Amy Carmichael

Mark 14:1-9

Focus on Jesus, Unity, Future

Prepared by Dr. John E. Marshall

 

Mark 14:1-9 tells of the woman who inspired this year's World Missions Conference theme. While everyone else in the room was distracted, she focused on Jesus, thereby teaching us the best way to focus on unity. Her deed also focused on the future. It will be mentioned wherever the Gospel is preached. We all want to do things that will long matter. I am grateful that as we start a brand new church, we are also celebrating Hamlin Baptist Church, which we started over a century ago.

Another lady whose life taught the value of focus is Amy Carmichael (1867-1951). Born in a small village in Ireland, she was the oldest of seven children in a devout Presbyterian family. She had at least two opportunities to marry, but chose not to. She felt the Lord had called her to a life of singleness. She believed this would let her have an undivided, laser beam focus on the call of Jesus for her life.

Amy served as a Christian missionary to India, where she opened an orphanage in Dohnavur, 30 miles from the southern tip of India. She served in India 55 years without a furlough. Her most notable work was with girls who were saved from forced prostitution. Over the years, she helped thousands of children.

Amy became one of the world's most famous and admired missionaries ever, and rightly so. She obviously lived a wonderful, successful Christian life, and can teach us by her example traits that might help us live a life worthy of our Lord.

One, she helped the helpless. One sure way we can be used by God is to find people no one else cares about, and to minister to them. We should help the unloved, not for earthly praise and reward, or to earn merit for salvation, but because Jesus loves them. He is in their midst, identifying with them. Thus, when no one is helping them, the Lord himself is being neglected. He blesses those who bless the outcast. Amy provided abundant evidence of this, even as a teenager.

When Amy was 16, the family moved to Belfast. Her dad died when she was 18. This left the family in poverty. Amy never allowed much time for self-pity. She was always more concerned about the wellbeing of others than about herself.

She started a Sunday class at her church for the shawlies, mill girls who wore shawls because they were too poor to wear hats. The numbers grew, much to the chagrin of several dignified church members. She finally realized she needed to find a separate place large enough for them to worship in. Amy started her own church, Welcome Evangelical Church. She raised enough money to construct on donated property a building that could seat 500. She was 20. The church still exists today. As time passed, she became convinced she was called to be a missionary.

Amy arrived in Dohnavur in 1901, and soon learned about the nightmarish, demonic system of Hindu temple prostitution. Girls were "married to the gods" as young as 10 years old. They were forced to spend their lives in illicit sexual service to priests, and in forced prostitution to earn money for the temples. To Amy's horror, she learned none—not one!—of these temple prostitutes had ever been won to Christ. No Christians had ever been allowed to work among them. This system was a sword to Amy's heart. Something had to be done. The lady who had blessed the shawlies felt surely someone could find a way to touch these girls for God.

This passion to save the girls became a fire blazing in her bones. Amy immediately knew she had found her calling. "I remember waking up to the knowledge that there had been a very empty corner somewhere in me that the work had never fulfilled." Her life changed forever. She never looked back.

Her search-and-rescue missions for children were often clandestine affairs. Girls were usually abandoned to temples for money to help families in hard times.

Amy, believing prevention was her best hope, pleaded with families to let her have the girls instead of selling them. If girls escaped the system, Amy fought legal battles in court with the temple priests. She once described a holy man who was a ringleader in this prostituting of children as a beast in human shape; she then corrected herself, "It is slandering good animals to compare bad men to beasts."

Within months of her arrival at Dohnavur, Amy had become Amma (Tamil, mother) to about 10 children. Within three years, she was serving over 30 children.

About this time, Queen Mary recognized Amy's work, and funded a hospital at Dohnavur. Within 12 years, 130 girls were living there. Six years after this, a home for boys was added. By the time she died, over 300 lived at the compound. It continues today, over 500 live on 400 acres, with 16 nurseries and a hospital.

Of the thousands of children Amy cared for, many were not in danger of temple prostitution, but were orphans or children otherwise abandoned by their families. Many were severely handicapped mentally and/or physically. She helped the helpless because she saw in them the Savior she loved.

Two, Amy died to herself. When a lady who was considering mission service wrote Amy and asked what it was like, Amy replied, "Missionary life is simply a chance to die." Leaving her family was almost more than Amy could bear. Fifty-two years later she wrote, "Never, I think, not even in Heaven shall I forget that parting. . . .Even now my heart winces at the thought of it. . . .The night I sailed for China, March 3, 1893, my life, on the human side, was broken, and it never was mended again. But He has been enough."

When Amy sailed, friends sang songs on the wharf for about an hour, till the boat was out of hearing distance. The hardest farewell was to an elderly man who took her under wing when her dad died. Amy said of leaving him, "Jesus has two nail-pierced hands. He lays one upon each and parts us so--He does the parting."

For years, Amy died to herself. For instance, she always traveled third class on the trains. When asked why, she said, "Because there is no fourth class."

Amy desired, as Elisabeth Elliott phrased it, "Utter holiness, crystal pure." She reminds us holiness matters most. She died to herself in order that Jesus might live totally through her. Amy always feared she would disappoint people who first met her. She was afraid she would not live up to the stories they heard of her. Few were disappointed. One young missionary met her and said, "I have seen the Lord Jesus." An Indian Pastor said, "I felt that here was a person who had realized God."

Because Amy died to herself, people saw the power of the resurrected Christ through her. During WW1, when Amy had 12 nurseries and dozens of children, supplies were hard to come by. Hindus and Muslims in the region came to their rescue. They often said, "God is there". They could not otherwise explain her wonderful work. We should ask, why should God bless mediocrity in us? Is there any part of our lives where there is extraordinary evidence of God's presence?

Amy learned as a child the lesson of needing to die to herself. Wishing she had blue eyes, she asked God to change the color of her brown eyes. She later admitted having brown eyes made her more acceptable to the people of India.

Three, Amy prayed. Often she found God's will in an impression that came after a time of intense prayer. She believed God can directly plant a thought in a mind yielded to Him. For instance, her call to missions did not come to Amy as a "miracle". She said, "The thought came". To Amy, the issue was surrender, not the specifics of a call. Being willing to do God's will, whatever it may prove to be, before it is known, makes it easier to determine God's will. She never did seek an audible voice from God, or handwriting on the wall, or an angel visitor. She prayed, and would look to circumstances, counsel, and Bible principles.

She often endured terrible times of distress and concern. These would drive her to prayer. One night when the whole enterprise was in danger of being done away with, she prayed, "I am beginning to sink. Lord, save me." A favorite verse was, "When I said, My foot slippeth; thy mercy, O Lord, held me up" (PS 94:18).

To Amy it fell to make the major decisions. She always dreaded doing this. She feared making the wrong choices. If things did not go well, she always blamed herself. Once, when she decided to make a large purchase of land, she signed the check kneeling by her desk, "so deeply did I fear." She felt only a razor edge separated faith and presumption. She spoke of middle-of-the-night misgivings, yet also of renewed-dawn-determination to press ahead. There is no recorded instance of where she once made up her mind that she ever changed it.

Four, Amy loved. You who have pets will be glad to know Amy loved animals. She taught the children to treat all creatures gently, with respect. She would remind them the cobra did not ask to be a cobra; it wasn't his fault he was a danger. All living things were to be treated kindly unless they came into the house where they did not belong. During reports of bombings in WW2 she cried when thinking of people being killed, and also grieved over animals that would be dying.

All children were treated with respect. When a child died, and hundreds of them did over the years--epidemics and inadequate medical care were rampart--everyone followed the body to the burial plot as a way of saying they were merely accompanying the beloved from one living place to another, from earth to heaven.

For years, until her health weakened and the numbers of children became prohibitive, she kissed each child good night. Asked what drew them to Amy, the children usually replied, "Amma (Amy) loved us." Her gravemarker is a birdbath the children put up. It reads "Amma" which means mother in the Tamil language.

Five, Amy stayed faithful to the end. In 1931 she fell on a dark night into a hole at a construction site. She never fully recovered from her injuries, and was a homebound semi-invalid the rest of her life, for 20 years. This terribly burdened Amy, who never wanted to be a bother to anyone. Her nurse said she never complained. Even her doctors had trouble getting her to discuss her symptoms.

Amy claimed she had wanted to die like the old ox she read of in a children's story. It kept going till it died standing up, and even then they had to push it over.

Her world became a hut that had a bedroom, sitting room, and study. She could walk a little, but pain never left her. Her room of incarceration became her writing room. She had long used a typewriter, but while on her bed, she wrote in longhand on a writing stand. Her helper would then type for her.

She had always written much, but her two decades of being homebound saw her become amazingly prolific in writing. These difficult days are a major reason she became so well known around the world. She wrote hundreds of poems and stories, kept regular diaries, and published missions newsletters. She wrote about 35 books, yielding total sales of over half a million, with zero advertising. By the time she died, her works had been translated into 15 languages.

She wrote literally thousands of letters. Three themes dominated her correspondence: concern, encouragement, and most of all, love. To the end, she believed all of life should be characterized by love.

What did Amy Carmichael teach us? In order to please God, we need to help the helpless, die to self, pray, love, and stay faithful to the end. May God help us all to focus on Jesus and unity, resulting in deeds that will have influence forever.