I’m Aaboo Varghese, and the Founder and Executive Director of Purnata. You already heard about that. Mine is a story unfolding, and I’m going to just share a little bit about that. I am a called son sent to serve. That’s been my motto. And I’ll unpack that for you a little later, towards the end. Who am I? This is my name. Many people write ‘Abu’ but this is my name. It’s a unique name. It’s a funny name. In school, people used to make fun of me. They used to say, “Aa-booo,” and all kinds of variations of that. And I used to feel very embarrassed.
But after I came to know the Lord, I realised it’s a very unique name. My mom gave me this name because there was a bishop called ‘Mar Abo’ . She was from an Orthodox background and she probably thought I’d be a bishop but I didn’t. Anyway, she added an ‘A’ and an ‘O’ and made it very unique. And so, ‘Aaboo.’
I see myself as a Christian by choice. I see myself as a Bible teacher by gifting, I am an overcomer by faith — and you’ll see that in my story — I’m an anti-human-trafficking advocate by passion, and I’m a work in progress. I was born in Kerala but I grew up in Mumbai. And then I worked 18 years in Kolkata, and God brought me back to Mumbai. So right now I’m in Mumbai.
I see myself as a Christian by choice. I see myself as a Bible teacher by gifting, I am an overcomer by faith — and you’ll see that in my story — I’m an anti-human-trafficking advocate by passion, and I’m a work in progress.
This is the school. My mom and my uncle just took me to this big, huge place; and while I was talking to the aayaas in one corner, my mom and my matron were sitting outside the dormitory. There were 30 beds in that dormitory. And they were talking outside. Suddenly, I heard the door closing. I go and bang at the door and I find my mom is crying on the other end. So I also started crying. I said, “What happened?” And I realised that my mom was leaving me in that big boarding school and going. That’s the vivid memory I still have of how I got introduced to boarding school.
I spent 10 years of my life there. I was a shy introvert. But soon I got into a relationship as I grew up. And I messed up my life because we broke up. I was a brilliant student in school generally all throughout. But when it came to my 10th standard, I messed it up because of that broken relationship. And I came home. My dad belted me and I got into problems with my parents. I couldn’t get along. I ran away from home. And somehow God providentially brought me back and I acted mad for two days. For two days I used to take an umbrella and shoot at everybody. I would say, “ABCD” and all kinds of things, just acting mad. But I knew that I couldn’t do that for long.
A few days later, it was July 5th, 1984. A professor came to meet my cousins. They weren’t there, so he came and shared the gospel with me. He told me what it means to be born again and what it means to come to know Jesus in your life and how he can change your life. And I gave my life to the Lord that day. I was not even 17; I was 16 plus. I gave my heart to the Lord. And what a messed-up guy I was in school. I changed totally. I used to do everything short of drugs. We had our lives where we used to get into gang fights, carrying knives, all those kinds of things, but God changed me. And my parents were earlier worried that I was getting too bad. And then they started getting worried that I was getting too good.
Learn to keep Jesus at the centre of your profession, of your dreams, of your aspirations, of everything you want to do, and you will find blessing. You will find his help.
I didn’t know what to do, but somehow God had put his hand upon me. And I found that my life changed. And because of that change, I was able to move ahead in my life. I sensed God’s call during those years till I did my graduation. And I had an experience. I knew because God had called me, I started eating all kinds of food. I hated karela (bitter gourd) and all the vegetables. I started eating them, started sleeping on the floor, and started preparing my life for a hard life of missions. I didn’t know what God was calling me to.
When I left home after my graduation, my dad and mom actually had wanted me to go as a doctor — to study medicine in America. They had already made arrangements. But I knew that was not my calling. And there were other plans. They wanted me to get a job, but that didn’t work out because that was not what I wanted. So finally, I came back to Mumbai, and after eight months of Bible teaching in different homes and different places, God led me to join Operation Mobilization (OM). I was with OM for three years. I was initially in Goa, then Tamil Nadu, and finally in East India, in Kolkata.
One of the things I learned there that God prepared me for was to lead a simple lifestyle, to learn to live by faith. We used to literally sell gospel packets and Bibles, and live with that. No funds came from anywhere. So I learned to lead a simple lifestyle. I also learned to submit to authority. In my team earlier, I had all 10th and 12th-pass people. I was the only graduate and that too from a city. I could speak very good English, I had good Bible knowledge. But when I learned to submit to authority — when they told me something which I didn’t want to do, and I learned that I have to submit, and only then I would learn. And I believe that when you learn to submit, God helps you to lead others who will also submit. And so God taught me many things like that. One more thing I learned is about prayer — corporate prayer and personal prayer. We did a lot of that. We prayed for the Berlin Wall to break down, we prayed for the issues in Nepal and many other places. And God has answered them.
Twenty-two per cent of the world’s slaves are in India, which is making India the hub of human trafficking and slavery. Half of them are children. Over 60-70% are women.
I joined UESI because I found that that was where I was able to practise using my gifts and my calling more. God used us for 16 years with university students. I taught in St Xavier’s College part-time and also served full-time with UESI in terms of reaching students. We were able to disciple and to mentor and to impact hundreds of students, who today are in missions, including Lamtaput and many other places where they’re serving God in mission fields or in the corporate sector. And because of that, we have those relationships and people have been impacted. God used us in those days. That’s when I met my wife, Sybil. My two children were born in Kolkata. She’s a primary school teacher in Mumbai. She served with me in UESI and when we came back to Mumbai, she became a teacher.
I joined Oasis and I came back to Mumbai. That’s where I learned about human trafficking. And I want to just bring that whole issue of trafficking to you before this. When I joined Oasis, I did not know anything about human trafficking. I had no idea about the development sector. So I went in and I learned from scratch and I learned a lot of lessons. One of the things that happened was that when I heard stories of women and children who were bought and sold as commodities, it was just heartbreaking. I was wondering, What can be done about this?
And so, as I started researching more and studying more and understanding more, one girl — her name was Deepa. She is no more today. But she was a girl whose story inspired me a lot. She became close to our family. She would come and stay with us. She was rescued and rehabilitated while I was in Oasis. And after that when she came, we helped her find and trace her family after 18 years. When she was 6 years old, she was trafficked to Mumbai. She was sold into Kamathipura at the age of 9. And she went through horrific crimes against her. She did a lot to get out of it, but no one was there to help. Finally one day she got rescued and we were able to have the privilege of reshaping her story and helping her to find semblance. She was working last at Jawed Habib as a hairdresser and she was doing very well there. But because of HIV, she passed away some years ago.
We are as spiritual as we want to be. In other words, what I’ve seen is — if we are spiritual to a certain extent, it’s because we have chosen that. If we are less spiritual, it’s because that’s what we have chosen.
That’s when I decided to start Purnata. I moved on from Oasis. The last thing I wanted to do was add another NGO to the 33 crore NGOs that are there. There’s one NGO for every 400 Indians — that’s what they say — which is because 90-95 per cent of them are all bogus NGOs. And so when I started Purnata, I just wanted to do this because I couldn’t find any other options.I did a retreat and I had 10-15 of my close friends and well-wishers to come. I did a strategic planning exercise through which I got the mission, vision, core values, and other aspects of the organisation. I started this in 2014. This is our 10th year. We’ve come a long way.
In the first year we had only two staff. Today we have nearly 30. We have come a long way in our journey. I just want to talk a little bit about what human trafficking is. It’s the fastest-growing crime. It is the most lucrative business today. And that is people. You can buy and sell people multiple times, and you will be profitable. It’s not like your resale value goes down. We work in Kolkata, in Mumbai, and in Basirhat . And we address demand and supply in the sense that we are looking at human trafficking in a comprehensive way, in which we want to prevent at source, prevent at transit roots, and prevent at destinations. And so, because we’ve taken up this humongous task with limited resources, we’ve come a long way to what we have done in this field.
I just want to tell you Muskan’s story. She and her mother were brought into Mumbai and trafficked when she was only 12, and her mother was sold into a brothel in Mumbai. But because she was only 12, they couldn’t keep her in that brothel. So the traffickers kept her in a flat. They raped her. They impregnated her. They aborted the baby by kicking against her stomach and other places, and finally, she aborted that baby and they realised they couldn’t keep that girl there. They took her to Delhi and sold her there. She was sold three or four times until she reached Bareli. We had no idea. We did a rescue operation later on to rescue her, but only after the mother started sharing her story. And that’s how the story went on and started to be rewritten. I’ll tell you more about that.
God’s commands are his enablings. Whatever he commands you to do, he will also enable you to do. Nothing is difficult. If he’s commanded you to do something difficult, do it because he has his eye upon you.
Imagine another 11 million Muskans across this country. Twenty-two per cent of the world’s slaves are in India, which is making India the hub of human trafficking and slavery. Half of them are children. Over 60-70% are women. This is the reality of human trafficking. When we did our impact study, in the last nine years, we rescued over 85 children, over 60 women. Over 1,500 women have been impacted. Over 500 children have been impacted, and over half a million and counting have heard about human trafficking.
During COVID, we switched gears. We were able to give the equivalent of at least 2 million meals to different families and people. We were able to help over 100 transgenders get vaccinated, over 200 women get vaccinated and other provisions from the government.
We’ve been starting to get recognised in this sector more and more. We recently had a story, and that’s where Joshua heard about us. It was a forum called SVP (Social Venture Partners), and out of 197 NGOs in the country, they chose 12 NGOs and we were one of those NGOs that were chosen for pitching to a large crowd of nearly 2,000-3,000 people online. And that has resulted in a good amount of funding that is coming to us.
Success will die with my death, but fruitfulness will continue even after my death. So don’t look for success. Look for fruitfulness.
I just want to summarise some of the lessons I’ve learned. The centrality of Christ in all of my life. Romans 12:1-2, this is from The Message paraphrase: “Here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life — your sleeping, your eating, your going to work, and walking-around life — and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognise what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-from maturity in you.”
One thing I’ve learned is — keep Jesus at the centre of everything you do. Just like a spider that stays in the centre of a web, it will go take its prey, but still come back to the centre. Learn to keep Jesus at the centre of your profession, of your dreams, of your aspirations, of everything you want to do, and you will find blessing. You will find his help. We are as spiritual as we want to be. In other words, what I’ve seen is — if we are spiritual to a certain extent, it’s because we have chosen that. If we are less spiritual, it’s because that’s what we have chosen. As Ephesians says, he can do much more than we can imagine or ask.
This is one statement that has always stayed with me as a young Christian, that God’s commands are his enablings. Whatever he commands you to do, he will also enable you to do. Nothing is difficult. If he’s commanded you to do something difficult, do it because he has his eye upon you. God is broken over this broken world. And I keep thinking, God, these women, these children, you’re broken over them. And God is wanting to do something. Exodus 3:7-10. He has seen, he has heard, he is concerned, he is coming down and saying, “Now you go.” And I think God is calling each one of us to do something. What is it? Today when you are here, find your purpose. Go from here with a purpose. And say, “Lord, I want to listen to what you have today. And I will do it.
I am what I am by the grace of God. I have nothing much to show apart from that.
Mission is not about me feeling the need. I found in my life that wherever God has sent me, he had already heard the cries of people who were there. It was not about me finding the need there. God’s will unfolds one step at a time. In all my steps, when I joined OM, then I went to UESI, then I went to Oasis, then I started Purnata. What I found is, one step at a time. God will not reveal the whole purpose of your life. He will only show you one purpose at a time. One step at a time. And so, just like Psalm 119:105, you can hold the lantern and only see the next step. And that’s what God is promising. And I think my own life has seen that again and again.
And the last thing I want to say is dream big things but don’t despise small beginnings because all of us have had small beginnings. And Purnata had a small beginning and we’re still not there, but I know God has a plan and purpose. If tomorrow he wants me to shut down Purnata, I’ll be more than happy because that’s what I want to do — what he wants me to do. And I just want to say, success will die with my death, but fruitfulness will continue even after my death. So don’t look for success. Look for fruitfulness.
Rosa Parks was a young girl who sat in a black section of the bus and she was asked to get up, and her biography is Sitting Down To Stand Up. And where she took a stand, that small incident sparked the civil rights movement.
God will not reveal the whole purpose of your life. He will only show you one purpose at a time. One step at a time.
I’m coming to the end of my talk. Continue to pray for us. We live and work in a very dark space. A lot of evil. A lot of black magic. A lot of demonic activities. And especially, a lot of darkness in people’s lives. Be aware of the situation regarding human trafficking. If you don’t know and you want to know, please follow us on social media. We keep updating our stuff. Apart from that, you can reach out to us. And you can read the information on the internet and other places. Be alert. If you see something around you, do something about it. Don’t keep quiet. And then, not only that, be responsible. And take action when needed. Volunteer. We look for volunteers all the time. You don’t have to be in Mumbai for that. And we have hundreds of ways; we can tell you how you can volunteer. Reach out to us and we’ll let you know. Partner with us.
And I just want to say that Muskan was rescued, rehabilitated, and sent back. We did a rescue that spanned six months across three states, and we were able to do a rescue operation that lasted many days and lakhs of rupees, but we rescued her and we caught all the people who were responsible for her. She had marks all over her body. Her hand was broken. Her tooth was broken. She had cigarette-butt burns all over her body. Her life was messed up. But today, with a lot of care and help, she’s doing much better and she’s sent back.
And I just want to share this small poem: If she had the money to study, she would have been your classmate. Perhaps your college topper. That was not what she dreamed of.
I believe that when you go and serve people, you will save people. Because serving gives you a context within which you can save people.
I’m going to close. I just want to say, let’s work together for a safe world and for women and children. I just wanted to share that story. I am what I am by the grace of God. I have nothing much to show apart from that. I am called and I know that’s a calling on my life that I’m able to do what I’m doing, and I want to do more. I am a son, and that’s my identity with him. And not only that, he has sent me, giving me a purpose. And whatever I’m doing today, it’s a purpose that he’s fulfilling in my life. And I know it is to serve.
I believe that when you go and serve people, you will save people. Because serving gives you a context within which you can save people. And it’s so amazing to hear their stories of transformation. I wish you could have heard some of them. God bless you. Thank you for this opportunity once again.