Amy Carmichael was from Ireland. She was born in
1867 into a Christian family. Excerpts about her life are taken from
the Gospel Fellowship Association website
http://www.gfamissions.org/missionary-biographies/carmichael-amy-1867-1951.html.
Amy Carmichael was one of the best-known and respected missionaries of the first half of the 20th
century. “Her 35 books have blessed countless thousands.” One who
knew her well gives this testimony: "Miss Carmichael was a
blessing to all who came into intimate and understanding contact with
her radiant life. She was the most Christ-like character I ever met,
and her life was the most fragrant, the most joyfully sacrificial that I
have ever known."
“When she was age 18, her father died, leaving the
family in difficult financial circumstances as he had given a large
personal loan that was not repaid. The family moved to Belfast. There
she became involved in visiting in the slums,
and seeing the terrible conditions under which many women and girls
worked in the factories, she began a ministry with these women. It was a
work based on faith alone in God, and He met the needs in most
remarkable ways.”
“Amy received her Macedonian call in 1892 at the
age of 24; and the following year, as the first appointee of the
Keswick's missions committee, she went to Japan. But there she met with
disappointments. The Japanese language seemed impossible
to her, and the missionary community was not the picture of harmony she
had envisioned. Likewise, her health was also a problem. After 15
months as a missionary, Amy became convinced that Japan was not where
God wanted her, so without notifying the Keswick
Convention, she sailed for Ceylon.”
She returned to England for one year to care for a
dying friend then went to India. “She arrived in Madras in November of
1895, a discouraged, confused, and ill young Irish woman. She was 28
years old. Soon after her arrival, she contracted
Dengue Fever, which laid her low for a period of time.”
“A life-changing experience took place in 1901. A
little five-year-old girl, named Pearl Eyes by Amy, was brought to her
by an Indian woman. The child had been sold by the mother to the
temple, and there she was being prepared and taught
all the degradation of temple prostitution. Twice she had run away
only to be caught, carried back, beaten, and subjected to the terrible
perversion of that Hindu temple. Finally, as she was running away again
at night, she met with this understanding woman
who brought her to Amy, who gathered the child up into her lap and
picked up the rag doll and gave it to the child to play with. It was
then that she really truly understood the evil of the temple practice.
Little Pearl Eyes talked freely as she played with
the doll. She told Amy things that they did to her in the temple,
demonstrating them using the doll. The date was March 7, 1901. Amy
never forgot that day nor the child's story. It was terrible beyond
imagination. This was the beginning of her rescue
of these children who had been dedicated to the temple gods.”
“Amy was greatly influenced by the life of George
Mueller and ordered her work on the same basis, never asking for
financial help except as she winged her petitions to the God of all
grace.”
“In 1931 Amy had a fall that left her an invalid
for the remainder of her life, and she seldom left her bed. It was
during this period of her life that she was most prolific in writing.
Occasionally someone would wheel her in a type of
wheelchair out onto a veranda where her children would gather outside
and greet her and sing to her.”
“Amy
was very self-effacing-would never allow her photograph to be taken and
never referred to herself by name or personal pronoun in her
writings.”
Upon a life I did not live,
Upon a death I did not die,
Another's life, another's death,
I stake my whole eternity.
YBIC
Bruce Baber