serve Him. I’m not the same person that I was that walked on the streets of North India weeping over the lost and perishing millions and stayed up all night praying and weeping over a world map. I’m not the same person; and I realize my heart is cold.’

“And I was frightened, and this is when I began to cry out to God to change me. I still had in my head all the knowledge I have now about missions. I had read and studied all of this, but it didn’t create passion or tears or my ability not to say no to what I wanted and walk away from materialism for the sake of the lost world.

“It was my sin, and the Lord was gracious to make me understand that finally, and when I did, that was a turning point in my life.”

K.P. then described what happened next.

“I spent days of seeking God’s face,” he said. “You know, in America, we sit in comfortable, nice, soft leather chairs, but I was so desperate to hear from God that I was sitting on the carpet and, just like a little child, I said, ‘Lord, I’m lost. I know all this stuff in my head but my heart is cold. I pray, but I don’t know if You can ever hear me. I don’t know what to do. Did I lose it all? If you know me Lord, would you please talk to me once again?’

“A week and a half or went by, and then a most beautiful thing happened. The Lord walked into my room. I can’t even explain in detail what happened; but He began to speak to me. He was so real. I’m not a spooky person looking for weird stuff to happen, but when Jesus walked into the room and talked to me, I was so overcome by His love, that immediately I know that all I could think at that time was to take my wife and my son at that time and just go back to India and live somewhere in the village there.

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“It was to be a fresh start to my life. No one needed to know me, but I just wanted to serve Him. I was so overcome by His love.” He said that he and family went back to India for several months.

“I made a decision to wait and watch and pray until the Lord told us what to do,” said K.P. “The Lord was gracious enough to talk to us very lovingly, and I realized that he wanted me to go back to America and speak to the ‘Body of Christ’ about the possibility of seeing countries like India, Burma and Bhutan, turn to Christ if only they would become unselfish in praying and helping these brothers by becoming senders.

“So in obedience to the Lord we came back, and meanwhile we continue to send our resources to help native missionaries in North India who were in the ministry. And then of course you know, to make a long story short, with the advice of several godly men, Gospel for Asia was born.”