Our family always enjoyed being encouraged through Ravi Zacharias teaching on our way to New Hope Church each Sunday morning. His death left us with a profound loss, a void that was hard to fill. I'm happy to hear they are making his apologetics teachings available on line.

Written by Margaret Zacharias

Ravi was born in Chennai, India in 1946, the second son of five children born to Isabella Manickham and Oscar Zacharias. His family were Christians, following the example of six generations of professed Christians that included a traveling preacher, a professor of English at Madras Christian College in Chennai, and the two authors of the first and current English Malayalam dictionary. But by their generation their faith was nominal.

When Ravi was approximately three years old, the family moved to New Delhi when his father was appointed as an undersecretary in the Home Ministry of the Government of India. His father was studying in England when Ravi was born and didn’t return to India until Ravi was almost nine months old. They never bonded and his father took out much of his anger and aggression on Ravi.

He was a shy boy who loved sports more than anything. In his teens he took to western country music and, especially, Elvis Presley. But he was also curious and exasperated his mother, with whom he had a tight bond, with his never ending and seemingly unanswerable questions. He also had a great sense of fun and mischief.

When Ravi was in his late teens, a representative of Youth for Christ spoke at his younger sister’s school, and she responded to an invitation for prayer. The next night she was asked to attend another YFC meeting and share her story. With the promise that food was to be served, and at his father’s insistence, Ravi reluctantly left the cricket field to accompany his sister to the meeting. There was no food served, but for the first time in his life he heard a presentation of the Gospel, and that began a journey in his heart.

Though he scored highly in his application and tests for admission into the Indian Air force, he was rejected because he was told by the examiner that he was not psychologically equipped to kill. Instead, he joined the pre-medical program at the University of New Delhi. Around the same time, based on his appearance, he was asked to audition for the lead role in a Ken Anderson film, Tashi from Tibet. Again, he was rejected - because he couldn’t act.

Shortly afterward, he felt that there was no meaning to life, and so he attempted to take his own life. But a servant in the home discovered him unconscious and called an ambulance. In the hospital the doctor told him, “I can heal your body, but I can’t give you a desire to live.” The New Delhi director of YFC was unable to gain admission to visit him in the hospital because of his acute condition, so he left a Bible with Ravi’s mother and told her to read to him from the Gospel of John.

When she got to John 14:19 and read the words of Jesus, “Because I live you shall live also,” Ravi was so moved in his heart that he prayed, “If you are who you say you are, take me out of this hospital and I will leave no stone unturned in my pursuit of Truth.”

Two days later he was released from the hospital with a new desire to live, and to pursue Him who is Truth.

Ravi continued to be discipled by Youth for Christ. He attended a YFC national camp and suddenly found himself behind a pulpit in a preaching contest, where he experienced for the first time the empowerment of the Holy Spirit and saw others commit themselves to Jesus Christ.

When Ravi was twenty, he and his older brother, Ajit, left India for Toronto, Canada to prepare the way for the rest of the family to follow. Ravi and his brother arrived in Toronto in May 1966, where they were met by the local YFC director and taken to a boarding house to live.

Until they could get jobs, they lived off of hotdogs for weeks as it was the cheapest food they could find. But the boarding house was just two blocks from an evangelical church that welcomed them.

Four months later, Ravi and I met there when he was preaching at a youth symposium. It was already obvious to anyone who met him and heard him speak that God had his hand upon him for something very special.

While working as a banqueting steward in a hotel, Ravi enrolled in night classes at a local Bible college. After two years, he recognized God’s call on him to preach. He quit his job, and with the help of his younger brother, Ramesh, enrolled in a four-year program at Ontario Bible College.

In 1971 - the summer of his junior year - a woman in the church who had been a missionary to Vietnam for fifty years, arranged for him to go to there to preach to American and South Vietnamese soldiers, local churches and the public events they sponsored. Along with a fellow student from Canadian Bible College, and in the company of other various missionaries, he covered the length of the country preaching in the cities, countrysides, colleges, schools, churches, youth camps, outdoor public meetings, and hospitals of a country at war, fighting for its existence. The result of those three months was a vast turning of people to the Lord, and the absolute confidence and assurance of God’s calling on him as an evangelist to the world.

Ravi graduated from Ontario Bible College (Tyndale University & Seminary, Toronto) with a bachelor's degree in theology in 1972. One week later, we were married on May 6, 1972. Included in our marriage vows was our pledge to God to set ourselves and our marriage apart for him, “sanctified, fit for the Master’s use, prepared for every good work.” (2 Timothy 2:21) We didn’t make our pledge lightly but earnestly prayed every word of it.

After Ravi was licensed as a Minister of the Gospel, we traveled throughout eastern Canada as a District Evangelist of the Christian & Missionary Alliance for a year, hosted by kind families in their homes everywhere we went. During that time, we came to the realization that he needed further education.

So, the following year we arrived at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, IL, from where Ravi graduated with a Master of Divinity in 1976. During those three years Ravi was a student during the week and a traveling evangelist every weekend. At the same time we started our family. The many demands and hectic schedule made for a difficult training period for both of us, preparing us for the life ahead of us.

We eventually settled into the life of an itinerant evangelist until Ravi was asked by the denomination to take a teaching position at the Alliance Theological Seminary in Nyack, NY as the Chair of Evangelism & Contemporary Thought. We believed his ultimate calling was to be an evangelist, and so it was a very difficult decision. But Ravi felt he needed to honor and respect the request of those in authority over him at the time, and so he accepted the position at the end of 1980.

While speaking at The Billy Graham Conference for Itinerant Evangelists in Amsterdam in 1983, Ravi recognized that the Lord was moving him back into full time itinerant evangelism to focus on the question of the "happy pagan." He resigned from his position in Nyack and in the winter of 1984, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries was formed to help "reach the thinker."

The next thirty-six years we saw God work compellingly through Ravi as he traveled throughout the world proclaiming God’s truth and grace in a winsome and convicting way to those in every walk of life, in every strata of society, before leaders and kings, students, businessmen and women, professionals and non-professionals. He spoke in churches, universities, public venues, and to any who invited him.

His ministry grew to include many other public speakers and registered offices in almost twenty countries. He cared personally for each staff member; always leading through his example and often caring for them with our own resources. His gentleness, humility and calling were evident not just his preaching, but in his heart for those in need. He always felt that apologetics was not just demonstrated on the platform, but in coming alongside those who were hurting, marginalized, and unseen by most of the world.

He was awarded ten honorary doctorates over the years, including one from a Marxist university. And God so richly blessed him and anointed him to speak, that, during the last three years of his ministry every time he spoke people would marvel at the evident mark of the Holy Spirit upon him.

Ravi first injured his back in 1984 when we were preparing to move to Atlanta. For the next thirty-six years, which included two surgeries on his back, he was in almost constant pain as he continued to travel across time zones around the world.

In January 2020, while he was speaking at a Pastors’ Conference in Sri Lanka, he developed debilitating and excruciating pain that prevented him from sleep and for which he could get no relief. The pain was so severe he felt he could not continue with some upcoming scheduled events, but team members urged him to continue, and so he did. Of course, we assumed it to be the same old back problem. When he saw a doctor, the x-rays that were taken revealed that the hardware in his back had eroded a good portion of his pelvis near his spine. The plan was to remove the hardware and repair the bone.

But the surgery a month later in February revealed a rare sarcoma around the area.

It was the early days of COVID-19 and the medical services were somewhat in disarray. We managed to get him admitted into MD Anderson in Houston, right before before they stopped accepting patients from out-of-state. Ravi and I, accompanied by Naomi, arrived in Houston on March 20th.

We very quickly learned that the cancer had already spread to his lungs.

Ravi went through two rounds of the strongest chemotherapy possible to no avail. On May 8, just two days after our 48th Anniversary, we arrived back home in Atlanta to spend his final days together as a family. Ravi said he was ready and eager to meet his Lord, but he was heartbroken to be leaving the family.

No matter how severe the pain or how heavy the symptoms from the medication given to try and alleviate that pain, the words out of his mouth were always love for His Lord and love for his family.

We watched over him as he became progressively weaker. Ten days later, in the early hours of May 19, his strong heart that just refused to give up, gradually stopped. And our daughter said, “We were the luckiest.”

The epitaph on his gravestone quietly but confidently sums up who he was:

Beloved son, brother, friend. Treasured husband, father, grandfather.

Waiting for Tomorrow

Most of us, it seems, are either living in the past, or the future. In the past, we're grieving for lost loved ones. In the future, we're for ways of making our lives happier. As we study the word of God, we learned that God gives us the means to live in the present moment of life. Those were the lessons these two friends learned as they waited for Godot. Waiting for Tomorrow

Once upon a time, in a bustling city straddled between the old and the new, there lived two friends named Alex and Riley. They were the kind of friends who could sit in silence for hours, sharing the comfort of each other's presence, yet they yearned for more. This particular day found them in a small, unkempt park on the outskirts of the city, where the chatter of modern life faded into the background, replaced by the occasional rustle of wind and the distant laughter of children.

"I heard he’s coming today,” Alex said, squinting at the horizon as if trying to peer into the future.

“Who?” Riley asked, tilting their head, curiosity piqued.

“Godot! You know, that guy we've been waiting for,” Alex replied with a hint of sarcasm intertwined with genuine hope.

Riley chuckled softly. “Right, Godot. Are we really waiting for him, though? I mean, how do we know he’ll actually show up?”

“Because he has to,” Alex insisted, tapping their foot impatiently. “We’ve put it off too long. Today’s the day.”

Silence fell again, thick and heavy. The sun began its lazy descent, casting a warm glow over the park while shadows danced around them. Settling deeper into their worn-out bench, they began to reflect on their lives—what they had done and what they still desired to accomplish.

“Sometimes, I wonder if we’re just waiting for something that isn’t even real,” Riley said, eyes fixated on a passing cloud shaped suspiciously like a question mark.

“Even if he isn’t real, what he represents is,” Alex replied, a hint of passion in their voice. “Hope, dreams, the possibility of change. Isn’t that worth waiting for?”

As the minutes turned into hours, the world around them continued its rhythm—the laughter of children morphed into the distant sound of city traffic, and the sun finally dipped below the horizon, taking with it the orange hues and leaving only twilight.

“Do you think he knows we’re here?” Riley asked, suddenly serious, glancing at Alex.

“Who? Godot?” Alex’s laugh betrayed their anxiety. “I don’t know. Maybe he’s just as lost as we are.”

In that moment, a dog bounded into the park, its owner behind it, a bright smile illuminating their face. The dog ran in circles, barking joyfully, seemingly unbothered by waiting for anything at all.

“Look at that pup,” Riley said, a grin spreading across their face. “It doesn’t seem to lose hope.”

“Yeah, it’s living in the moment. Maybe that’s what we need to do,” Alex suggested, observing the dog’s unrestrained happiness.

And just like that, they began to talk about their dreams—traveling to distant lands, starting a band, or opening a quirky café. They talked and laughed, imagining what life could hold. Each word was a brushstroke on the canvas of their reality, and what was once a dull day in the park transformed into a vibrant tapestry of hope and possibility.

As the stars began to twinkle above, a gust of wind swept through, reminding them of the chill in the air.

“Should we call it a night?” Alex asked, reluctantly breaking the spell their conversation had woven.

Riley paused, looking back at the empty path leading away from the park. “I think… I think we might have been waiting for Godot all along, and we never needed to.”

“Maybe what we were waiting for was just ourselves. Our dreams. Our moments in this life.”

With that, they stood up and walked away from the park, hand in hand, leaving behind the long wait for something—or someone—that might never arrive. Instead, they chose to embrace the uncertainty of tomorrow, realizing that sometimes, waiting can lead to something far more precious: living in the now.

As they stepped into the cool night, with the city lights flickering like stars beneath their feet, they discovered something valuable in their wait—each other, and the beautiful promise of all that was yet to come.

A Celebration of Faith: The Gabrielson Family Christening

A Celebration of Faith: The Gabrielson Family Christening

In the small town of Stanchfield, Minnesota, nestled amid rolling hills and sprawling fields, life unfolded at a pace that allowed for moments of genuine connection. It was a crisp Sunday morning in early May of 1894, and the air was fresh, filled with a bittersweet promise of spring. The sun peeked through the clouds, casting a soft, golden hue over the quaint Stanchfield Baptist Church, where Peter and Anna Gabrielson prepared to christen their youngest child, Levi.

The day was marked by excitement and a tinge of nervousness. Levi, just a few months old, was nestled snugly in Anna's arms, his wide blue eyes taking in the world around him. Peter, a kind-hearted man with a gentle demeanor, stood proudly beside his wife, adjusting his silver watch chain with a bit of nervous anticipation. As members of the Stanchfield congregation began to arrive, the church exuded a sense of community and warmth that enveloped the Gabrielson family.

As the service began, Andrew, the eldest at eighteen, took his place at the front, his handsome face highlighting a mix of pride and responsibility. He had been entrusted with not only the candle but also the role of a supportive big brother. Right behind him was Peter, Jr., a spirited sixteen-year-old, whose laughter often echoed in the house but today was more subdued as he recognized the gravity of the occasion. Young Erick, still just fourteen, took his spot with a mixture of solemnity and curiosity, glancing around the congregation. Following closely was Amile, always eager to lend a hand, her delicate seven-year-old fingers rested against the polished wood of the pew as she whispered excitedly to Levi, who seemed blissfully unaware of the significance of the day. Lastly, little Levi cooed softly, a delicate flower newly introduced to the world of faith and family.

As the minister led the congregation in prayer and praise, Anna caught the eye of her husband. There was a shared understanding between them, a silent promise that they would nurture their children’s spirits just as fiercely as they had nurtured their bodies. Together, they would guide Levi through the teachings of faith, compassion, and resilience.

When it came time for the actual christening, the minister approached Anna and Peter, holding a silver bowl filled with holy water glistening in the soft light of the church. With a poised and calm voice, he welcomed the family forward. The moment felt suspended in time as Anna lovingly placed Levi into the minister's arms. The congregation leaned forward with anticipation, the warmth of their support enveloping the Gabrielsons like a comforting embrace.

“Levi Gabrielson, we welcome you into the body of Christ,” the minister pronounced, as beads of water kissed the infant's forehead. A wave of love and hope rippled through the room, and a few members of the congregation wiped away tears of joy. The sight of Levi, pure and innocent, touched the hearts of everyone present, reaffirming their faith and commitment to support one another as a community.

As the ceremony came to a close, the attendees began to filter outside into the bright sunshine, where a delightful picnic awaited them on the church lawn. The sweet scent of freshly baked goods mingled with the fragrance of blooming wildflowers. Long tables groaned under the weight of homemade pies, sandwiches, and pitchers of lemonade, while vibrant blankets spread across the grass served as inviting spaces for families to gather.

The Gabrielsons became the heart of this cheerful assembly. Amile joyfully raced around with her siblings, filling the air with laughter. Erick, ever the explorer, ventured off to share stories of their farm adventures with other children from the congregation. Meanwhile, Peter, Sr. engaged in heartfelt conversations with fellow church members about the bountiful blessings that spring had promised. Andrew, proud of his role as the eldest, kept an eye on his mother and siblings, ensuring that everyone felt included in the day’s festivities.

Anna, radiant and thankful, moved from group to group, filling plates and sharing anecdotes of Levi’s first months. Her heart swelled as she witnessed the bonds of community forging in the laughter of friends, the warmth of shared stories, and the abundance of faith displayed that day. It was not merely a celebration of Levi’s christening, but a reminder of the immeasurable support and love that surrounded them.

As the sun began to set, casting long shadows over the picnic grounds, Peter wrapped his arm around Anna, pulling her close. They watched their children play and interact, their laughter blending with the soft whispers of the breeze. It was a perfect reflection of their family’s journey of faith — a journey filled with hope, love, and countless blessings.

In moments like these, Peter and Anna Gabrielson understood that life, with its challenges and joys, was a tapestry woven of moments just like this one, each thread contributing to the beauty and strength of their family's legacy. And with Levi's christening now a cherished memory, they felt more certain than ever that together they would continue nurturing the light of faith in their children's hearts, guiding them as they grew in love and community.