When Kamishetti Ramesh was growing up in India, his mother, a secret believer, would often tell him quietly that if he ever had a problem, he should pray to the God of the Bible.

A believer of another religion, he had never cared much about her advice – until he set foot in Singapore in April 2008.

Then just 21 years old, Ramesh had arrived on the island’s shores as a construction worker, sent by his parents who hoped he would earn good money and help them clear their financial debts.

But being in Singapore was tougher than he had expected.

He was in a foreign land whose language he did not speak or understand. He no longer had the same freedoms he had back home. He had no friends, no family.

Work, which involved being in underground manholes for long hours, was laborious. He was not used to the food provided. For a season, he was even made to sleep in carparks.

Whenever Ramesh spoke to his parents on the phone, he would scold them for sending him away to suffer to solve their financial problems.

“I felt very sad, lonely. After everyone’s sleeping, I used to cry like mad,” he recounted to Salt&Light in English.

But this was when he remembered his mother’s quiet advice and her promise that this God would answer. So, in tears, he lamented to Him: “Why did You bring me here?”

An answer to his prayer

Shortly after that prayer, a fellow migrant worker passed Ramesh a flyer in their dormitory in Kaki Bukit. He was surprised to see it was in Telugu – his language.

On it were the words in bold: “ENCOUNTER WITH THE LIVING GOD”.

It was an invitation to a church service by Pastor Danny Modi, a pastor from India who had started a ministry to migrant workers in Singapore a year before.

What caught Ramesh’s attention was the verse at the top of the flyer: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 28:11)

The flier that caught Ramesh’s attention after he came back to his dormitory.

Rest. It was what he so desperately craved. He felt an excitement rising in his chest. His mother had been right: This God answers.

“I’m so far from my country, I’m so far from my people, I’m so far from my friends, my relatives, everything. But this God, when I prayed to Him at night, He searched for me and gave me an invitation, asking me to come to Him, He will give me rest. 

“Who is this living God? I wanted to find Him. I wanted to find that rest.”

Even though he had no idea what the service would be about, Ramesh was so excited that he urged all his friends and co-workers to go. When the day of the church service rolled around – September 10, 2010, he still remembers – some 35 people from his dormitory showed up with him.

At the gathering, which was held at Bartley Christian Church, the men found themselves laughing over good music, food and fellowship. Then Pastor Danny shared God’s Word with them.

At the first church gathering he attended at Bartley Christian Church in 2010, Ramesh found his heart moved.

As Ramesh listened with eager anticipation of what else this God had to say to him, he found his heart moved in a way it had not been before. “I realised that I’m a sinner. I started crying. I repented and surrendered myself to Him,” he said.

Seeing that the Holy Spirit was doing a work in Ramesh’s heart, Pastor Danny and his team prayed for him before assuring him: “You are not alone in this country. We are with you. Our God is with you.”

A burning desire to share

It was not an empty promise. Every Wednesday night from that day on, Pastor Danny would hold a migrant worker fellowship at the roadside beside Ramesh’s dormitory.

Bringing good food and snacks, the Pastor conducted Bible study, extended genuine friendship and encouraged the migrant workers, who were mostly Indians, to love and follow Christ.

“He used to ask, ‘What are your problems? Do you need any medical assistance?’ He took care of not only me but everyone. Everyone. We grew attached to the Word of God and to worship, and we were very close like one family in Christ,” Ramesh told Salt&Light.

Through these gatherings, as well as Sunday services at what would later be known as Tabernacle Christian Fellowship (TCF), Ramesh grew in his love for and knowledge of God.

Just three months later, he came forward for baptism, changing his name to Solomon.

Ramesh (right) was baptised at Pasir Panjang Hill Brethren Church, one of the two churches that host Tabernacle Christ Fellowship, a ministry to migrant workers.

It was as if a fire had been ignited in his heart. As he pored over the pages of the Bible every day in his dormitory bed after work, he a felt a sense of joy and peace that had long eluded him.

It was so intense that he could not resist sharing about God with others. He took every opportunity to tell his dormitory mates and friends – some even back home in India – about Jesus and the work that He did in the Bible and in his own life.

“I told them: ‘I’m having the best life. Before this, I wasted my time. I wasted my energy. I wasted my money. Everything I wasted. But when I came to know Jesus, everything was restored. Please, come and see.'”

Sharing his testimony after his baptism.

Some laughed at him, saying “amen” mockingly whenever they saw him reading his Bible. But Ramesh was undeterred.

Gradually, others began to accept his invitation to church – so many that Pastor Danny, who founded TCF in 2011, had to arrange for transportation to ferry the newcomers to the church on Sundays.

As Pastor Danny watched Solomon bring in friends week after week, he had an inkling that he was just getting a glimpse of the calling that God was going to place on the young man’s life.

Disowned by his family

In 2012, Solomon returned to India after his work permit expired. Back in his home country, he began to feel a burden to share the Gospel with his people.

As he prayed that God would send someone to reach out to them, he wondered: “Why shouldn’t I be the one?”

He returned to Singapore in 2013 – this time on an S-pass, which meant he would be earning a higher salary – but could not shake off the burden for the lost in his country.

“I wasn’t happy with my work. My heart was with my people. I wanted to go there. I wanted to spread the Gospel,” he said.

Solomon in January 2012 reading his Bible during break time.

So, after a season of praying with Pastor Danny and his church, Solomon gave up his job in Singapore and returned to India, unsure of all but one thing: He was giving his life to tell others about Jesus.

His decision came at a hefty cost.

His family and community, who were of another religion, ridiculed him for giving up a good job in Singapore. They thought that he was crazy to follow Jesus, that he was wasting his time and energy by wanting to go to Bible college. His father eventually disowned him entirely.

However, God sent someone to take care of Solomon. A Pastor he came to know, Pastor Moses, sponsored his Bible college education, treated him like a son and encouraged him in God’s Word whenever he felt beaten down.

“He supported me and took care of my everything. He did not take a single rupee from me,” said Solomon with deep gratitude.

Each day for three years, Solomon would walk 6km to his college – and another 6km back – because he had no money for transportation. Each day he battled more ridicule from his family and community. But he remained resolute.

Married a girl he evangelised to

Solomon had no idea how God would use him to serve Him in India, but trusted that He would lead the way one step at a time.

After graduating from Bible college in 2016, he married a Christian girl, Swarna Kumari, who was a friend of his childhood friend. She had accepted Jesus after he encouraged her – over the phone while he was in Singapore – to go to church years ago.

When they reconnected later on and developed feelings for each other, he was touched by her support for his calling. He remembers Swarna, a trained nurse, telling him: “If you want to be a Pastor, go ahead. You don’t need to work, I’ll work. You go and preach.”

As expected, his family strongly disapproved of his marriage to a Christian and did not attend the wedding. However, Pastor Danny flew to India from Singapore to witness the union.

“He stood as a father to me,” said Solomon.

Pastor Danny (second from left) stood as a father to Solomon when none of his family members attended his wedding.

Some TCF brothers who had returned to India also attended, while others who were still working in Singapore pooled together money to support the ceremony.

The newlyweds with Pastor Danny (beside the groom) and Solomon’s TCF brothers.

Just like that, Solomon and Swarna began their life and ministry together. Swarna worked full-time, while Solomon worked as a taxi driver in the day, and at night went around preaching – in colleges, churches, cell groups, hospitals and orphanages, anywhere that would have him.

Then, in 2018, a group of five Christians asked him to be their Pastor. Today, that group has grown into Karunamayudu Church Hyderabad, a church of 50 people which Pastor Solomon, 38, leads.

Pastor Solomon’s church has grown from just five people in 2018 to 50 people today.

“In John 6, there was a small boy with five loaves and two fishes. Nobody knows his name, even now. But whatever he had, he just surrendered to the Lord and God multiplied. I also gave my life to God and He started multiplying, multiplying, multiplying,” testified Pastor Solomon, who has a burden to share Christ with the unreached and strengthen churches and fellowships.

“Now, my life is filled with happiness. When I accepted Him, He changed my everything.”

Miracle after miracle

Now a father of two sons aged seven and nine, Pastor Solomon has seen God work miracles not just in his ministry but in his personal life too.

Two years after he was disowned by his family, his father met with a severe accident that left him bedridden for 16 months.

Despite the hostility that the older man had shown them, Pastor Solomon and Swarna moved back into the family home to care for him. Swarna quit her job to look after her father-in-law full-time, and Pastor Solomon said nothing about how his father had treated him.

Pastor Solomon, Swarna and their two sons, Shaphan Harshith, 9, and Shaun Allen, 7.

As they faithfully served Pastor Solomon’s father, something in the older man began to shift. When relatives came over and spoke critically of Pastor Solomon, his father began to defend him. He also expressed that he was proud of his son, something that still makes Pastor Solomon beam.

The day came when Pastor Solomon’s father said he wanted to accept Jesus after experiencing God’s love so tangibly through the actions of his son and daughter-in-law.

By the time his father passed away in 2020, Pastor Solomon knew that God had worked a miracle in their relationship and in his father’s life.

However, life took a turn for the worse after his dad’s passing. As the only son, Pastor Solomon was left to shoulder the debts of his father’s hospital bills, as well as other loans he had when he was alive.

In faith, he prayed – and God brought about yet another miracle. When he took over his father’s small business selling cold drinks, God prospered it, allowing him to clear debts of more than 13 lakhs (about S$20,000) in a year.

Today, he continues to run the small business on the side to support his family. “My earthly father’s work in my responsibility, to clear my finances. But serving my eternal Father is my desire.”

“Singapore introduced Jesus as my Saviour”

Pastor Danny is encouraged by Pastor Solomon, whom he considers one of the first fruits of his ministry. 

He told Salt&Light: “Pastor Solomon’s story always encourages me to see them how God sees them, not just as workers but as potential leaders in the church, potential missionaries.

“We are not just touching them, not just changing them as a Christian, but we are sending them out as a missionary, a pastor, an evangelist. We don’t know what they will become once they go back to their villages.”

Looking back on his journey of faith, Pastor Solomon remains deeply grateful to Pastor Danny who went out of his way to tell him about Jesus when he was a migrant worker in Singapore.

Pastor Solomon remains close to Pastor Danny, whom he considers his spiritual father, even today. Pastor Danny is pictured here speaking at Pastor Solomon’s church in India.

“He could have had a luxurious life, but he left that to come to each and every dormitory, find people and say, ‘I’m with you. God is with you.’ He showed the love of Jesus Christ every time. That was the thing that attracted us, knowing that we are not alone. Even if we are in the desert, Jesus’ love will find you,” he said.

“I feel sometimes if I didn’t go to Singapore, maybe I’d have taken a long time to know Jesus Christ. Singapore introduced Jesus Christ as my Saviour, so I love Singapore.”

This article is part of a four-part series titled Missions At Our Doorstep, which explores the power of reaching out to foreigners in our midst. Stay tuned for the rest of the series, which we will link below: 

“Why would they love me so much?”: Domestic worker-turned-missionary on her employer’s love that transformed her

“God’s plan was greater than my plans”: She came to Singapore as an IT professional and returned to India as a pastor

“When God brings the mission field to us, we must not be found doing nothing”: Local churches that open their space and hearts to foreign congregations