SPEAKERS

Dr. Ravi I. Jayakaran has long term leadership experience in International poverty reduction and strategic programming.

Dr. Jayakaran joined Medical Ambassadors International in June 2017 as the President/CEO.He is also the Catalyst for Integral Missions for the Lausanne Movement.

Ravi has worked in senior management positions in the corporate sector, International NGOs- including World Vision International, the Asian Development Bank and the UNDP. He has lived and worked long term in India, Cambodia, China and the US and provided technical support in more than 23 countries.

Dr Ravi and his wife Vimla came to know the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal savior while they were in University through UESI outreach. Ravi was one of the founding members of the Mhow-EU in MP and was in the leadership of the Bihar EGF in later years. Vimla was a member of the Pune EU as a student.Besides their engagement with Integral mission, they are actively involved with their local Church, Small group and Christian Counseling. Ravi and Vimla recently celebrated their 41st wedding anniversary .They live in Ripon, CA. They have 2 grown up sons Amit and Rohit, who also know and love the Lord , have their own families, and live in Novato(CA) and Dubai (UAE) respectively. An interesting fact about them: Ravi & Vimla were born again on the same day (October 26) but a year apart (1974 and 1975 ) respectively, when neither of them knew the other existed. Ravi came to know the Lord in Mhow, MP and Vimla came to know the Lord in Pune! .

Dr. Rajkumar Ramachandran started reading the Bible when a close friend told him that Jesus was the only way to God. He went on a quest to prove that Christianity was wrong from the Bible itself. It wasn’t long before Raj was deeply affected by the life of Jesus Christ. After a year of reading the Bible and putting sincere questions to God in his prayers, Raj decided to give his life to Jesus. At the time, he was married; initially, his wife Ragini was apprehensive of trusting in Jesus, but a year later, she decided to follow Jesus. Raj was a professional engineer and an earnest evangelist. He was so compelled by the love of Christ that he began to share the good news with anyone who would listen. He worked for Siemens until the early 90’s. His new work took him to Siberia and Russia, where he shared his faith with eager people in a nation where the law had ruled God out of existence. The underground church in Russia gave him the nickname, The Walking Bible, because of his uncanny ability to quote scores of scriptures without referring to the Bible. In the late 90’s, Raj felt that it was time to leave the corporate world and give his life to telling people about Jesus. Logos Ministries is the fruit of that decision. Since then, he has preached in forty countries, leading thousands of people to discover the love of Jesus. His work has taken him to share his faith with political leaders in foreign governments and the rural poor in villages without electricity. His passion is to preach the Gospel and encourage Pastors to enjoy serving God in ministry. In 2011, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Hindustan Bible Institute in Chennai. Dr. R. Rajkumar lives in New Delhi with his wife, Ragini.

Ranganadh and Ratna are joyful servants in building Christian community through UESI for the past three decades. They were part of the fledgling EU/EGF in Andhra University during their post graduate studies in early 80s. They both shared a vocation to student and graduate/professional communities, married and opened their home to many in the Vizag region while pursuing early careers, raising children, finishing a PhD and other family responsibilities. One of their mentors in Vizag was JSA Julius with whom they participated in pioneering work and later, took ownership of the work and continued mentoring others.

During the 90s, Ranganadh who is also a gifted singer – him and a team of EU/EGF joyfully invested their time, talents and toured the state, produced cassettes such as ‘santhi sangeetham’ through UESI AP with an invitation to respond to the message everywhere they went and radically changed lives for the praise of God’s glorious grace. Rangandh took some time to be trained at London Institute by John Stott on Christian living in the modern world. He enjoys the invitation to speak on discipleship, leadership, mentoring and delivered several keynote addresses in conferences. He also served in various office positions such as AP EGF secretary, chairman of national UESI training department, etc. Dr. Ratna also served in office for various committees in the state such as staff development and also engaged in teaching Christian doctrine, organization legacy, involvement, etc. During a career stint away from Vizag in Nellore, Ratna established a new EU/EGF in the area by the grace of God and raised leaders to continue the work. Additionally, they both have accepted invitations to speak at churches of various denominations and theological training organizations but have prioritized based on their calling of student and graduate/professional community. They worked together as speaking team on doctrines and devotions for decades of DT, LT regional camps, and for expositions and special topic talks/seminars in annual conferences. Over the recent years, they are prioritizing their time to speaking invitations and mentoring opportunities on Christian family/home for graduate professionals, and students – through numerous regional family conferences, equipping leaders in teaching Christian family foundations, co-writing books, etc. Their focus is on the Biblical basis of Christian home, biblical understanding of roles in marriage, raising children, resolving conflicts, family altar, open home and involvement.

They are retired as of 2018 from their careers in Management and Education/Research respectively. Their children are all away from home – Joshua who is in Bangalore, Priyankitha in Guntur, John married to Carolyn in Houston. Ratna and Ranganadh reside in Vizag and are happy to have more time to serve as they are able with UESI in traveling even more for conferences, camps, training, talks etc, write and contribute to book chapters, and take on additional work with church and theological training institutes.

THEME

Breakthrough!!!  – “O God of our Ancestors, help us to serve our generation & share our faith with fasting and prayer (2 Chronicles. 20:6, Nehemiah. 1:4, Philemon 6 and Acts 13:36).