Chapter 8
Chapter 8
Get the Head out of Japan
The fainting was what finally did it. Amy had fainted only once before, back in Ireland when she’d held her younger brother Albert still while the doctor sewed up a gash in his arm. But in Imichi, the Japanese village she was visiting, she had fainted again. She had been out cold with no good excuse. One minute she was talking to several of the local Christians about the evening service where she was to speak, and the next minute she was lying flat on the floor. Kimono hems and the clacking of wooden shoes quickly surrounded her as some Japanese women placed damp towels on her forehead and tried to lift her up off the cold floor. Amy was shocked by what had happened. Even feeling as weak as she had in the past few months, she was supposed to be the strong one. After all, she had once told someone that fainting was nothing more than “weak-minded nonsense!”
Amy scrambled to her feet and apologized to everyone. Several concerned people suggested she call off the meeting, but Amy would not hear of it. She was the scheduled speaker, and speak she would. It turned out to be a long service, and although Amy made it through without fainting again, she paid a price for it. That church service was the last one she ever held in Japan.
When she got back to Matsuye, Barclay Buxton sent for a doctor right away. The doctor’s diagnosis was “Japanese head,” a rather vague catchall diagnosis for headaches, weakness, and dizziness. There was only one solution for Japanese head: Get the head out of Japan!
The thing Amy dreaded most had happened. Her body was not nearly as strong as her spirit. Barclay Buxton suggested it might be best for her to recuperate at Chefoo on the coast of China. The China Inland Mission had a house there for sick missionaries, and he was sure they would allow Amy to make use of it as well. There seemed to be no other course of action for her to take. After only fifteen months in Japan, Amy said a sad farewell to the country and the missionaries she’d worked with and boarded a steamer for China. She was on her way to throw herself on the mercy of a mission that had rejected her for health reasons. It was humbling for Amy, and she hoped it would not be long before she was better and able to continue her mission work.
After a tedious voyage, Amy finally arrived in Shanghai, where she was met by some women from the China Inland Mission. The women had bad news for her. The house in Chefoo was already filled to overflowing with sick missionaries, and there was no room for Amy. The women offered to let Amy stay with them in Shanghai, and Amy gratefully accepted. After a week of complete rest, she began to feel well enough to think again and, of course, to pray. She asked God what to do next, and seemingly from nowhere came the very distinct impression that she should go to Colombo, Ceylon.
The idea left Amy feeling weak again. Ceylon! How would that be any different from Japan? And what would the Keswick people back in England who supported her think? From the outside she looked like a sick woman touring Asia at her supporters’ expense. Would God ever let her settle in one place, or was she going to spend a year here and a year there for the rest of her life?
While Amy didn’t have any answers, and weak as she felt, she knew as well as she knew her own name she was supposed to go to Ceylon. So she paid out ten pounds for a ticket, and on July 28, 1894, she boarded another ship, this time bound for Colombo.
Once again, she was met by kind missionaries, who took her to their station and nursed her. Amy wrote to Robert Wilson and to her mother, explaining how she had ended up in Ceylon. Mrs. Carmichael wrote back and suggested Amy might consider coming home. Home! Amy would not hear of it. Her health was improving in Colombo, and she was back in the thick of missionary work again. She wrote another letter to her mother in which she said, “…the pain is over now and I am strong for the battle again.”
That was Amy’s opinion of her health, but it was not the opinion of the mission doctor who examined her. The doctor told Amy she had “brain exhaustion” and needed complete rest! Amy tried to rest the best she could, but she kept seeing so much mission work that needed to be done, enough work to last her a lifetime.
Amy stubbornly refused to even consider leaving Ceylon; that is, until November 27, 1894. That morning when Amy returned from a meeting she found a letter waiting for her. As she turned it over she recognized the return address, Broughton Grange, but not the handwriting. Who besides Robert Wilson would be writing to her from the Grange? She tore the envelope open. The letter was from Robert Wilson’s son William. In the letter, William told Amy that his father had suffered a serious stroke and had asked her to come home immediately.
If Robert Wilson wanted Amy, nothing on earth would keep her away. Amy whirled into action, and within twenty-four hours she was on her way back to England. To get there faster, she booked passage only as far as Naples, Italy. From there she would travel across Europe by train, cross the English Channel by boat, and then go by train again on to London, where her mother would meet her. If all went well, she hoped to arrive in England by her twenty-seventh birthday. Her plan sounded good, but in truth, Amy was still seriously ill, and there were many days during the sea voyage from Ceylon when she didn’t even leave her bunk. There were days when she didn’t eat a thing and days when her ever-present diary was left completely blank.
Amy disembarked the ship in Naples, but she had little strength to get herself to the train station and onto the train for Rome. Not to mention changing trains in Rome for Paris or getting across town in Paris to board another train for Calais. And then there was crossing the English Channel. Just as she had been on her arrival in Japan, Amy was at the mercy of strangers. And strangers were kind to her. First Italian people and then French people saw she was in need of help. Kind strangers escorted her from one train to the next, until finally on December 15, 1894, Amy arrived in London.
Amy was met at the station by her mother. She was so exhausted from the journey that she stepped off the train and fell into her mother’s arms. She had heard no news on the trip and so was eager to find out whether Robert Wilson was still alive. Her mother assured her he was very much alive and looking forward to seeing her. But before she could make the trip up to Broughton Grange, she had to rest and regain her strength. It was nine days later, on Christmas Eve, before she was strong enough to make the train journey north to the Grange.
Robert Wilson was beginning to recover from his stroke, and seeing Amy was the best medicine he could possibly have hoped for. The two of them spent hours in the library together. Amy told him all about her missionary adventures, and he convinced her to have her letters home from Japan published in a book. Amy had so many wonderful insights and such a good way with words that it would be a shame not to give English Christians the opportunity to view missions work through her eyes. For the next six months, besides taking care of Robert Wilson, Amy gathered her letters into the manuscript for a book. She drew many of the sketches in the book herself, and William Wilson drew the rest. How different things were from the early days at the Grange when the Wilson brothers didn’t want Amy around.
Amy titled the book From Sunrise Land. The book was an instant success, and within a few months of publication, it went into its second printing. Once Amy had finished the book, she began to wonder what to do next. The doctor said that her health was still delicate, much too delicate to attempt another missionary journey. As she puzzled over what to do, the weeks turned into months, and life for Amy fell into almost the same routine it had been in before she left for Japan. On the outside it looked as if nothing had really changed. But on the inside, Amy was a different person. She had experienced the mission field firsthand. She had worked through her views on national dress and on following “harmless” local customs like keeping idols, and she had learned how to hear God’s voice and follow it. But what was she supposed to do with all of this experience that was now locked inside her? She began to pray hard.
Shortly afterwards, Amy received a letter from a friend in Bangalore, in southern India. Her friend was a nurse and in charge of a hospital supported by the Church of England’s Zenana Mission Society. She told Amy that the climate in the mountains where Bangalore was located was very pleasant and healthy, not too hot and not too cold, with none of the extremes the climate in China or Japan had. She asked Amy whether she would consider coming to work with her in Bangalore. Amy was willing to consider anything, but she felt it was a little like “cheating” to take the easy way out and go to a place with a mild climate. On the other hand, she was eager to get back to the mission field, and it seemed unlikely that any doctor would let her go back to a place that had a harsh climate. Amy settled in her mind that if the Zenana Mission Society would accept her as a missionary, knowing her physical condition and that she did not belong to the Church of England, she would go to Bangalore.
After a series of interviews with the mission society, in July 1895, Amy was accepted on the spot to work in southern India. Once again the Keswick Society agreed to sponsor and support her. Three months later, Amy was again waving good-bye to Robert Wilson. They had just spent his seventieth birthday together, and because he was getting older, she knew this time it was unlikely she’d ever see him again. What she didn’t know was that she would never again set foot in the British Isles. She had bought a one-way ticket to India, believing that was where God had called her. Indeed, it was the last ocean voyage she ever made. She would never leave India.