Amy Carmichael Becomes Missionary Mum

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Amy Carmichael met Pearl-Eyes on March 7, 1901.

Born on 16 December, 1867, into an Irish Presbyterian home, and the oldest of seven children, Amy was truly converted in a Wesleyan Methodist school at the age of 16.

The next crisis in her life was nearly three years later when she attended a holiness convention in Glasgow.  Here she made a full surrender to her Lord. As a young woman she ministered to the women working in Belfast’s textile mills.

Amy heard Hudson Taylor of China Inland Mission describe the great need for missionaries. “In China,” he said, “four thousand souls a day are dying without Christ”. Amy’s all-consuming desire to spread the Gospel, coupled with her love of excitement and strong personality, seemed a perfect fit the mission life. Amy decided she would never marry or have a family, but would spread the Gospel in foreign lands.

So in 1893 (March 3, at the age of 26) we find her sailing for Japan, the first missionary sent out by the Keswick Convention (UK).  Two years later – after health problems forced her to return to England – we find her in Bangalore, India.  And there she remained for 56 years without a furlough!

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Then Amy met Preena (or Pearl-Eyes) – a seven year-old girl who had escaped from one of the Hindu temples where she had been sold by her parents to work as a ‘temple prostitute’.

Preena had escaped from the temple once before, making her way back to her mother. The mother, however, was afraid the gods would punish her so she took the terrified and screaming child back to the temple. Preena’s hands were branded in punishment.

On her next attempt to escape Preena ran to a church in the village where one of the local women took her to Amy. Preena climbed onto Amy’s lap and called her “Amma”, which is Tamil for Mother.

Displeased people from the temple came screaming and yelling, but their anger slowly subsided and the crowd dispersed. Thus Amy was left with Preena.

Amy had already given up the idea of family, so she could serve the Lord unencumbered. Now she was faced with a child who needed her care. She knew the Tamil saying, ‘Children tie the mother’s feet’, and wondered if the Lord was calling her from her teaching and preaching to the more mundane domestic role of mother.

So began the work of what would later be known as Dohnavur Fellowship.

A righteously angry Amy Carmichael began her crusade against the infamous child prostitution practice. Initially dozens of little girls were rescued from temple prostitution and hundreds of others from extreme poverty or neglect. By 1923 Amy was running 30 nurseries to care for these young girls who had been dedicated to prostitution, either by “sacred vow” of family members or for money.

In 1945 a missionary statesman visited her headquarters at Dohnavur and wrote:  “The number of children about to be dedicated to Hindu gods who were rescued by Miss Carmichael now runs into several thousands…  There are now over 800 children in her three homes…”

Dohnavur is situated in Tamil Nadu, just 30 miles from the southern tip of India. It was a safe, secluded place when Amma and friends decided to live there, but has since developed into a bustling city.

Amy did not treat her project as an orphanage. Children are taken into the community as life members. They even take on a new family name, Carunia, which is Tamil for ‘lovingkindness’.

Temple prostitution was officially outlawed in India in 1948, which did not eradicate the practice, but reduced it significantly.

Amy’s orphans experienced an amazing revival in 1905, known as the Donhavur Revival. Further information about that great event can be found at another post: http://chrisfieldblog.com/ministry/church-history/dohnavur-revival

Amy experienced a serious fall in 1931.  “For nearly 20 years she scarcely left her room, and for the last two and a half years of her life she could not get out of bed at all.”  (God’s Madcap, by Nancy Robbins, page 93).  Her longing for the Lord to take her home was fulfilled on 18 January, 1951.

Amy’s heritage was to be totally abandoned to the Lord Jesus, not to lead a life of ease, but to give one’s life for others.

“If by doing some work which the undiscerning consider ‘not spiritual work’ I can best help others, and I inwardly rebel, thinking it is the spiritual for which I crave, when in truth it is the interesting and the exciting, then I know nothing of Calvary love.” Amy Carmichael

Find hundreds of succinct Church History posts at: http://chrisfieldblog.com/topics/ministry/church-history

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This post is based on notes by my late friend Donald Prout. I have updated these historical posts with information gleaned from other sources. I am indebted to Don for awakening in me an interest in Church History. Don’s notes can be found at: www.donaldprout.com

Dohnavur Revival Breaks Out In Southern India

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This is the day that Revival came to Dohnavur, under the care of Amy Carmichael. It was 1905.

Amy Carmichael’s ministry began in Ireland where she reached out to women working in the factories. She was influenced by the Keswick Movement calling people to enter a deeper life of devotion.

In 1893 she went to Japan at age 25, where she stayed for just over a year. During that time she was challenged about her culture getting in the way of her ministry.

She recounts the experience as follows. “We went to see an old lady who was very ill. She had not heard the Gospel before, but was willing and eager to listen. … She seemed to be just about to turn to Him in faith when she suddenly noticed my hands. It was cold weather and I had on fur gloves. `What are these?’ she asked, stretching out her hand and touching mine. She was old and ill and easily distracted. … I went home, took off my English clothes, put on my Japanese kimono, and never again, I trust, risked so very much for the sake of so little.”

She went to South India because “the Lord told me to follow Him down to Ceylon”. She then spent the rest of her life (57 years) in Dohnavur saving children from temple prostitution. After 12 years she had 130 children under her care. She formed a Protestant religious order called “Sisters of the Common Life”, emphasizing celibacy, mysticism, fellowship, and service. She also wrote 35 books detailing life in India and sharing testimonies about her work. Bishop Houghton was attracted to learn more about her when he discovered that she did not include photographs of herself in her books.

Ten years into her missionary service in India a wonderful revival broke out. Amy Carmichael had spent the previous five years rescuing young girls from a life of misery and shame before the revival fell at Dohnavur.

Dohnavur was a refuge that had previously been set up with funding from a Swedish-Prussian Count Dohna (hence its name in his honour). When Amy Carmichael began rescuing girls she was able to use this refuge as her base.

Child devadasis are literally “female servants/slaves of god”, so they were temple courtesans, dancers and prostitutes. Amy was able to rescue huge numbers of these girls from a life of slavery and degradation.

One Sunday, as the group of children met for worship, revival came. Let us read of the blessing that fell – in Amy’s own words.

“On 22 October, to quote one of the little girls, Jesus came to Dohnavur. He was there before, but on that day He came in so vivid a fashion that we cannot wonder that it struck the child as a new coming.

“It was at the close of the morning service that the break came. The one who was speaking was obliged to stop, overwhelmed by a sudden realization of the inner force of things. It was impossible even to pray. One of the older lads in the boys’ school began to try to pray, but he broke down, then another, then all together, the older lads chiefly at first.

“Soon many among the younger ones began to cry bitterly, and pray for forgiveness. It spread to the women. Our children began, I think, simultaneously with the boys, but it was so startling and so awful, I can use no other word, that the details escape me. Soon the whole upper half of the church was on its face on the floor crying to God, each boy and girl, man and woman, oblivious of all others. The sound was like the sound of waves or strong wind in the trees. No separate voice could be heard … nothing disturbed those who were praying, and that hurricane of prayer continued with one short break of a few minutes for over four hours. They passed like four minutes.”
(From Amy Carmichael, by Bishop F. Houghton).

This post is based on the work of my late friend Donald Prout whose love for books and Christian history led him to collate a daily Christian calendar. I continue to work with Don’s wife, Barbara, to share his life work with the world. I have updated some of these historical posts and will hopefully draw from Don’s huge files of clippings to continue this series beyond Don’s original work. More of Don’s work can be found at www.donaldprout.com. I am indebted to Don for awakening in me an interest in Church History, which I previously considered to be a little stuffy and of little practical value. I find in the process of updating Don’s Christian Diary that I am being constantly refreshed, illuminated or challenged by the lives of those who have gone before.