# Reena Varghese Kannimala
A house where tears danced fiercely.
Days and nights when tears flowed like torrential rain.
Misery became firewood, suffering became fire—
A house of madmen cursed for three generations.
A mother became the very embodiment of suffering. She became the Hannah of the 21st century, crying out, "God, give this family a little peace."
And then, heaven opened—and God came down.
He came through a neighbor. A poor woman had gone to a Christian Revival Fellowship prayer meeting in Muvattupuzha, run by Prof. M.Y. Yohannan. After hearing that such meetings could bring peace to families.
John Kuriakose recalls:
“I didn’t even have proper clothes to attend the prayer meeting. My mother went for the first time that day, wearing a borrowed shawl from our neighbor Mariammachedathi, and a blouse torn at the underarm. When the speaker asked if anyone had come without peace, the question struck my mother deeply. That was exactly what she felt.
My mother, who had gone to that meeting burdened, returned with great joy.”
He paused.
“That was the first time joy entered our house of tears,” John remembers.
“My mother’s greatest fortune was being able to attend that prayer meeting.”
These are the words of the man who founded Asia’s first dental lab with a turnover of ₹1.5 billion—a humble man who attributes all his success to God. This humility is the foundation of Dent Care’s success.
“Even after my mother attended the prayer meeting, the situation at home didn’t change. The poverty remained, the tears continued, my father’s madness didn’t stop...
I used to think: There is no God. I was born a Christian, and so I live as a Christian. I go to church, attend Bible studies, my brother serves as an altar boy at the Madhbaha... But there is no God. That was my belief at the time,” John recalls his thoughts at fifteen.
“But my mother didn’t give up. She started praying alone at home. Her only prayer was, ‘God, please heal my husband’s madness.’ And then, it happened. My father was completely healed.
Later, my father —who had been on twelve pills a day—was also freed from his madness. After seeing all this, I believed.
My father has now lived a healthy life for 45 years without a single pill. He even laid the foundation stone of our first building.”
“When my mother called me, I too got ready to attend the prayer meeting. It was my first time. The speaker asked:
‘Is anyone here in despair?’
I was. I had barely passed the tenth standard and was heartbroken that I couldn’t continue my studies.
I desperately wanted to study.
I would wake up every morning, drink the black coffee my mother made, and sit down to study. But I often went to school hungry. No matter how much I studied, I would forget everything during exams.
I got just 251 marks in the tenth grade. I was sure I wouldn’t get a seat in Nirmala College, Muvattupuzha, so I didn’t even collect the admission form.
Then there was the option of joining a parallel college—but that required ₹15 a month, which we couldn’t afford.”
“My father told me to go to learn rubber tapping. So I began, with a towel around my waist instead of a school uniform.
I still remember hiding behind a rubber tree and crying, watching my classmates go off to college—because there was no one to support me.
A fifteen-year-old boy, crying in silence, wearing a tapping knife instead of carrying a pen.”
The emotional weight of young John's past was interrupted by the confident voice of the successful John Kuriakose in the present.
“The man who taught me tapping was a good man. He told me:‘ Don’t leave a single tree untapped. Work as though you’re doing it for God, because God sees everything we do.’
I still carry that advice with me today.
When I make a tooth, I ask myself—if I were making this for God, how perfect would I make it? That’s why I tell my employees: Make teeth as if you’re making them for God.
And as long as I’m alive, Dent Care will never produce anything that harms human health. That is my promise.”
It was in this deep despair that the evangelist’s words came blaring through the loudspeaker:
“Make a firm decision that you will not sin in your life, knowing your heart.”
“Until then, I thought I hadn’t sinned.
The locals used to call me ‘the son of the crazy Kuryakon. ’I was a broken child, walking around with a crushed heart, burdened with shame, head bowed, face hidden.
I would ask myself—What sin do I have? I don’t even look at people’s faces...
Then the preacher’s voice continued:
‘Isn’t your mind filled with disgusting thoughts? With hatred and enmity? Though you appear clean outside, isn’t your heart like a rotten grave?’
“Then I remembered the deep enmity I had toward an aunt in Malabar. Whenever she visited the area, she went everywhere—except our house. No one came to our home because of our miserable condition.
That sermon changed everything. At the age of fifteen, I let go of all hatred and enmity.”
“Eventually, I started working as my father wished.
“Then my prayer was, God, please give me a good job.
When I was walking around with my face covered with both hands out of shame, and I thought there was no God, I came to know Christ closely later.
Today I know, Christ was with me then…Christ walks with me today… “
Yes, the charioteer of Dent Care is Christ. It is Christ who is leading Dent Care to become the second-largest dental lab in the world. While Christ became the charioteer of Dent Care, John Kuriakose grew up to be the APJ of Kerala. That story will be told tomorrow…
