May 6 – Kidnapper
I didn’t grow up knowing about Amy Carmichael, in fact I was well into my 30s before I heard of her, but her faith and independence inspire me.
She grew up in Ireland, the child of devout Christians. Her mother had always told her that if she would pray, God would answer. How many children … how many of us believe that to be true and so we pray quite selfishly. She prayed for blue eyes over and over and every morning when she woke and discovered that her eyes continued to be brown was disappointed. But, she told the story because in her later years, as a missionary to India realized that those same brown eyes were one step towards her acceptance with the Indian people, whereas blue eyes would have set her apart.
She had always believed she was a Christian, but when an evangelist challenged her to accept Jesus Christ personally, her life was transformed. In the mid 1880s, the year her father died, she began a class for young women who worked in the factories. They were too poor to purchase hats, which all the women wore to church. All they could afford was a shawl. To these ‘shawlies,’ Amy opened her Bible and her heart. The number of girls that came to her classes grew and grew until she needed to find a hall that would seat 500. She did so and stayed with this until she was called to another area of Ireland to work with yet more mill girls.
In 1887, Amy heard Hudson Taylor speak and recognized God’s call on her life for mission work in Asia. She began praying and praying about it and wrote down every reason why she shouldn’t go, including her sickness – neuralgia – a disease of the nerves that would send her to bed for weeks on end. But, she heard God say “Go.” She questioned Him again and again and heard Him say, “Go.”
She began in Japan, but her neuralgia was so bad, a doctor advised her to leave that climate. She moved on to India, where she learned about young girls who were taken to Hindu temples and used as prostitutes to make money for the priests. She established an organization – the Dohnavur Fellowship which cared for over one thousand children, some of whom she herself kidnapped from the temples.
Amy died in 1951 at the age of 83. She had requested that no stone be placed over her grave, but the children placed a birdbath over it with the inscription “Amma” which means ‘mother.’
The quotation most often attributed to Amy Carmichael described her life: “One can give without loving, but one cannot love without giving.”
I didn’t grow up knowing about Amy Carmichael, in fact I was well into my 30s before I heard of her, but her faith and independence inspire me.
She grew up in Ireland, the child of devout Christians. Her mother had always told her that if she would pray, God would answer. How many children … how many of us believe that to be true and so we pray quite selfishly. She prayed for blue eyes over and over and every morning when she woke and discovered that her eyes continued to be brown was disappointed. But, she told the story because in her later years, as a missionary to India realized that those same brown eyes were one step towards her acceptance with the Indian people, whereas blue eyes would have set her apart.
She had always believed she was a Christian, but when an evangelist challenged her to accept Jesus Christ personally, her life was transformed. In the mid 1880s, the year her father died, she began a class for young women who worked in the factories. They were too poor to purchase hats, which all the women wore to church. All they could afford was a shawl. To these ‘shawlies,’ Amy opened her Bible and her heart. The number of girls that came to her classes grew and grew until she needed to find a hall that would seat 500. She did so and stayed with this until she was called to another area of Ireland to work with yet more mill girls.
In 1887, Amy heard Hudson Taylor speak and recognized God’s call on her life for mission work in Asia. She began praying and praying about it and wrote down every reason why she shouldn’t go, including her sickness – neuralgia – a disease of the nerves that would send her to bed for weeks on end. But, she heard God say “Go.” She questioned Him again and again and heard Him say, “Go.”
She began in Japan, but her neuralgia was so bad, a doctor advised her to leave that climate. She moved on to India, where she learned about young girls who were taken to Hindu temples and used as prostitutes to make money for the priests. She established an organization – the Dohnavur Fellowship which cared for over one thousand children, some of whom she herself kidnapped from the temples.
Amy died in 1951 at the age of 83. She had requested that no stone be placed over her grave, but the children placed a birdbath over it with the inscription “Amma” which means ‘mother.’
The quotation most often attributed to Amy Carmichael described her life: “One can give without loving, but one cannot love without giving.”
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