Sayyed Badshah

Good afternoon to all of you. Gina and I — my wife and I — are super humbled to be on this platform. We consider it a privilege, and I want to thank God for this opportunity. I also want to thank brother Joshua, brother Benny, and the entire LeadTalks team for putting up such an amazing conference. My name is Sayyed Badshah Makrani. Now, you may be wondering, Why is this boy with a Muslim name standing in a Christian conference? I can only imagine 37 years back… Yes, I was born in a Muslim family with two beautiful sisters.

A tragedy struck me and my family when my father killed my mother in front of my own eyes. As a little boy, three years old, nobody wants to see that memory or have that picture in their mind. It stuck and it stayed forever. Two of my sisters got me to Mumbai. The second tragedy happened. I lost both of my sisters in the crowd. You can imagine a three-year-old boy standing at the railway station in the middle of the crowd, lost, lonely, fearful. I lost my sisters, I lost my mother, I lost my family, I lost my home, I lost my father, I lost everything. It seems like all the doors were closed on me. 

A tragedy struck me and my family when my father killed my mother in front of my own eyes.

I began to beg at the railway station. These are all actual images. I began to beg at the railway station, sweep the train. eat the food from the garbage dump. Not once or twice. For years. On many days, I would sleep hungry. Nobody would even come to ask me, “Did you get something to eat?” Nobody ever told me, “I love you, my son.” I never had footwear to wear. I never had any blankets, never had any sweaters. Winters and the rainy season were the hardest time for us. No bedsheet, no sweaters, sleeping in the cold. 

It seemed like all the doors were closing upon me. In 1996, if you remember, the first McDonald’s was opened in India, and it was in the city of Bombay in a place called Bandra. Bandra is very famous for Bollywood people, and very rich people stay there. And a lot of the rich people were standing in a queue to get inside the McDonald’s and eat what they were eating. They wanted to experience something. And as a little boy, I was begging outside the McDonald’s and wondering, Can I get a chance to go inside and eat what they’re eating and experience what they’re experiencing? Air conditioning. Fancy. It was new. India was just experiencing something like that. I never got a chance to go inside the McDonald’s. At night, I followed the staff, and when they were dumping the leftover food from the McDonald’s, I picked up the crumbs and I ate from the crumbs. 

I took this picture at Lucky Restaurant in Bandra two days back when I was visiting Mumbai. I used to beg outside this restaurant. I ate the food and I took pictures. I used to sleep outside that restaurant, and I ate such crumbs for years on the streets of Mumbai. Even the doors of McDonald’s were closed on me. 

I wondered, Is there a god? I began going to the temples. First, I went to the mosque because I was born in a Muslim family. I’m a circumcised Muslim. My prayer was not answered at the Islamic mosque. I went to the temple. Didn’t get any answers to my prayer. I created my own god with my own hands and worshipped that god. Even that god did not answer. I realised, I’m reaching my end right now and I don’t have any hope. All the hope that I had was that God could save me, and I realised now that there is no God. What a sad thing for somebody when he loses hope in life. 

And I just looked up in the sky while sleeping in the middle of the road below a traffic light at Pali Hill in Bandra. I said, “God, do you really exist? God, are you really there? Come and help me.”

At the moment, I wondered. And I just looked up in the sky while sleeping in the middle of the road below a traffic light at Pali Hill in Bandra. I said, “[Hindi:] God, do you really exist? God, are you really there? Come and help me.” The next day, a man named Mathew K Daniel was passing through the train and he saw me at the railway station. And Jesus spoke to him and said, “Do you see that boy at the station? He’s my son; go and help him.” That’s how Jesus came into my life for the first time. He took me to Bombay Teen Challenge. I stayed there and I realised God heard my prayer. 

Today, we run a business called ‘Open Door Coffee Co’ and we also run an NGO called Ummeed Hope Foundation. The reason I chose the word ‘Ummeed’ is because all my life the only thing that I was clinging on to was the word ‘hope.’ I always knew I had hope in God but I always went in the wrong direction and I always knocked on the wrong door. But at that moment below a traffic signal it was Jesus who sent Mathew, who came and helped me. 

I didn’t have any experience of running a business. I don’t have a… I’m sure many of you must have an MBA degree or some business degree. I have none of them. All I have experienced in my life is a degree called MES. Some of you are smiling and wondering what this is. MES stands for… MES means Masters in Experiential Studies. The experience that I had on the street of sleeping hungry, stealing, robbing, becoming a professional pickpocket. From Bandra to Borivali, they would carry my photograph saying, “Beware of pickpockets.” 

I was almost beaten to death by a gang — by the second-most powerful gang of India in the ’90s. God rescued me out of those situations.

In 1997-98, I would make ₹2.5-3 lakhs a month. You can calculate how much it would be today. The only experience I had was to sell umbrellas — stolen umbrellas — at the foot over bridge of the railway station. My first experience was of selling tambourines at the Tilak Nagar railway station and making 40 paisas a day on a newspaper and using that money to eat food; selling earrings and keychains and lipstick in the ladies compartment, and begging and also pickpocketing. All those experiences. I was almost beaten to death by a gang — by the second-most powerful gang of India in the ’90s. God rescued me out of those situations. All the experience of protecting myself from sexual abuse on the street and in government homes — all these experiences taught me and gave me a degree call MES. When you don’t get food for three days, you will end up doing things that you cannot even imagine. 

Surviving on the streets, I wondered, What is my purpose? When Matthew came into my life… I’m sure you can understand my English, but I’ve never been to any English-medium school. I’ve never got any formal education in my life. Directly applied for 10th Standard, completed my 10th Standard, 12th Standard, Bachelor of Theology, studied to be a pastor, worked in a church, travelled as an evangelist, preacher, worship leader, and motivational speaker in schools and colleges in India and around the world. I realised what my purpose is. 

I was locked up in prison for four years, and in 2003, on Good Friday, I gave my life to Jesus. And that was a turning point in my life. I realised my life in my hands is very dangerous. I gave my life to Jesus. I did not change my name because it is the only thing that I carried from my childhood. I kept my Muslim name. I would have been dead. You can see a scar. Some of you were asking, “What is on your neck?” I was almost killed. I have several scars on my body. God had a purpose for my life bigger than the purpose that even I could think of myself. 

A Catholic lady came to the railway station and gave me a bath, gave me food, and gave me shoes for the first time in my life. And that memory stuck in my mind, that Christian people are loving people, and the Christian God is a loving God. I ended up having that memory till date. During the Covid lockdown, God gave me a vision to reach out to street children in Mumbai and do the same thing that that Catholic lady did — giving a bath, clothes, food, and footwear. Around 700 children on the streets were blessed by this vision. 

Wonderfully, in 2016, I was getting ready to go to the US and settle down. Brother came and shared about the USA dream. Even I had a US dream. I was ready to go to the US, settle down, study, work, and be happy in the US. Again, I realised, my mentor, my very close mentor, Dr Renny Samuel, encouraged me to study in India, and study psychology and counseling. I laughed at him. I said, “That’s not my purpose.” His wife told me, “There is a difference between purpose and the means.” I said, “I’m a preacher, I’m a motivational speaker, I’m a songwriter. I don’t want to work with children. What is my purpose in life?” Beautifully, in that discussion, I found a revelation that there is a means and there is a purpose. God gives you this opportunity to meet people, to speak about your life — it’s the means. You sing a song — it’s the means to glorify God. It’s not the purpose. All my life I was running after the means and neglecting the purpose. And that moment I realised, the purpose was to reach out to the children who are like me, who don’t have hope, who don’t have a family. If not me, then who would understand their life and their condition? Some of you have experiential information. Some of you have theoretical information. I have first-hand experience of living through these conditions. “If not you, then who?” To cut it short, I gave up the desire to go to the US. I tore my papers and put them in the dust bin. I said, “I’m going to study in India. God is calling me to India.” And that’s the reason I carry India on my shoulder.

Brother Joshua beautifully said yesterday, “God did not make a mistake of making you to be born in India.” And one year later, I gave up the desire to go to the US — I put it in the dustbin. One year later, my beautiful wife — I call her Gina, sweet Gina — from the US, came to me. We got married; we moved to Bangalore; we started an NGO called Ummeed Hope Foundation. Ummeed Hope Foundation is especially working with street children, orphan children who are begging, ragpicking, like I was. I want to be a blessing to them. I was an orphan boy with no money, no family background; could not even dream of having a wife like Gina.

To cut it short, I gave up the desire to go to the US. I tore my papers and put them in the dust bin. I said, “I’m going to study in India. God is calling me to India.”

They say two are better than one. I’m so privileged that I get to travel everywhere with my wife and I’m no longer a lonely boy. But there are so many lonely and orphaned children and street children in India. There are more than 20 million orphans in India. And if not me, who comes from that background, who will go to them? All my struggles, all my tragedies, became an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of others. God, pin by pin, started using every tragedy that happened in life, all my struggles on the street. 

All these children are from a Muslim background. They were being sent for ragpicking and begging by their own families. Because of my name and my story, God opened the door for me to walk inside the community — the community which was closed to everybody. And we were able to build a school for them. They had never held their own textbooks all their life. This was the third year and they could not even pronounce ‘Good morning.’ And today, they can use English sentences, and they know the reason. They ask me, “Why are you doing this?” “What is your hidden agenda?” The Islamic priest told me. I had to sit with the Islamic Federation and ask them. I said, “I am doing this because Jesus did this for me and he told me to do this for all the children who are like me.” If not me, then who? 

You may know this — Bangalore is the coffee capital of India. And my wife, she’s been working in the US in the coffee industry and several restaurants from the time she was a student. She carries her experience of baking and coffee. And as you know by now, I too have a degree, called MES — Masters in Experiential Studies. Her gifting of making coffee and making pastries and cooking, and my gift of MES came together, and we began to build a beautiful coffee shop called ‘Open Door.’ This term was mentioned more than 35 times today — did you realise that? Almost all the speakers used this term: ‘Open door.’ And we want to use Open Door to impact the lives of children or young women and men, and give them an opportunity and experience and love. Let me tell you, I had almost seven boys and girls from Durjanpur working in the cafe. One of them almost shot a policeman and ran away in fear and came here. And we’re able to work and show them love and help them be transformed from picking a gun to becoming a barista. That’s the story we want to create before we die. 

God used all my tragedies to make an opportunity and bless the lives of these children. 

Last year on Children’s Day — I said in 1996 I never got a chance to go to McDonald’s — I brought about 40 street children and I shut my cafe. I lost the business for that day. I shut the cafe. I made them sit down at the tables and we took their orders and we served them food and coffee. The opportunity that I did not get — God used all my tragedies to make an opportunity and bless the lives of these children. 

Twenty-seven years ago, Dr Mathew K Daniel picked me up from the street, and 27 years later, we both graduated on the same day from the same university. He was receiving his PhD, and I was receiving my Masters in Counseling and Psychology. Yes, I do have a Masters in Counseling and Psychology. I took this picture and showed it to him. I said, “Did you ever think that one day both of us would graduate together, walking the aisle and receiving our degrees?” He said, “No.” I said, “I can only imagine the joy that you have in your heart when you see a boy from the street reach the place where he is right now.” And I said, “Before I die (this picture became my mission statement), I want to be a Mathew to somebody.” I want to pick up boys from the street and help them reach where God has placed them to be. 

Everything Gina and I do in our lives, the ultimate goal is to see transformation happen in orphans and street children’s lives. That’s the mission we have. We at Open Door also aim to provide training to children from orphanages. We have several people working in the cafe who come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Yes, it’s a one-year-old business. I don’t have a degree to run it. I don’t have experience. But I have the favour of God and the experience that I’ve gained on the street, and we have successfully completed one year. You have to come to see what this place is like. If you are in Bangalore, if you are a speciality coffee drinker, you will not miss our cafe called Open Door.

As I was sharing my story, our lives have so many experiences, and every experience is like a piece of a puzzle. I was in the US last December. My wife and her family love to solve puzzles. They were doing a 1,000-piece puzzle. Can you imagine that ? I was like, “How can you even finish it?” But they all sat and finished it. I remember one piece of the puzzle was missing and it looked incomplete. And that made me realise every single piece of the puzzle is very important for your life. God is allowing the journey to take you from X to Z. And while you’re on the journey, every piece is important. Don’t say, “What is this experience?” Even a single piece of the puzzle may ask, “What is my purpose?” But the piece of the puzzle has its purpose in the larger picture. Every experience that you are going through, or that God has allowed you to go through, has its purpose. All the experiences that I’ve been through have today turned into a blessing for so many children on the street and orphans. God is going to use your tragedy as an opportunity to create a difference in the lives of others. 

I request all of you to remember Gina and I, Open Door and Ummeed Hope Foundation in your prayers so that we can take this mantle and create a difference in the lives of others. God bless you, thank you.