I Have Decided to Follow Jesus

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"I Have Decided to Follow Jesus" is a Christian hymn that originated in Assam, present-day Meghalaya, India. According to P. Job, the lyrics are based on the last words of Nokseng, a Garo man, a tribe from Meghalaya which then was in Assam, who converted to Christianity in the middle of the 19th century through the efforts of an American Baptist missionary. He is said to have recited verses from the twelfth chapter of the Gospel of John as he and his family were killed. The formation of the martyr's words into a hymn has been attributed to the Indian missionary Sadhu Sundar Singh. An alternative tradition attributes the hymn to pastor Simon K Marak from Jorhat, Assam. The melody of the song is an Indian Folk tune, which was titled "Assam" after the region where the text originated. An American hymn editor, William Jensen Reynolds, composed an arrangement which was included in the 1959 Assembly Songbook. His version became a regular feature of Billy Graham's evangelistic meetings in America...

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