Duke Jeyaraj
As a young teen when I listened to this song – Thira-vunda Vasal Adaipadum Mun – sung by Uncle Sam Kamaleson in an unmistakably his, heart-warming baritone voice, I got goosebumps to say the least! Missionary-challenge blood was pumped into me! I wanted to do something to glorify Jesus in the one life I had, enabled by His grace! If I could speak to Uncle Sam Kamaleson I would say this: Thank you for touching the lives of young people like me in an indelible way, Uncle Kamaleson! Grateful for the many encouraging emails you wrote to me from your email ID – samkamales@aol.com – over the years! I did not think a big mission leader like you would write to me – even me! Thank you for addressing me by the name I called myself in my emails to you: ‘’the little boy in God’s big kingdom” (as if to say, ‘you should not forget that you rightly called yourself that, Duke! Don’t forget that ever! We are all little boys in God’s big kingdom!’). When I met you in the Navodhya Team camp in which I had the joy of preaching along-side you, I say the love in your eyes when you spoke about your late wife whom you so missed! This morning after I heard about the news of your homegoing, I heard one of the sermons you gave in The Andrews Kirk church. You spoke of how you were ‘dazzled’ by your wife when you met her in that church as a young man, decades ago. So candid, you were! I want to keep loving my wife with the same passion! Looking forward to meeting you on the shores of the other side of eternity and thanking you for being one of the key inspirations for me in my journey to become a preacher and ministry founder! Till then, I will live this life with eternity stamped in my eyeballs! – Duke Jeyaraj #SamKamaleson #SamKam #FMPB #worldvision #SamKamalesonTribute
