TOVP Tour Diary Day 17 – Rama-navami at New Nilacala Dhama

On Saturday, March 28th, we celebrated Rama-navami at the Philadelphia temple in great bliss with over 125 devotees attending. The festival included an elaborate abhisheka of Sita Rama organized by Jananivas prabhu, kirtans by Visnu Gada prabhu and others and a lecture by Jananivas.

Sikhi Mahiti then introduced the TOVP Team and handed the program over to Radha Jivan. Radha Jivan then spoke, intertwining various stories from the Ramayana and made his appeal to the devotees to pledge for the TOVP construction. Understanding that the devotees there are also fundraising for a new temple on the property, he encouraged devotees to make a sacrifice for the TOVP also and, in a spirit of cooperation and love, himself pledged $51,000 for the Philadelphia project. He told the devotees they could wait until the Philadelphia project was complete before starting their TOVP payments. Devotees were so touched and moved by his sincereity and mood that $300,000 was pledged that evening which, including the Thursday night pledges, totaled almost $350,000. A wonderful prasadam feast was then served to all the Vaishnavas.