Rajesh & Renuka Agarwal

Rajesh hails from Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh from a high caste family. During his college days, he decided to follow Jesus Christ and was discipled among the evangelical students community. Rajesh is a Veterinarian and a Senior Scientist by profession and works in a government research institute in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh from 1984 and has lived there since with a vision for the city.

Rajesh was active in the local churches and also led city-wide initiatives to spread the Good News. As a follow up he along with his friends founded a ministry initiative to serve the needs of the backward classes and Dalit people groups in and around the villages near Bareilly in 1992. The ministry has steadily grown over the years. It excelled in adopting various welfare measures for their workers and established a philosophy that the workers are as important as reaching the unreached. Annual medical camps along with the local Christian Hospital mobilizing volunteer doctors from within India and outside were initiated successfully.

In 1985, Rajesh married Renuka, who grew up in Punjab. Renuka founded the Grace Public School in their living room to serve the needs of the lower strata of the society in Bareilly in 1996. They had a few children of Christian workers (Mks) to stay in their home and study in this English medium school. In the last ten years, the school has grown to more than 80 underprivileged students and they have bought land and are raising funds for building construction. They have three adult children, Aradhana, Anandita and Akshay all pursuing university education.

Source: http://www.isvindia.org/html/parnterprofiles4.php, accessed on 14th October 2010.