From: Bob Moore
News from India
Suneel, Ananda’s son, just called me to say that Ananda died of a heart attack today. His wife was just getting out of the hospital because she had the virus and Suneeta, their daughter, was just being admitted for the same reason.
Ananda Rao Nati was an engineering student when he and his family heard the restored gospel. A friend from Chennai, India, had read a tract and come to Independence. After his baptism and ordination, he returned to India and shared the good news with friends in Andreah Pradesh, including Ananda’s parents. Ananda quit college and joined the missionary effort to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ in India’s jungle. He was ordained an elder and went under RLDS Church appointment in 1967, braving the judge’s dangers.
In those days, he reached the villages by foot, walking for days, sleeping beside the trail, and avoiding panthers, cobras, and elephants, which where the greatest danger. In monsoon times, he waded flooded valleys over a mile wide while holding a change of cloths and his scriptures on his head. He personally baptized more people than any other missionary of the RLDS Church.
When I was with him, every village in which we entered, people flocked to see him and invited him for a cup of tea. He was their teacher, pastor, and resource for health and education. His work is finished and the fruit of his life's labor is thousands of rural Indians saved from ignorance, darkness, and superstition by the knowledge and obedience to the gospel of Jesus Christ, which Ananda constantly shared. I am proud to have known him and labored briefly with him.
Bob Moore
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