\n<\/p>\n
Kneeling bedside, three-year-old Amy Carmichael begged God to make her eyes blue. Sadly, for the toddler, the prayer didn\u2019t spark a miracle.<\/p>\n
But decades later as a grown woman, after she had left Ireland to make her home in the then-British occupied India, she remembered her prayer as a child. With her fair skin, she would never truly blend in with the locals. But her brown eyes matched those of the people she lived among\u2014and that was one less distraction when trying to build relationships as a missionary.<\/p>\n
Carmichael moved to India at the age of 27 and never left. Much of her ministry was marked by disrupting cultural norms on temple prostitution. Her prayer life, a constant of her ministry and well-documented in her books and personal writings, revealed her boldness, stubbornness, and grit in circumstances that deeply challenged her\u2014characteristics she needed in her efforts to share the love of Christ with hundreds of women and children over her lifetime.<\/p>\n
The oldest of seven children, Amy Carmichael (1867\u20131951) was raised in a well-to-do Christian family in Millisle, Northern Ireland. She came to faith in Christ as a teenager while attending a Wesleyan Methodist boarding school in Yorkshire, England. But her time at school was cut short when she was forced to return home due to her family\u2019s financial difficulties.<\/p>\n
The family moved to Belfast for business, where her father died of pneumonia. Carmichael threw herself into serving others, beginning with her siblings\u2014a pattern of self-sacrifice that would carry through to her dying day. Such hardships caused Carmichael to cling to the Word and cry out to God in prayer, not only for comfort but for practical help.<\/p>\n
At one point, Carmichael\u2019s mother gathered the children to tell them that they had run out of money. The family\u2019s immediate reaction was not to worry, but to ask God to provide. These early experiences cultivated Carmichael\u2019s dependence on God. \u201cLuther said, \u2018He is not strong who is not firm in need,\u2019\u201d she later wrote, reflecting on Proverbs 24:10 for her devotional, Edges of His Ways<\/em>. \u201cSo, let us \u2018be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n One outcome of this prayerful reliance was Carmichael\u2019s ministry among the \u201cshawlies,\u201d a group of underprivileged women who worked in the local Belfast mills. She received permission from her pastor to use the church hall for hosting a special meeting for the mill girls. But many church members\u2014who were prejudiced against the poor, unchurched women from the slums\u2014didn\u2019t approve of this. They may have been relieved when the group outgrew their space and started praying for a new location in which to worship.<\/p>\n God answered their prayers through an elderly woman, who donated 500 pounds for the construction of a building on a small piece of land, purchased from the owner of a local mill. Thus, the Welcome Hall was built, a space that eventually became a center for working people in the community and that still exists as a church<\/a> today.<\/p>\n At the invitation of Robert Wilson, who later became an adoptive father to her, Carmichael attended the 1888 Keswick Convention<\/a>, a movement that sought to help people know God more. During the conference, she felt burdened by \u201cthe cry of the heathen\u201d and compelled to commit her life to Christian service.<\/p>\n Two years later, while thumbing through her prayer log, Carmichael heard the words, Go, ye<\/em>. And in obedience to those words, she soon became the first official Keswick missionary.<\/p>\n Carmichael originally planned to minister in China with China Inland Mission (CIM), but she was turned down on health grounds. This rejection did not change her conviction that God had called her to share the gospel overseas, however, and just a little over a year later in March 1893, Carmichael was accepted to the Japanese Evangelistic Band and boarded a ship.<\/p>\n Not long after she arrived in Japan, an elderly woman eagerly listened while Carmichael shared the good news of Christ\u2019s life, death, and resurrection\u2014but she became distracted by the missionary\u2019s fancy fur gloves. The conversation stirred a new conviction in Carmichael, and she resolved to follow the example of Hudson Taylor, missionary to China and CIM founder, who wore the same clothing as the people he engaged with in an attempt to minimize distractions for the sake of the gospel. Donning traditional Japanese clothes, Carmichael, alongside her co-laborer Misaki-san, saw their ministry begin to bear fruit.<\/p>\n However, she began to suffer from debilitating headaches and neuralgia. Having been advised to leave Japan and rest, she traveled to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) but was called home to Ireland to take care of Wilson, who had suffered a stroke. When Carmichael later returned to the mission field, it would not be to Japan but to a place where she would spend the rest of her life.<\/p>\n A century before Amy Carmichael arrived in India, William Carey opened the door to missions in the country, translating the Bible into more<\/a> than 15 languages and sharing the gospel to people from all social and economic classes. Burdened for the lost, Carey argued for the urgency of missions<\/a> for every Christian, inspiring many English speakers to go overseas.<\/p>\n But upon her arrival in Bangalore, Carmichael found that she did not fit in with the existing missionary community. At one point, she wrote<\/a> derisively:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n Onward Christian soldiers,
<\/p>\n Onward Christian soldiers,
\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n To her relief, a more serious missionary couple, Thomas and Catherine Walker, invited her to work with them in Tinnevelly (now Tirunelveli), a city in southern India, where she stayed for over a decade. The couple had an itinerant ministry, traveling to villages on foot or by ox cart. With the Walkers\u2019 help, she learned Tamil, the local language.<\/p>\n Though Carmichael wore the local sari, she rejected the customary jewels and bracelets, saying \u201cjewels were out of place in [God\u2019s] own chosen workers\u2014His separated ones\u201d; to wear them would be to conform to \u201cthe law of the fashion of this world.\u201d A group of newly converted believers followed her example, claiming Jesus as their jewel and calling themselves the \u201cStarry Cluster\u201d for Christ\u2019s light that shown through them.<\/p>\n During her travels with the Walkers, Carmichael encountered a temple woman who was \u201cmarried\u201d to the gods. Later, she learned that the woman was a prostitute who spent her life in sexual service to the priests and worshippers in Hindu temples. Poor families would often sell their children to the temples, where the children became sex slaves\u2014a practice that outraged Carmichael, who demanded social action.<\/p>\n \u201cThe discovery of this system was like a sword in Amy\u2019s missionary soul,\u201d Elisabeth Elliot later wrote in her biography of Carmichael, A Chance to Die<\/a><\/em>. \u201cSomething must be done. Someone must find a way somehow to touch these women for God.\u201d<\/p>\n In March 1901, Carmichael and the Starry Cluster arrived in Dohnavur, a place of refuge for persecuted Christians that had been established in 1827. The Dohnavur complex included small huts, houses, a church, and a group of nominal Christians. And it wasn\u2019t far from a Hindu temple in Great Lake, which housed temple girls who were \u201cmarried\u201d to various Hindu deities.<\/p>\n One day, a girl named Preena escaped from the Hindu temple and asked<\/a> to be taken to Carmichael. \u201cFrom that day she became my mother, body and soul,\u201d Preena later wrote, and through her, Carmichael\u2019s eyes were further opened to the child trafficking in the temples.<\/p>\n Soon after, Thomas Walker was recruited to teach divinity students in Dohnavur. So the Walker family, Carmichael, and the Starry Cluster settled down in what would eventually become the Dohnavur Fellowship\u2014a sanctuary for abandoned, abused, and traumatized children, with Carmichael as their full-time \u201cAmma,\u201d or mother. Hundreds of children received an education and health care, and learned to worship, work, and play together.<\/p>\n Dohnavur was an insulated atmosphere directed by Carmichael\u2019s tough convictions. She was sometimes harsh, especially in her disciplinary tactics, which included putting ink on the tongues of children who lied and hanging a sign that said \u201cLIE\u201d around the offender\u2019s neck, actions that in her eyes were all done in love.<\/p>\n \u201cIt matters that we should be true to one another, be loyal to what is a family\u2014only a little family in the great Household, but still a family, with family love alive in it and acting as a living bond,\u201d she later wrote. \u201cTo those of us who have lived this life for years it is inconceivable that one to whom this loyalty means nothing should wish to be one of us. It is not at all that we think that ours is the only way of living, but we are sure that it is the way meant for us.\u201d<\/p>\n Prospective missionaries who wanted to join this \u201cfamily\u201d were thoroughly vetted by Carmichael, whose high regard for holiness lent itself to an unbending, puritanical approach and often created friction between her and the missionary community.<\/p>\n In 1924, for example, the Neill family arrived<\/a>. The parents were medical doctors and their son, Stephen, came to help with the rescued boys\u2019 ministry. But conflicts soon arose between Stephen and Carmichael regarding treatment of the children at Dohnavur, and their matched determination, quick tempers, and differing views made it difficult to foster trust. Though the exact cause of the conflict remains unclear, the Neill family eventually left.<\/p>\n Soon thereafter, Carmichael withdrew from the Church of England\u2019s Zenana Missionary Society because it was linked with the Christian Missionary Society, which no longer affirmed<\/a> the inspiration of Scripture. These incidents may have moved her to develop a code of principles in 1926 to affirm that Scripture was the very Word of God.<\/p>\n But her conflicts with missionaries and societies were secondary to the practical, seemingly boundless needs of the growing Donhavur family, which required constant intercession. As detailed in Amy Carmichael: Rescuer by Night<\/em>, she journaled at one point, \u201cPrayer is the core of our day. Without it, the day would collapse.\u201d<\/p>\n Her team prayed for supplies, a nursery for the children, a vehicle, a hospital, a chapel house, and against spiritual warfare. This conviction even manifested in a House of Prayer that was later constructed in the middle of the compound, its towering windows overlooking the garden, nurseries, schoolrooms, and medical buildings.<\/p>\n Carmichael never took furlough or returned home to Ireland, even after falling into a pit, dislocating her ankle and breaking her leg. As Elliott later wrote, the incident happened the same day the missionary had prayed, \u201cDo anything, Lord, that will fit me to serve Thee and help my beloveds.\u201d<\/p>\n Carmichael was left with limited physical mobility and was largely bedridden for the last two decades of her life. But she continued to minister by penning words of encouragement, authoring a total of 35 books during her lifetime.<\/p>\n After serving in India for 55 years, Amy Carmichael died on January 18, 1951. Through her ministry, over 1,000 Indian children received an education, gained access to medical care, experienced the joy of belonging to a family, and heard the good news of the gospel.<\/p>\n To this day, Carmichael\u2019s legacy burns brightly through Dohnavur Fellowship<\/a>, where her great-grandchildren continue to share the love of Jesus Christ with others in need. And her words continue to minister to all who seek to live wholeheartedly for the Lord.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n From prayer that asks that I may be
<\/p>\n From subtle love of softening things,
<\/p>\n Give me the love that leads the way,
\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Hunter Beless is the host of the Journeywomen<\/span> podcast, the author of Amy Carmichael: The Brown-Eyed Girl Who Learned to Pray <\/span>and Read it, See it, Say it, Sing it!<\/span>, and she loves doing ministry in her local church. You can subscribe to “Scraps,” her monthly newsletter, at hunterbeless.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n\u2018How brave are we\u2019<\/h5>\n
\nSitting on the mats;
\nNice and warm and cozy
\nLike little pussycats.<\/p>\n
\nOh, how brave are we,
\nDon\u2019t we do our fighting
\nVery comfortably?<\/p>\n
\nSheltered from winds that beat on Thee,
\nFrom fearing when I should aspire,
\nFrom faltering when I should climb higher,
\nFrom silken self, O Captain, free
\nThy soldier who would follow Thee.<\/p>\n
\nFrom easy choices, weakenings,
\n(Not thus are spirits fortified,
\nNot this way went the Crucified,)
\nFrom all that dims Thy Calvary,
\nO Lamb of God, deliver me.<\/p>\n
\nThe faith that nothing can dismay
\nThe hope no disappointments tire
\nThe passion that will burn like fire,
\nLet me not sink to be a clod,
\nMake me Thy fuel, Flame of God.<\/p>\n