On Sept. 12, 2025, the audience grew quiet as David Punnamannil (’17, BA International Development, Biblical Studies, and Global Affairs) stepped onto the TWU stage to receive the Act Justly Alumni Award. Applause rose as his story played across the screen, tracing a decade of courage and compassion that has changed lives around the world.
“I’m just humbled to be here,” David said as he accepted the award. “What a beautiful evening.”
Seeing Beauty, Seeing People
Drawing a comparison between viewing art and viewing a life, David shared, “We always spend time looking at art in museums and say, ‘Wow, this is incredible, but we can also take that time to see an individual in front of you and say, ‘Wow, there’s something so beautiful about that individual that God has designed and crafted.’”
For David, that is where justice begins. “I would say acting justly is when you see the other individual before you see yourself,” he said.
David is the founder and executive director of Lighthouse Voyage, an internationally recognized nonprofit that has helped more than 900 people leave exploitation, built safe homes, launched a nursing school, and is constructing a new medical facility. TWU honoured him for a life spent advocating for the vulnerable with courage, clarity, and Christlike compassion.
A Campus Where Calling Took Root
Trinity Western came into David’s life at exactly the right moment. “I was actually travelling Europe and backpacking,” he said. “My sister-in-law told me to check out Trinity Western. I looked online while I was in Ireland, saw the International Studies program, and applied pretty late. I wasn’t sure I was going to get in. When I did, I cancelled my backpacking trip and came here. It was the best decision I’ve made.”
He was passionate about human rights and remembers sitting in a class that stirred him deeply. “I was really challenged by what [the professor] was sharing, and I just wanted to do something with my head. So right after that semester, I decided to go to India.”
TWU became both classroom and launchpad. “Trinity Western has been a huge foundation,” David said. “Our first event was actually done right here, in this very atrium space. We had no idea what we were doing or how to start an organization, but TWUstudents came alongside, and we did it together.”
The Night on the Tracks
Those years were also shadowed by personal struggle.
“My second year was definitely very hard,” David recalled. “That summer, I was going through a lot of brokenness, and I think I just hated myself a lot. I really secluded myself, shut down, didn’t let anyone in, and I planned that I was just going to end my life.”
One night, he walked to the train tracks and waited.
“This guy came by and asked me what I was doing there, and I was annoyed,” David said. “He hugged me and told me that he loved me so much. At that moment I just felt this tremendous amount of God’s love that I had never felt before, just weeping on his shoulder and telling him he had just saved my life.”
Two weeks later, David boarded a flight to India.
Into the Dark to Find Beauty
“What I experienced there was something I just didn’t expect,” he said.
One night, while doing investigative work, David and his team entered an exploitation site. “We got there, saw the owner, and asked him, ‘What is your cost to own a girl?’ His standard price tag was 10,000 rupees, about $200 Canadian for one life.”
That night, four girls were rescued. One of them spoke words that would change David’s life: “You find the most beautiful things in the darkest places. You have to go through darkness to find light. You need both darkness and light to see beauty,” she told him.
David carried those words back to campus, along with a resolve to act. “So, I came back to Trinity Western, and we launched Lighthouse Voyage,” he said. “The name definitely comes from what that girl shared—a lighthouse being a safe place to call home but also a place to start a new voyage in life.”
Building a Movement of Rescue & Restoration
A decade later, Lighthouse Voyage has grown far beyond what David imagined. “I never thought Lighthouse would be 10 years in,” he marvelled. “We’ve been able to help over 930 individuals come out of exploitation and build two safe homes.”
Today, there are three safe homes, a nursing school for future caregivers, and a medical facility under construction. David describes courage as the thread that runs through it all. “Courage isn’t the absence of fear,” he said. “You build it by walking through fear. That’s what makes it courage. Watching these girls and hearing their stories, that’s courage. Their dignity is being restored, and the future they were told was lost—we are helping them reclaim it.”
“David has turned his story of resilience into a platform for change, inspiring communities on a global scale to address some of the most pressing humanitarian challenges in today’s modern society,” said Jamieson Brooks, a fellow alumnus.
A Leader Shaped by Mercy
David’s leadership is marked by grace. “If I go back now, I would look at myself and say, it’s okay,” he admitted softly. “Life is just too radical in how God shows up.”
His gratitude is simple and profound. “I’m really thankful for what God’s given: my wife, my daughter, this home. To live another day and having the freedom that I have is enough for me,” he reflected.
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About Trinity Western University
Founded in 1962, Trinity Western University is a global Christian liberal arts university dedicated to equipping students for life. Uniting faith and reason through Christian teaching and scholarship, TWU is a research institution offering undergraduate and graduate degrees in the humanities and sciences as well as in several professional schools. It has campuses in Canada in Langley, Richmond, and Ottawa. Learn more at www.twu.ca or follow us on Instagram @trinitywestern, Twitter @TrinityWestern, on Facebook and LinkedIn. For media inquiries, please contact: media@twu.ca.