Under the obedience of Christ (part 3 of 3)

Living by the ‘sparrow method’

Nor Scrip is a booklet written by Amy after Dr Inwood urged her to in one authoritative sentence: ‘You ought to tell it’. He had seen which principles governed life and work in Dohnavur. Reluctantly Amy agreed to do it, and now we have an honest account of God’s provisions for Dohnavur. She wrote how God had guided her by circumstance and experiences and by his Word. It deals with the ‘unseen’ things of the Fellowship. Things that happen in the traffic between a praying soul and God’s heart. Therefore, Amy took money affairs very seriously. Amy explained how she had been led to look to the Lord alone for the provision of every need. This was not new for her, but a principle she had adopted when she was barely out of her teens and running a Bible class for mill girls in Belfast:

Then, too, we did not want to touch any money except what He meant us to use. The spending of money is a great responsibility. We did not wish to incur that responsibility unless He so commanded. Only so could we be sure of His guidance, and be fortified against the peril of building up what might show well on earth, but be of no value whatever to the Kingdom of Heaven. Also we did not want to divert anything from others. For this and other reasons we had no supported children as such, we offered no attractions, such as naturally incline the heart of the kindly to give. We did honestly seek not to attract, but only to draw by prayer to God those supplies He saw good to entrust to us.1772

1768. In Temple, 1940, Readings in St. John’s Gospel, chapter 16. The book is in the Dohnavur library.

1769. Whispers of His Power, 09 January, 15.

1770. Cf. G. Webb-Peploe, Brothers of the Lotus Buds, 144.

1771. In Dobell (ed.), Centuries of Meditations, 95, 79, 60. The book is in the Dohnavur library.

1772. Nor Scrip, 35.

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Source: © The Donavon Fellowship. Photographer J. (Hans) Kommers.

FIGURE 31: Paper with the incoming gifts and legacies in the first half of 1931 for the Dohnavur Fellowship.

If there be a shortage, we wait upon Him about it. We ask to be shown if in anything we have grieved the Spirit, or made any mistake in running before our Guide or lagging behind. If we are shown anything, we ask for pardon and seek to put it right. If we are not, we wait peacefully, and in the end and always in time to pay the bills, the money comes.

Another of Amy’s often repeated maxims was:

The Master is not responsible for uncommanded work. [It] warned us not to plan first and then ask for God’s blessing and provision, but always to make sure that it was God’s plan we were following.1773 In the daily feeding and educating of hundreds of children it was for Amy that, when she had told her heavenly Father of a certain need, it seemed as if often her thoughts had taken wing and from all over the world the supplies came. The financial responsibility, as we can understand, was great. We can best understand this by looking at a six-monthly order of food for the household that time, mid-1930: 46 130 quarts of milk, 77 181 eggs, 54 060 oranges and 260 832 plantains (bananas).1774

Whenever a cheque or a needed thing came, Amy laid it in the House of Prayer and with the children, God was thanked for his grace bestowed on them. Gifts large and small (Figure 31) came in:

1773. Cf. A Century of Answered Prayer, 4–5.

1774. In I Dare, 15.

We don’t think of anything as ‘small’. All gifts were seen as God’s ‘lovingkindness’.1775 ‘What is your greatest need’, some wrote, ‘and how are your needs supplied’? Our greatest need now – and always – is earnest, fervent prayer.1776 Amy saw the hard fact that next to prayer is just:

[T]he simple straightforward need of money; to feed our little ones and clothe them, and to provide for the long journeys connected with their redemption, and all other expenses bearing upon the salvation of Temple children. Nurseries (so necessary too) are never built except with money specially so marked by the givers.1777 Can God spread a table

In the wilderness?
Is our Father able?
Praise Him, Yes.
For His word is stable,
He who yesterday
Spread a bounteous table,
Does today. 1778

‘In the very bricks and mortar of the Mission buildings, may be seen the monuments of God’s goodness.’ These words of M. Broomhall1779 refer to the CIM work in China, but the same can be said of the houses, nurseries, the House of Prayer and the House of Healing belonging to the Dohnavur Fellowship. The hand of God is seen in providing for all these ‘monuments’ even today:

When the work for the children began, our Father had to teach us lessons of faith, and so He was careful that we should not have much in the bank beyond what we had of our own.1780 Gradually, as the work in Dohnavur began to grow, and more space was wanted, land had to be bought:

Buying land in India is no trifle. Every minute section is possessed, not by one man, but by his family, and the consent of each member of the family, major and minor, has to be sought and bought.

The expenditure of time, the endless agreements and changes, the ‘making’ of friendship necessary for even the simplest negotiations were sometimes very exhausting. Amy played ‘fair game’ for no bribes were ever paid. The long time it took and the patience necessarily to continue, she bore. All had to be done in an honest way. She knew ‘this is old India, not modern, and we do not pay people to carry our burden, we carry them ourselves’.1781

Amy had quit the CEZMS in 1927. She did not want the Dohnavur Fellowship to be a project of the CEZMS. To be dependent on God was what she had in mind. Also those who worked with her did not

1775. Though The Mountains Shake, 21.

1776. The Beginning of a Story, 16. Here Amy refers to Bishop Moule’s Colossian Studies. ‘Prayers are never meant to be indolently easy, however simple and reliant it may be. It is an infinite transaction between man and God.[…] And therefore very often, when subjects and circumstances call for it, it has to be viewed as a work involving labour, persistency, conflict, if it would be prayer indeed.’

1777. The Beginning of a Story, 19-20.

1778. Nor Scrip, V.

1779. In M. Broomhall, Faith and Facts As Illustrated in the History of the China Inland Mission (London: CIM, 1909), 28.

1780. Meal in a Barrel, 132.

1781. Nor Scrip, 17.

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belong to any other society. In all her writing we see that she would start any work after being convinced it was God’s will to do it and when the work had started it would end without let or hindrance. Never had there been any unfinished building.

For itinerary work when money was spent, it meant that some of the villages the team had hoped to visit had to be dropped. But children could not be dropped; they needed food and shelter every day. Who was responsible for all this expenditure? ‘No one on earth is responsible for us. […] No one is authorized to ask money for us.’1782 Amy gave three reasons for this decision:

We do not wish to risk doing others the wrong of receiving what, if we had not asked for it, might have gone to them. We do not want to have the responsibility of spending anything which we cannot be quite sure was intended for us; and we have found it enough to ask our Heavenly Father.1783 Our needs are supplied as Elijah’s were, the children would tell you if you asked them. God sent His ravens. If we are doing our Master’s will, He is responsible for our supplies.1784 The work of God seen in so many provisions was a real joy for all in Dohnavur, and for all their needs they turned to the Scriptures to see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep; above all, ‘to breathe the atmosphere of the Book of books itself, was life and joy and confidence’. Fed thus, the fibres of faith were nourished with food convenient:

We have no provision made for us except what we share with the birds and the flowers, but is has never failed us’. […] ‘Most of our ravens fly to us by way of the daily post’.1785 Sometimes income could take a deep dive. Ultimately, God, as the unseen leader of the Fellowship was also the unseen treasurer. Amy was banking in unshaken faith on the redemption of Jesus Christ in the affairs of the Fellowship, including on God’s provisions. In everything, in all the providential circumstances, engineered by God, she trusted him fully.1786 She took money matters very serious and the monthly finance meetings were called angels’ meetings, ‘because we think the angels are kindly commissioned to help in such affairs’.1787 In everything, so also in money matters, she asked the Lord to guide her:

I used to sign every such cheque kneeling down by my desk, so deeply did I fear. […] I know we never moved forward without sureness, and yet there was always this prayer at the roots of action.1788 In the critical years after the World War I, when sometimes donations were low she wrote: ‘We feed on the promises, and then we pleaded the prayer that must have expressed the cry of thousands of hearts’. In all het questions of how to provide the food for the children, she saw her great God:

He who hung the earth upon nothing was the God of this little fraction of it. To Him our line was fastened. […] Tree of Life, from eternity to eternity the same.1789

1782. The Continuation of a Story, 34.

1783. The Continuation of a Story, 34–35.

1784. Tables in the Wilderness, 39.

1785. Nor Scrip, 41; The Beginning of a Story, 17.

1786. The Dohnavur Fellowship has still the same principle. See Praise and Prayer Notes of the DF, January 2015: ‘That we may never turn away from the principles the Lord set before us through Amma, in looking to Him only for our needs to be met’.

1787. See Though The Mountains Shake, 26.

1788. In ‘Copy of Amma’s P.S. to Fellowship note. Sept. 5.47’, in the Dohnavur library.

1789. Nor Scrip, 109, 111 and 112.

During war time letters got lost and, therefore, Amy once informed the donors of the reason why they had not got a reply. ‘Will anyone who have not received answer to letters, or acknowledgements for gifts, remember that all Indian mails were lost on the “Persia”, and write again.’1790

The Lord provided, even during the years of the World Wars in 1914–1918 and 1939–1945. Also after 1933, when the U.S. banking crisis came to a head and affected Europe as well, and the ripples crossed the oceans. The nurseries were built using money given by many (unknown) donors, even from Russia, and when the last of the group of nurseries was built, it was called Thanksgiving.1791 Amy wrote in 1947:

Some questions are often asked. There is no secret about the answers.

How does the money you require come? It comes from our Heavenly Father who, in answer to prayer, moves His children to send what is required.

How do they know what to send? It must be that He tells them. No one else does.

Don’t you ever tell friends when you require money? Never. We tell them what was needed has come. We never mention earthly needs until they have been supplied.

What about books like the one called ‘Nor Scrip’? Nothing was written for many years about needs and supplies, and yet all needs were supplied. Then that small book was written to show the goodness of the Lord to His children. It was written, as we believe, in obedience to Him. Since then similar books have been written at His command. In fifty years, five have been written. None tells of needs unsupplied. They give an account of our stewardship. Do you authorize anyone anywhere to tell of needs? No.

Do you ever borrow money? No.

Have you ever been in debt? No. […] By the grace of His loving-kindness, we have never been in debt. Have you ever received Government grants? Never.

Why not? Because to receive such money would involve obedience to others.

Why do you not feel free to ask help from others? There are four chief reasons: (1) About ten years before the Starry Cluster was formed, the one who led it had found that it was enough to ask our heavenly Father, to send what was required for the work; (2) It is a serious thing to incur the responsibility to spend money. We did not want to incur this responsibility unless we were certain the Lord intended us to do so; (3) […] We trust that what is given for a heavenly reason will effect something for Eternity, whereas we cannot be sure that what is given for an earthly reason (for example, unwillingness to refuse a request) will do that; (4) We were very desirous not to draw anything to ourselves that should have gone to others.1792 Amy asked for ‘covering prayer’, that all who came as a child to Dohnavur would grow up and be ready to serve the Lord, ‘to sacrifice and serve without thought of earthly gain’.

And we ask for prayer for all upon whom the responsibility will rest that they may be empowered by the mighty God of Jacob and so filled with love that they will never be tired out of loving.1793 Money matters have always been a real issue in mission work and among missionaries. People like Hudson Taylor and George Müller and many others were convinced that mission work was a work of the Holy Spirit, and had to be done without the lure of financial gain. Not only converts were looking for such gain, But also money could easily be misused in Christian work.1794 Hudson Taylor and Amy were

1790. In Dohnavur letter, January 1916, no. 1 (PRONI D/4061/30/1).

1791. Nor Scrip, 61 and 74.

1792. In The Starry Cluster, 6 and 7.

1793. Meal in a Barrel, 134.

1794. It may be said to be somewhat over the top when Griffith John, LMS pioneer missionary to Hankow, China, wrote: ‘Money has been a real curse to the missionary work in China, and when it is introduced, however small the sum may be,

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very accurate in their records of income and expenditure, aiming to be as fully transparent as possible. The principle of ‘tent-making ministry’ was a biblical principle for her, but also for the growing family: there were many mouths to be filled, and the babies needed special care; every month a certain amount was needed. Especially during World War II, when letters with money could easily get lost, people in the West needed a lot for themselves and due to the exchange rate they had lost half their money, yet people in the towns and the villages began to say: ‘God is there’.1795 A little Dohnavur child told Amy: ‘Our Joseph never dies’. In those difficult years in and after World War I the books of the China Inland Mission ‘were meat and drink to us. […] We had the unfailing strength of mighty promises’.1796 For them it was a time of walking over the water, looking to Jesus alone. From all over the world prayer friends brought the Fellowship for the Lord. For Amy their faithfulness was for Amy part of the gold cord. It was not only Christian friends from all parts of India and outside, but also many civil servants in government offices treated the Fellowship well and understood its deep intentions. From 1913, The DF had a home secretary, Mrs Streeter. From Australia, Ireland and England people offered to come and assist Amy. Who appointed them? ‘It is the master of the field, not we, who must appoint workers by prayer. The field is the world. And prayer can fly over borders and hedges.’ Late in 1912 R.T. Archibald came to Dohnavur, a man from the CSSM who had talked about prayer to the children and taught the importance of prayer and how to practise it. Was not the work of the CSSM in Harrogate an instrument in God’s hand to bring Amy, when she was a student there, to the saving knowledge of Christ?

In the beginning, she had felt the agony of what would happen if no money for the provision of the children came. Then with her helpers of the first hour, Ponnamal and Sellamuthu, both members of the Women’s Itinerating Band, a sign from God made it clear they had to continue. They had had to pay a 100 rupees for a child in real danger, whom they had saved. God let them know he would take care of the children, and if not? Suppose the children would die, and they all died with them; the Christian world would cry shame on the one responsible, but what would it matter after all? ‘The children will be in heaven, and is that not better than in the temple?’1797 There was not only the fear that there would be no money to feed the children, but also the fear of expenditure of the money. She deliberated a lot before the Ford car was bought! First she had thought it was ‘anything so un-Eastern’ to have a Ford. Gradually her thoughts were led from ‘no’ to ‘yes’, in which process she was led by the Bible and – she described it very extensively – in the end she thanked the Lord for the Ford, such a big help for the DF in evangelistic and medical work. The car, bought in Travancore, rode along the roads with its flag flying, ‘Jesus saves, Jesus loves’ and it became a familiar car to the people who called it the Car of the Flag.1798 From the very beginning of the Fellowship Amy had learned the wholesome lesson:

[N]ot to look to men or woman, but to God, the living God, for the continuation as well as for the beginning of everything; and we never thought of any gift as something which might be repeated.1799

(footnote 1794 continues ...)

a certain amount of rottenness must follow’. Personally he had seen much abuse of money, but one can say that, in the case of the CIM (now OMF) and within the Dohnavur Fellowship, money matters are seen in the spiritual realm and in receiving as well as in and spending it is seen as receiving and spending ‘God’s money’.

1795. Gold Cord, 123. ‘We have never had to labour to prove that He hears and answers prayer; the fact of our existence witnesses that it is so.’ Amy quotes Hudson Taylor: ‘God’s work done in God’s way, will never lack God’s supplies, and in our much smaller undertakings we have proved it so, too’. Gold Cord, 125–126.

1796. Gold Cord, 124.

1797. Nor Scrip, 6–7.

1798. See Chapter XIX, Tables in the Wilderness, 109–118.

1799. Ponnamal, 83.

Her banking account was in heaven; she laid up her confidence in God, not in the common sense. When in letters she was asked ‘What is your greatest need?’ And ‘How are your needs supplied?’ she always answered, ‘our greatest need now – and always – is earnest, fervent prayer’.1800 Again:

God sends His ravens. We have no provision made for us except what we share with the birds and the flowers; but it has never failed us. […] Most of our ravens fly to us by way of the daily post.1801 The postman is ‘a sort of visible Raven’ […] but everything is under one supreme control. 1802 About 1921 a very large gift was given and though they were in great need of this money, Amy felt it was not correct to keep it. ‘It had not been sent to us at the bidding of God, but because of the pressure of a friend.’ She sent the money back. The cheque came again and again it was returned. ‘Was it folly to return it?’. At the very end, it worked out perfectly, but this incident shows how sensitive Amy was in money matters.1803 Amy did not adopt children on a monetary basis, but she accepted anyone who was willing to adopt a little one as a prayer child. It satisfied the natural desire to have a child especially of one’s own, and the bond was strong because it was forged not of gold that perished, but of that which endured and would endure till eternity. Amy encouraged women from nearby villages to come and serve in the Fellowship. Jobs were offered for cleaning, feeding the children and serving in the hospital. She expected them to work and only then remunerated them:1804

No one on earth had authorized the work; no one, then, could in fairness be counted responsible. But if, as we believed, our Father in Heaven had laid His commandments upon us, to Him we had a right to look for all that was needed for the carrying out of those commands; so that our only care was to be attentive to His wishes.1805 Many friends from all over the world had the Fellowship on their prayer list and regularly sent gifts. Few of the friends were rich; mostly people gave from their small income or left a legacy. Going through the books, we see most gifts were small:

These little loving gifts fall like small snowflakes, very quietly, without observation, like the daily little love gifts of sweet airs and sunshine and cold water that we should miss so much if we had to do without them.1806 Amy never went into debt, ‘debt is a sin’.1807 There were periods when monthly income was very low, but Amy knew where she had to look for help. In her living with God, she laid everything in his hands, and throughout all the years she learned not to focus on money and food problems, but to rely on God’s promises and thus make it God’s problem.

The spending of money was a serious business. ‘We do not want to have more money to spend than we are authorized to use.’1808 Depending on the faithfulness of God in all situations was one of the

1800. The Beginning of a Story, 16 Here she refers to Bishop Moule’s Collossian Studies. Prayer is the ‘Christian vital breath’; ‘Spiritual watchfulness generally, as against the coma of the world’ (Chapter 4, 2).

1801. The Beginning of a Story, 17: ‘We rely upon the verses which assure us that our Father knows our needs, and we take it that with such a Father, to know is to supply.’

1802. The Beginning of a Story, 18.

1803. For this story, see Tables in the Wilderness, Chapter I, 1–6.

1804. Told by Nesaruthina Carunia to B. Matthews, 07 June 2006. In Matthews, ‘The Theological Contribution of Amy Carmichael’, 28.

1805. Ponnamal, 84.

1806. Cold Cord, 323.

1808. The Continuation of a Story, 35.

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foundational tenets of their faith. To have a loving heavenly Father ‘whose faithful provision’ you trust, means trusting his Word. Did not Jesus say: ‘If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be given to you’?1809 We can describe Amy’s walk of faith with the words of Spurgeon as ‘an experience of habitual hanging upon the unseen God and nothing else’.1810 Like the ones she saw as her examples, she believed she had the right and privilege to rely on the promises of God.

Faith in God led her to roll all her burdens upon him, and if necessary God’s ravens would feed the Fellowship. They went with no promise of salary but with a certainty of precious fellowship in the sufferings of Christ. As Malachi 3 reminded her:

And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing.1811 The dark clouds of risk and uncertainty might loom on the horizon, but trust in the Lord ensured anxiety-free joy. Trusting God meant making difficult choices, undertaking risky ventures or making costly renunciations. Trusting God when all seemed impossible was the pathway to great blessing.

As she had done in her involvement in mission within the context of her own culture, Amy lived a life of faith in India and was very much dependent upon God to supply her need. She was dedicated in her devotional and prayer life and she sought to encourage fellow workers to do likewise. Truly, the way in which Amy related Christian mission to her life context is of great importance for the missionary praxis of our 21st century. Indeed, her writings continue to influence and inspire the lives of many individuals in relation to Christian mission and the key elements required for it have an impact upon society. Asked ‘are you ever anxious about finances?’, she replied:

No, not anxious, but we feel that we must ‘walk softly’, and be guided in all our spendings, remembering that what is sent to us to use is sacred. We are very conscious that our Father does not hold Himself responsible for anything except for that which He wishes us to do; so we earnestly seek to be ‘careful in His Presence’, in all thins sensitive towards Him and also in all things obedient. Also we often receive guidance through the Lord’s givings and withholdings.1812 God’s supplies never failed her. On the flyleaf of her account book Amy wrote ‘He hath shamed me with His kindness, and no words could more truly tell the story of the years’.1813 The life lived at Dohnavur was ‘care-less’ in the true sense of the word:

We are not careful for the provision of our needs. We are only careful lest we grieve the Spirit who directs us, by any unholiness of walk or character, or by any mistake as to His purposes.1814 Amy’s faith always relied on God in spite of all the confusions and temptations. She was a living illustration of the reality of the Scripture, resting in the promises of God, that he would provide and a

1809. John 15:7.

1810. Cf. A.T. Pierson, George Müller of Bristol (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1999 [1899]), 82. Also George Müller, The Autobiography (New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 1984).

1811. Malachi 3:10.

1812. The Starry Cluster, 14.

1813. The Continuation of a Story, 35.

1814. The Continuation of a Story, 36. fulfilment of the promise made to those who had first given themselves to the Lord. ‘My God shall supply all your needs.’1815 Howard Somervell said:

Nobody could possibly be in touch with Miss Carmichael and the work of the Dohnavur Fellowship in South India without seeing that prayer is answered again and again, often in unmistakable and specific ways.1816 God had made her a woman with a single motive, a single eye to the glory of God. God was enough for her, and when someone told her that without a mission organisation behind her, she could not go on, she just replied ‘We have God. […] Wars in the world make no difference to God’. And to the question: ‘This way of counting on him, was it safe?’ the answer was ‘You will see that it is safe. […] Is there anything more helpful than just to find out what more He can do?’1817 Once a week there was an ‘angels’ finance meeting’:

Once a week those who are responsible for the use of the money sent to us, gather for the angels’ finance meeting (as we call it), ‘angels’ because we believe that they have an interest in our accounts, and let no one think this is too small a matter to interest them […] We pray then for supplies and for direction about the spending of what is entrusted to us; and we pray for the givers, and also for any who have been givers and are now in need themselves. We pray that they having watered others may themselves be watered.1818 For everything, much time is spent on the knees for:

[I]f we first seek the Kingdom of God, as much money will come for God’s work as He will. If our treasure and our hearts are in heaven, to give earthly treasure will seem but a small thing. Sacrifice is not the best line of approach. Those who have formed the habit of simple living, and regular, liberal, unostentatious giving, are not conscious of making sacrifices. They are simply contributing money to what their heart loves best.1819 In a true sense, Amy lets us know that the life in Dohnavur was ‘care-less’, and she was grateful that the full accent of the work was on the rescue work for the children and that she was not bothered day to day by financial issues:

We are not careful for the provision of our needs. We are only careful lest we grieve the Spirit who directs us, by any unholiness of walk or character, or by any mistake as to His purposes. We are often grateful that financial burdens are never allowed to press, for the cares and anxieties of other kinds we have many.1820 Never in the existence of the DF was a child left unsaved or unfed because of lack of money or fear that there was not enough for the future. Never was a bill ever left unpaid. Soon after the war, when the pound had fallen in value until it appeared to be about to dwindle away altogether, there was a night when Amy walked up and down the verandah in the moonlight, thinking of the children. She said: ‘For once the unearthly beauty failed to rest me, and I found myself saying aloud, “But, Lord, the children cannot live on moonlight”, for she knew that real faith believes not only that God can, but that He will.’1821 And ever the Lord has been faithful. He assured the Fellowship members that he had their matters in hand.

1815. Philippians 4:19.

1816. Somervell, After Everest, 35.

1817. See Nor Scrip, 38 and 22. Cf. what she wrote: ‘Never once in fifteen years has a bill been left unpaid. Never once has man or woman been told when we were in need of help; but never once have we lacked any good thing’ (Nor Scrip, 11).

1818. Windows, 19.

1819. This is a quotation from W.K. Lowther Clarke’s Almsgiving: A Handbook, which Amy read (Windows, 226).

1820. In The Continuation of a Story, 36–37.

1821. Gold Cord, 124; Nor Scrip, 46.

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Faith deepened through trials

Talking about faith, Amy, rooted in the Scriptures, saw in Abraham the type of believer she was looking for. She studied Biblical commentaries, and in one of them she read about Abraham’s belief and underlined this sentence:

A faith, which laid hold of the word of promise, and on the strength of that word gave up the visible and present for the invisible and the future, was the fundamental characteristic of the patriarchs. This faith Abraham manifested and sustained by great sacrifices, by enduring patience, and by self-denying obedience of such a kind, that he thereby became the father of believers.1822 The Pauline adage that the righteous lives by faith1823 was deep in her heart. That was what connected her so closely with the mystic Madame de Guyon. In one of Guyon’s letters – and Amy made a mark in the margin – we read:

The greatest wrong you can do to God, is to doubt His love. […] Do not afflict yourself because you do not at all times realize a sensible confidence in God, and other consoling, happy states. Walk by faith and not by sight.1824 It is true that our Lord and Redeemer calls us to a crucified life; but He calls to a great joy too, and it comes by way of the Cross. And there is something beyond that; there is a peace that cannot be understood till it is tasted, and it comes when all questions about life, its discipline and its guidance cease, and we cannot be offended in Him who is the joy and rejoicing of our hearts.

Amy wrote these words1825 after Linnet’s very difficult life and the way the Lord had led her to faith and after Linnet’s baptism:

Linnet’s story, like Mimosa’s, has helped us to hope. […] If we take courage to expect, we shall have crushing disappointments sometimes, but often we shall find. And we shall tap deep wells. We shall discover a power and abandon of love to our blessed Lord Jesus that overflows our poverty of faith. Not the emotion of a moment, but the passion of a lifetime, this is what the Lord our God can effect, if only we rise to His thought.1826 One day Amy was reading in her Bible, and these words were for her:

Unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ to suffer for His sake. [And] unto me, who am less than the least, is this grace given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ’. Given to suffer, Given to serve. Is there not a connection between the two? Had He not called us to follow Him through the very shadow of death, where He keeps His treasures of darkness.1827 For the last 20 years of her life, Amy, due to an accident, suffered a physical affliction. Often unable to move around she wrote many books, some especially for the comfort of others. The fortune of misfortune, so to say, was her way of looking at her ‘captivity’. She did not want the children and the other people in Dohnavur to be depressed on her account, or even to imagine that her situation hindered

1822. In C.F. Keil & F. Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary of The Old Testament, vol. I (Edinburg: T & T. Clark, n.d.), 183. The book is in the Dohnavur library.

1823. Romans 1:17.

1824. In M.W. Moorhead (ed.), The Spiritual Letters of Madame Guyon (Milwaukee: The Gospel Message Publishing House, 1898), 66.

1825. The Widow of the Jewels, 87.

1826. The Widow of the Jewels, 91.

God’s purpose. Like Paul, she could see it to be ‘for the furtherance of the Gospel’.1828 The very things that looked so disastrous turned out to be the most opportune. Moreover, for her, this suffering was ‘fellowship with His suffering’.1829 She agreed with Thomas Walker who used to say: ‘Those who have been pierced with the thorns from their dear Lord’s crown will be very indifferent to all other thorns’.1830 She did not want people to focus on her physical suffering. Seeing it in the light of Christ’s sufferings, she destroyed every element of self-pity and of self-interest. Being Christ-centred in her life, she had lost all interest in herself in an absorbing passionate interest in Christ. Is not tried faith the pure gold? Her life got stronger because in this ’desert’ Amy’s life was deep-rooted in God while he spelled out for her the ABC of what the Cross of Christ meant. Are not the sufferings of the sanctified caused by growing into the idea of the will of God? He did not spare his own son, and he does not spare his sanctified ones from the requirements of saint-ship. Amy once quoted an unknown author, who said ‘ye will not get leave to steal quietly to heaven, in Christ’s company, without a conflict and a cross’ and she added:

[E]ven so, even though we must walk in the land of fear, there is no need to fear. The power of His resurrection comes before the fellowship of His sufferings.1831 Amy knew that jewels are made only under hard pressure, and very poignantly she once wrote in her Bible: ‘God setteth in Pain the Jewel of His Joy’.1832 Amy often wondered ‘Do we ask enough of ourselves?’ She quoted Brenton Thoburn Badley’s thinking of what Christ had suffered for us to redeem us:

Lord, when I’m weary with toiling,
And burdensome seem Thy commands,
If my load should lead to complaining,

Lord show me Thy hands- Thy nail-printed hands. Thy cross-torn hands-

My Saviour, show me Thy hands.
Christ, if ever my footsteps should falter,
And I be prepared for retreat.
if desert and thorn cause lamenting,

Lord, show me Thy feet- Thy bleeding feet, Thy nail-scarred feet- Lord Jesus, show me Thy feet.

O God, dare I show Thee, My hands and my feet?1833 Is there a reason for difficulties, hardships, opposition, sufferings? Was there a reason for the accident Amy had? She saw there must have been a reason for this break in all her plans. She could see it in God’s light. ‘Changing the D of disappointment into an H makes everything right.’1834 For her the presence of the Lord was her strength and joy. She had the gift of healing but was very reluctant to practise it and never set up a ministry of healing. She made use of doctors and of medicines and even was the driving force to get a hospital on the compound.

1828. See Philippians 1:15.

1829. See Philippians 3:10.

1830. See This One Thing, 126.

1831. Gold by Moonlight, 16.

1832. In Amy’s Bible (1895), written above Psalm 22.

1833. In The Widow of the Jewels, 92.

Chapter 15

Mostly bedridden, she managed to lead the Fellowship through prayer, talks and books. There was full surrender to God and total trust in him in her painful experiences. Whatever crisis marked her inner life – we know something of it but it is not given to us to know much – Amy did not reckon the momentum of her life to lie in any experience from the past, but ever thought to maintain a living fellowship with God. He needed her weakness. She learned that the Keswick teaching had left an unforgettable impression on her and several times she had evidence of following what had happened there. It was in 1897 that Evan Hopkins had said in one of his prayers ‘Give us a divine conscience about keeping our time with Thee untouched’. Evan Hopkins was fond of the antithesis ‘crisis and process’ and, undoubtedly, there was signal deliverance in Amy’s experience. The DF went through several crises, but no one’s life more clearly illustrated the process of abiding in Christ and of faith continually exercised towards God and expressing itself towards the people in works of love. Keswick had given her the practical bend of mind, ever drawn to real things, and ever intent on getting things done, which wrapped her in the Keswick teaching. This made it that her life’s work in India was authenticated among the Tamil people. Clearly we see expressed her communion with God in the daily short notes she gave to the Fellowship members.1835 Many times Amy had the experience of God’s peace after her eyes had been drawn away from all the problems, difficulties and pain to his eternal love for her and the Fellowship, as described in Ruth Graham’s poem:

And I lay, where for long in despair I had lain, entered, unshod, the holy, there where God dwells with His painalone with pain of the price He had paid in giving His Son for a world gone astray-

the world He had made.
My heart lay in silence,
worshipped in silence; and questioned no more.1836

Practical: Contextualisation of a mission vision

Amy found a way to contextualise her mission vision in what was apt and truly functional. Shelter and safety is combined with longing that focuses on Christian initiation and Christian discipleship. This kind of evangelism is not a casual ministry. This work was a ministry to the faint-hearted, the ignorant, the emotionally unstable, or the spiritually immature. It required costly sacrifices, deep compassion for the lost, intense intercession, flexible methods, the capacity to withstand hostile opposition, and serious personal engagement. Failure on any of these fronts would have had serious consequences. This work was intimately related to a firm grasp of the Gospel, a robust vision of Christian initiation, and radical openness to the Holy Spirit, all done in practice through a healthy doctrinal tradition. Amy longed for Christians who were natural, ‘as children are at home’. She hoped that the new converts would never learn ‘the cold reserve of grown-up Christendom’.1837 How to prepare oneself to the work! A letter, in which she refers to her sister Eva who was in training for missionary work in South Africa, gives us some insight in her thoughts about this issue:

God knows what He is preparing for her in darkest Africa, so He knows how to do the preparing work. The great lesson we can’t learn too well is that of adaptability – the faculty of fitting oneself quite happily into one’s

1835. Collected in Edges of His Ways, Whispers of His Power, Thou Givest … They Gather.

1836. R. Bell Graham, Ruth Bell Graham’s Collected Poems (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1997), 275. circumstances, be they ever so uncomfortable and changeable. […] I would advise missionary candidates to practise balancing themselves on pinpoints – it will all come in useful!1838 In all the aforementioned characteristics, we see what had been learned from the Gospel in the little church of Ballycopeland where the Gospel was preached for heart and hand. Amy’s life story is one of practical mission work done in a practical way. This God-gifted woman used all her talents for the sake of the Gospel. We see in her a characteristic of holiness which is no less the outcome of the indwelling of God than a blazing truthfulness with regard to God’s Word, and an amazing tenderness in personal dealings. She never forgot to be the broken bread and the poured-out wine for the lifting up of the children of India in making God known to them and in being there to rescue them from a life of shame and death. She always placed God’s methods first. Foolish to those who do not know God but right in the eyes of her God. A disciple had to learn to follow only and all the visions God’s children may have had were not always woven into the texture of the life the Lord had prepared for them. Learning the implications of the ‘Yes Lord’ was to die of oneself and to give up the right of making one’s own decisions. Just look to Jesus. The shaping of the DF was not settled in a meeting, but a succession of experiences shaped themselves into what became the pattern of the Fellowship.1839 The Dohnavur Fellowship became a model of Christian living. However not perfect, the growing community had few parallels in modern times for the unity, prayer and love that emanated from it. The following quotation, taken from a little manuscript Amy wrote for some of her closest co-labourers, shows that Amy’s heart was for all of Dohnavur:

We are trusted to spread the spirit of love. Tenderness in judgment, the habit of thinking the best of one another, unwillingness to believe evil, grief if we are forced to do so, eagerness to believe good, joy over one recovered from any slip or fall, unselfish gladness in another’s joys, sorrow in another’s sorrow, readiness to do anything to help another entirely irrespective of self- all this and much more is included in that wonderful word love. If love weakens among us, if it ever becomes possible to tolerate the least shadow of an unloving thought, our Fellowship will begin to perish. Unlove is deadly. It is a cancer. It may kill slowly but it always kills in the end. Let us fear it, fear to give room to it as we should fear to nurse a cobra. It is deadlier than any cobra. And just as one minute drop of the almost invisible cobra venom spreads swiftly all over the body of one into whom it has been injected, so one drop of the gall of unlove in my heart or yours, however unseen, has a terrible power of spreading all through our Family, for we are one body – we are parts of one another. If one member suffers loss, all suffer loss. Not one of us lives to herself.1840

1838. Amy Carmichael of Dohnavur, 78.

1839. See Roots, 2. ‘Each little incident offered something which went towards the forging of a principle.’

1840. Unpublished paper in the DF office in Dohnavur.

The enduring missionary

The first long look of an old missionary, into the eyes of the young missionary, has always behind it, I suppose, the same thought, Will he endure to the end? Will she? I often marvel at the courage of these young ones, of these I mean who satan in the spiritual vanguard in this or in other land. It is true, of course, that no one knows, as he crosses over the gangway to his ship for the first voyage, to what he is crossing over. Even so, I marvel. What is it that grips the heart of the story, of a valiant life? Not the achievements, not the renown, but what was endured without flinching.

Often one misses this note in a book: that which would

make the book vital is just not there. Though The Mountains Shake.

‘I have but one candle of life to burn, and I would rather

burn it out where men are dying in darkness than in

a land flooded with light’. From the Fight, 59.

‘Christ the Son of God hath sent me through the midnight lands, Mine the mighty ordination of the pierced Hands’.

Mrs Bevan.

‘Yet again the soul breaks away to its own, with the natural flight of a bird from its Autumn nest at the call of an unseen Spring, to the far-off land that is nearer still than

the nest, because it is in its heart’.

Julian, anchoress of Norwich, in Ploughed Under, XII.