One of the more unusual men to come out of India in the early part of the last century was a man named Sundar Singh. He was a Sikh who converted to Christianity and spent the rest of his life preaching to the Sikh people of Northern India and to the people of Ti-bet. He made several speaking tours abroad, spending time in England and Australia.

When he was converted, he was banished from his home and family. He had been raised in the loving care of his mother up to this time and retained a very special place in his heart for her. It was she who had him schooled in the local Presbyterian school there in India.

For most of his formative years he was deep devoted to the Sikh way of life and thought. When he did convert, his father banished him and even tried to poison him. He survived and continued to reach out to his father. In latter years, he was instrumental in his fa-ther‟s conversion to Christianity.

He is most famous for his preaching trips into Tibet where he reputedly, established a few, small, congregations. But his main claim to fame, in our way of thinking, is as the author of the words to that simple chorus song “I Have Decided To Follow Jesus”. This was the song that he sang as he entered villages in Tibet, announcing him as a Christian, even though he wore the saffron coloured robes of a „Sudhu‟, a man who is to be hon-oured in Tibet and Northern India as a high holy man. He would sing this song as he walked along, in the language of the people where he was walking, announcing his inten-tions and his belief vocally and loudly. This is why the song has its particular Hindustani melody. It is the melody of announcement, used with different words to declare the pur-pose of the holy men of that area.

He was the first „Christian‟ preacher allowed into Tibet, and one of only a very few who have been honoured by both Tibet and India as a very special and significant person.

The area where he was able to preach has today congregations of the Slymanon District Presbyterians, a group who preach a belief in autonomous congregations, with full im-mersion baptism for the remission of sins. They are still active, in albeit an underground manner, in all of Pakistan, Northern India, and in rural China. Another of this group is a man named Eric Liddell, who was a missionary to China in the 1930‟s and 1940‟s and im-mortalized somewhat in the movie, “The Chariots Of Fire”. The Slymanon District Pres-byterians were very close to the thoughts of Alexander Campbell and Richard Haldane when they studied in Glasgow University.