Recently an Indian friend, who has known me for the past twenty years and with whom I shared most events of my life frequently and in detail, introduced me to a group of college students. He presented my life‘s history so garbled and distorted, and my achievements so exaggerated that I determined right there and then to write, in brief an accurate history, to escape future embarrassments and the accusation that by silence I have actively endorsed such a deception. 

I was born in Aachen, Germany, November 21, 1935 the 7th child and 6th son of a roof maker of less then moderate income. I survived the 2nd World War - a feat many German children of my generation can not boast of... I graduated from school June 1951 at grade 8 and became a carpenter’s apprentice. 

One year after completion of my three year apprenticeship I set out for India on a bicycle - June 6th 1955. It took 6 months to reach Karachi, Pakistan where I worked as a carpenter for another six months. I journeyed by boat to Bombay and from there by hitchhiking back to Germany where I arrived October 1956 without cycle as it fell apart in Karachi. One and a half years later May 1958 I immigrated to Montreal, Canada. 

My unquenchable wanderlust which marked my teens followed me into the late twenties. I crisscrossed the North American continent once by hitchhiking. The next journey by car found me in British Columbia where my car broke down. After trying my hand at picking apples at some places, I finally ended up with a Pentecostal carpenter in Kamloops British Columbia, who persuaded me to go to church that was November/December 1964. About a month later I accepted Christ and it took about three months before I got my first faint notion of what that meant. 

I returned to India as an “Independent“ January 1976. About a year later I found myself with several poor children which/whom my co-workers and I took under our care. As of today we have some 850-900 children.

October 1981 some of our young people and I formed a Society called Prem Sewa Shikshan Sangh (Ministry of Love Education Society). By April 1982 we bought an 18 acre piece of land at the outskirts of Nagpur and built our first home. We called it “Kalpana Bhavan“ the “House of Imagination“ . . . The number of kids increased dramatically.

We opened our primary school at the Nagpur compound in 1987, which has “blossomed“ into a Junior College (Grades 11 & 12th). In the early l990s we also started a girl‘s home on 5.5 acre land. The girl‘s home has some 500 girls and its own school. 

January 1995 Yohan A. Raut a former student and my protege became president of the Society. He was 25 years old. For the next few years we worked side by side which made it difficult for him, you cannot have two power centers in one organization. As the Society becomes too complex for one individual he works with the board and a Core Committee to handle the daily tasks. 

“I yearn for one more last fling; one more adventure

ere night comes finally and irrevocably