Chapter 16
Chapter 16
A Strange Sense of Joy
It was three o’clock in the morning on May 10, 1909. Amy sat quietly under a banyan tree. She was partly hidden in the shadows. That was the way she wanted it. She could see about a mile down the moonlit road, but no one could see her. She was waiting for someone, someone she hoped could help her.
It had all started two months earlier when a young girl and her mother came rushing up the steps of the bungalow yelling for refuge. Amy sat them down and poured cups of steaming tea while the mother told her story. Her twelve-year-old daughter Muttammal was her only child. Muttammal’s father had recently died and left all his possessions, including several thousand rupees worth of land, to her. That is where the trouble had started. Muttammal was now a very rich girl, and for her father’s family, the most important task was to keep her land and wealth in the family. This, they decided, would be easy. All they had to do was marry Muttammal off to one of her father’s relatives. An old man, a distant cousin of Muttammal’s father who had no wife at the time, was chosen to be her husband and so secure the family’s wealth. Muttammal’s mother told Amy she was horrified at the thought of her daughter being married off to someone old enough to be her grandfather, and she had escaped to Dohnavur with her daughter.
Amy immediately offered to look after Muttammal, and her mother disappeared as quickly as she’d arrived. When her mother was gone, Muttammal finally found her voice. “Promise me whatever happens, you will not make me leave here,” she begged Amy.
Amy tried to be as reassuring as possible, though she knew there had been times when the Dohnavur family had been ordered by the court to give up girls, and they had done as directed. “I can’t promise you that, but we’ll do our best,” she told Muttammal.
The answer was not good enough for Muttammal. Four years before she had heard of Dohnavur and the Christian God and how He answered prayer. “But I have heard that your God answers prayer. Won’t He answer the prayer of a little girl?” she asked.
“Let’s pray together and see what happens,” Amy answered.
Meanwhile, Amy had found out more about Muttammal’s mother, who was not the kind, caring woman she had pretended to be. In fact, she was as greedy as her husband’s family. She did not want Muttammal to marry the old man because she was looking for a way to keep Muttammal’s money for herself.
Amy was sickened by the way both the mother and father’s family viewed Muttammal as a way to get rich. Amy had grown to love Muttammal and felt she deserved to live with people who cared about her.
Iyer Walker had been away when Muttammal arrived, but as soon as he returned, Amy filled him in on the details. Because Muttammal had been left at Dohnavur by her mother to keep her out of the reach of the father’s family, Iyer Walker had a bad feeling about the situation. To protect themselves legally, he urged Amy to speak with the local magistrate and seek his advice. Amy did so the next day, and the magistrate told her she should return Muttammal to her mother immediately.
Amy didn’t know what to do, but she did not believe in breaking the law. She decided to wait a day before returning Muttammal to her mother in the hope some legal way to keep her might be found. She prayed for a solution, even a miracle, through the night. But in the morning, things were exactly as they had been the night before, and Muttammal had to be returned to her mother.
That is what had led Amy to be under the banyan tree at three o’clock in the morning. She’d heard that a high court official might be passing through on a journey early in the morning. Sure enough, at about 4:00 a.m., Amy heard the rumbling of a bandy in the distance. She stood and waited for it to come nearer. When it was close enough, she darted out of the shadows and flagged it down. The English official riding inside was astonished to see a single white woman in a sari running out to greet him, especially at four in the morning. However, he stopped and accepted Amy’s unusual invitation to have a cup of tea and a sandwich. As the official sat under the tree eating his sandwich and drinking his tea, Amy told him the story of Muttammal and how both sides of her family were fighting over her custody to gain control of her inheritance.
The official listened and nodded sympathetically or raised his eyebrows or shook his head at all the right moments. Amy felt sure that he understood. But then he told her the bad news. He was sorry, but there was nothing he could do. India had its own strange and mysterious ways, and it was not British Empire policy to interfere with matters of religion or local custom, no matter how unacceptable they seemed to the English.
Amy thanked him, and after he’d proceeded on with his journey, she wearily packed up her teapot and china cups into a basket and walked back to the bungalow in Dohnavur. As she walked past paddy fields and sleeping bullocks, she tried to think of a solution. Muttammal had such a simple faith in God. Amy was sure something would happen to save her from her terrible circumstances. And something did happen, though it was not what Amy had in mind. Muttammal was kidnapped by her father’s brothers. Of course, this made her mother very angry, and she went straight to court to get her daughter back. Eventually, the judge ordered Amy to look after Muttammal at Dohnavur until it was decided which side of her family should get her. There were two conditions to this temporary custody. First, Amy had to promise that Muttammal would not change her religion, which to a Hindu meant she would not be baptized, and second, Muttammal had to keep caste.
The second condition was more difficult to keep than the first. Muttammal was from a high caste and could not eat food cooked by someone of a lower caste or even eat in the presence of a lower-caste person. This meant that she had to prepare and eat all her own food alone in a tiny room. It was an inconvenience for everyone, but Amy tried hard to help Muttammal stick to the agreement with the court.
Muttammal begged Amy to be allowed to stay at Dohnavur for good. Finally, Amy agreed. Someone had to speak up for the child. Amy didn’t know how, but she would find some way to gain permanent custody of Muttammal. She would need a good lawyer, though, and good lawyers were very expensive. But Amy managed to find one she could afford. A Christian lawyer from Madras offered to take on Muttammal’s case for free! Amy and her lawyer quickly filed for custody, and while court hearings were being continually delayed, Amy and the family grew to love Muttammal even more. Muttammal fit in easily, and although she knew she couldn’t be baptized, she became a Christian in her heart.
Time dragged on. Amy kept Muttammal with her nearly all the time. She realized that if the Dohnavur family let down their guard for a moment, Muttammal could easily be kidnapped again. All her father’s family needed to do was tie a marriage jewel onto her, and it would be too late; she would be officially married to the old man. As the court case dragged on, it became more and more complicated, more and more costly, and more and more stressful for Amy. She longed for it all to be over.
Muttammal’s court case was not the only thing on Amy’s mind. The family at Dohnavur was growing rapidly. Amy was now Amma to more than one hundred girls. This meant that more staff were needed, and Amy was thankful when Frances Beath, an Australian missionary, joined the family. There was also a constant stream of visitors to Dohnavur. It seemed people were reading Things As They Are and deciding to come to India to see Amy’s work for themselves. One person who was visiting at the time was Mabel Beath, Frances’s sister. Amy welcomed her as she welcomed everyone who came to visit: She put Mabel straight to work!
Finally, after much delay, March 27, 1911, was set as the day the custody trial would be settled. On the night before, Iyer Walker escorted Amy to Palamcottah, where the verdict was to be read. Amy prayed that God would somehow make a way for Muttammal to stay with them. Muttammal herself had stayed behind in Dohnavur with Ponnammal. Although Muttammal was still safe with the family, Amy knew that if the judge ordered Muttammal to be handed over to her mother or her father’s family, she would have to obey his order. As she entered the courtroom, she thought about two nights before when she had stayed up all night talking with Muttammal. Amy had hoped to encourage her, but just the opposite had happened. Muttammal had such a strong faith in God and a trust that things would work out that she had encouraged Amy.
The courtroom was sweltering as the clerk read the judge’s verdict. Page after page of elaborately phrased summary was read. Finally, after listening to the clerk read for over an hour, Amy heard the news she had dreaded for nearly two years. Muttammal was to go back to her mother, and Amy had to pay all of her mother’s legal expenses for the trial. Muttammal was to be handed over to her mother on April 4.
It should have been a moment of complete defeat for Amy, but somehow it wasn’t. Amy felt a strange sense of joy, and somewhere deep inside she knew that everything was going to work out.
Amy’s lawyer thought she should appeal the verdict immediately, and so without much enthusiasm for yet another round of court cases, Amy agreed to go to Madras to meet with the lawyer yet again.
The night before Amy was due to catch the train from Palamcottah to Madras, she received a message from Iyer Walker, who had returned to Dohnavur. The message made her trip to Madras unnecessary. It read, “When I returned home on Thursday morning, it was reported to me that Muttammal had disappeared…”
Amy was stunned. Conflicting thoughts rushed through her mind. Had Muttammal been kidnapped by her father’s family? Was she already married? Or had she run away? Had someone in the Dohnavur family helped her? And what did this mean for Amy and the rest of the girls? The judge was sure to think Amy had arranged for Muttammal to go into hiding. He could find her in contempt of court and throw her in jail. That could mean the end of the Dohnavur family. Amy hurried back to Dohnavur as fast as she could to find out what had happened to Muttammal.
She questioned everyone, but no one seemed to know anything about Muttammal’s disappearance. Ponnammal had seen her go to bed in the evening, but when Muttammal didn’t show up for her chores the following morning, Frances Beath had gone to find her. But Muttammal wasn’t in her room, and not a single thing of hers had been taken or disturbed. Her bed roll was unwrapped, which suggested she had slept there. Beyond that, Amy could learn nothing more. She was sure no one was lying to her, but she was also sure Muttammal couldn’t have disappeared the way she did on her own. It was a mystery.
Amy had plenty of other things besides the mystery to think about. Many people had followed the case of Muttammal, and now that the girl was missing there was a public outcry against Amy and her work. Amy turned to another English lawyer to review the case for her. His advice to Amy was to the point: “I advise you to disappear with all your children and cover your tracks. If you cannot do that, I do not know what else you could do to save them all, except faith.”
Amy shuddered. She had spoken up for Muttammal, and now she was in danger of losing her whole family and ending up in a Madras jail. Yet she couldn’t forget the feeling of joy that had flooded her when she heard the verdict. Somehow she knew that God would work things out. As it was, she had no other choice but to hold on to her faith. There was no way an English Amma and more than a hundred girls could hide themselves anywhere in India, even if they wanted to!
Amy and the family prayed about the situation every day. They prayed for Muttammal. They asked that she would be kept safe wherever she was, and they prayed that no court case would be filed against Amy because of Muttammal’s disappearance. And none was filed. Once Muttammal was gone, her father’s family and her mother seemed to lose interest in her, and the whole matter of where she had gone or who had taken her was forgotten. Amy supposed that the families were too busy fighting over the inheritance Muttammal had left behind to care about where she might be.
Amy was still left with a huge legal bill, though. Her own lawyer had donated his time, but Muttammal’s mother’s lawyer had cost a great deal of money, money Amy didn’t have. The last thing Amy needed was to be held in contempt of court for refusing to pay the mother’s legal bills in addition to “losing” Muttammal. Just in the nick of time, an anonymous donation arrived at Dohnavur that would cover the legal bills. It was the exact amount needed, right down to the last rupee. Amy was delighted; she knew that God still had His hand on the whole situation.
It was not until October 1911, seven long months after Muttammal had disappeared, that Amy received a letter postmarked from Kwangsi Province in China. Amy tore the envelope open and began to read. The letter was written in Muttammal’s neat handwriting and told an almost unbelievable story. The night they had heard the judge’s verdict, Muttammal had gone to bed as usual. During the night she had been awakened by Mabel Beath, the visiting sister of Frances. Mabel had taken Muttammal to her room and dressed her as a Muslim boy. Then Mabel had taken her outside the compound and told her to wait. Soon after, a bullock cart lumbered by, and Muttammal was beckoned to climb aboard. Not knowing what else to do, she had obeyed. The driver of the bullock cart turned out to be a Christian from a nearby mission. He had handed Muttammal to another Christian, and so it had gone, passing her from one Christian to another until she had arrived in Colombo, Ceylon. There an Englishman escorted her to Malaya, Singapore, and then to Hong Kong. From there they traveled by junk six hundred miles up the West River to the town of Nanning in Kwangsi Province. In Nanning, Muttammal was delivered to the home of an American missionary couple, Dr. and Mrs. Clift, with whom Muttammal was finally safe and happy.
Amy lay down the letter and smiled. Joy flooded over her with the knowledge that her “daughter” was safe. She wiped the tears of joy from her eyes as she tried to imagine all the Christian strangers who had spent time and money to escort a girl they had never met before on an amazing journey. She thanked God for faithfully watching over one young Indian girl who had put her faith in Him.
Amy tucked the letter into her sari and went to find Iyer Walker, who had been there to support her through all the ups and downs of the custody case. She wanted him to be the first to know the good news about Muttammal.
Amy would not have Iyer Walker to lean on for much longer. In August 1912, he was preaching in a series of meetings at Masulipatam. On August 24, Amy received two telegrams. The first, which had been delayed for two days, said that Thomas (Iyer) Walker was dangerously ill. The second bore the message, “Revelation 22:4.” Amy reached for her worn Bible and flipped to the last page. She scanned down to the verse “And his servants shall serve him, and they shall see his face.” Amy sat for a long time after reading the verse. It could mean only one thing: Her dear friend who had taught her the Tamil language and supported her through all the trials and tribulations of starting the Starry Cluster and then the family at Dohnavur was dead. He was fifty-two years old when he died, and the news of his death left Amy in a daze. It was so difficult to believe that the healthy man who had left just a week before was dead. As the week went on, Amy heard that Iyer Walker had died of food poisoning. She also had the heartbreaking task of contacting his wife, who was back in England and still very sick.
For a few days, it seemed as though grief might overcome Amy. Iyer Walker had been like a big brother to her, and news of his death had come several weeks after news of the death of her other special friend in India, Mrs. Hopwood, in Ooty. Amy had always gathered a team around her for support and encouragement, but now she was on her own. How would she cope without these special people?
The women who worked with Amy were concerned for her. Ponnammal tried to help. “It is very difficult to see how this is for the best,” she told Amy.
Amy replied, “It is not difficult to see how this is for the best; it is impossible. But we are asked to walk not by sight but by faith, and only faith can allow us to let Iyer Walker go without bitterness.”
Amy prayed for the strength to go on, and within days of Iyer Walker’s death, two new helpers arrived to work alongside her. While they could never fill the gap left by Iyer Walker, they were very helpful. They were two sisters, Edith and Agnes Naish, who had both been missionaries in India for many years. As soon as they had heard of Iyer Walker’s death, they had given up their own plans and rushed to help Amy. Both sisters fit into the family perfectly, and Agnes Naish relieved Amy of the huge burden of running the school for the girls.
Arul Dasan, Arulai’s cousin who as a boy had been beaten for listening to the gospel message, had been Iyer Walker’s assistant for many years. Following Iyer Walker’s death, Arul Dasan offered to help Amy in any way he could. With enormous relief, Amy gladly handed over charge of all the building work to him. This involved Arul Dasan’s supervising the maintenance of the existing buildings and the planning of new ones. The family was still growing fast, and one hundred forty people were now living with the family, so there was always some kind of building in progress.
Within a year of Iyer Walker’s death, Ponnammal became sick, and Amy took her to Nagercoil for treatment. It turned out she had cancer, and two operations were performed to try to get rid of it. Amy stayed with Ponnammal for two months while she recovered. Finally, the doctors said that Ponnammal was well enough to make the journey back to Dohnavur.
Soon after arriving back at Dohnavur, Amy received more bad news. On July 14, 1913, back in England, her mother had died. Again Amy stopped to mourn. But the Dohnavur family was still growing, and Amy threw herself into the work, trying to forget all the tragedy that had surrounded her during the previous year. But it wasn’t long before another shadow fell. Ponnammal’s cancer returned, and on August 26, 1915, she too died and was buried in God’s garden at Dohnavur.
It was a difficult and lonely time for Amy. Ponnammal had been with her from the beginning of the Starry Cluster. She was the one Amy had left in charge of the family when she was away. And just as she had with Iyer Walker, she had come to rely on Ponnammal, but now Ponnammal was no longer there. And just as it had been for her after Iyer Walker’s death, Amy had to rely on her faith to go on without bitterness.
As before, Amy threw herself into the work, and the joy of being Amma to so many happy little children rescued from Hindu temples and other desperate situations soon helped Amy to press on after the deaths of so many of the people close to her.
Sometimes Amy had dreams that she learned to pay attention to. In one of her dreams she had seen Muttammal and Arul Dasan being married in a wedding ceremony in Ceylon. The dream was very vivid, filled with little details, like their being married in the Galle Face Church in Colombo and neither Amy nor the Clifts being present. Amy didn’t say anything about it for some time, but finally she shared the dream with Arulai. Much to Amy’s surprise, Arulai smiled widely. “I have been praying that Arul Dasan and Muttammal would get married for over a year now,” she told Amy with great excitement.
Amy asked Arul Dasan what he thought about the idea of marrying Muttammal, and he was very pleased with it. So he and Muttammal began to write to each other, and soon they were engaged. It was thought that Arul Dasan would travel to China for the wedding, but in 1917 the world was at war, and it was unsafe for him to travel all that way. Besides, Dr. and Mrs. Clift were leaving China, and it seemed more sensible for them to take Muttammal as far as Ceylon. The Clifts, though, were in a hurry to get home and were unable to wait in Ceylon for Arul Dasan to arrive for the wedding. So Arul Dasan and Muttammal were married in Galle Face Church in Colombo, Ceylon, without the Clifts or Amy present, just as Amy had dreamed. The newlyweds returned to Dohnavur and set up a home in the compound, where they served together for the rest of their lives. Of course, Amy had a wonderful reunion with Muttammal on her return.