Amy Carmichael
Born in Belfast Ireland, to a devout family of Scottish ancestry, Carmichael was educated at home and in England, where she lived with the familt of Robert Wilson after her fatherâs death. While never officially adopted, she used the hyphenated name Wilson-Carmichael as late as 1912. Her missionary call came through contacts with the Keswick movement. In 1892 she volunteered to the China Inland Mission but was refused on health grounds. However, in 1893 she sailed for Japan as the first Keswick missionary to join the Church Missionary Society (CMS) work led by Barclay Buxton. After less than two years in Japan and Ceylon, she was back in England before the end of 1894. The next year she volunteered to the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society, and in November 1895 she arrived in South India, never to leave. While still learning the difficult Tamil language, she commenced itinerant evangelism with a band of Indian Christian women, guided by the CMS missionary Thomas Walker. She soon found herself responsible for Indian women converts, and in 1901, she, the Walkers, and their Indian colleagues settled in Dohnavur. During her village itinerations, she had become increasingly aware of the fact that many Indian children were dedicated to the gods by their parents or guardians, became temple children, and lived in moral and spiritual danger. It became her mission to rescue and raise these children, and so the Dohnavur Fellowship came into being (registered 1927). Known at Dohnavur as Amma (Mother), Carmichael was the leader, and the work became well known through her writing. Workers volunteered and financial support was received, though money was never solicited. In 1931 she had a serious fall, and this, with arthritis, kept her an invalid for the rest of her life. She continued to write, and identified leaders, missionary and Indian, to take her place. The Dohnavur Fellowship still continues today.
Jocelyn Murray, âCarmichael, Amy Beatrice,â in Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, ed. Gerald H. Anderson (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 1998), 116.
This article is reprinted from Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, Macmillan Reference USA, copyright © 1998 Gerald H. Anderson, by permission of Macmillan Reference USA, New York, NY. All rights reserved.
âAmmaiâ of orphans and holiness author
Amy Carmichael was born in Ireland in 1867, the oldest of seven children. As a teen, she attended a Wesleyan Methodist girls boarding school, until her father died when she was 18. Carmichael twice attended Keswick Conventions and experienced a holiness conversion which led her to work among the poor in Belfast. Through the Keswick Conventions, Carmichael met Robert Wilson. He developed a close relationship with the young woman, and invited her to live with his family. Carmichael soon felt a call to mission work and applied to the China Inland Mission as Amy Carmichael-Wilson. Although she did not go to China due to health reasons, Carmichael did go to Japan for a brief period of time. There she dressed in kimonos and began to learn Japanese. Her letters home from Japan became the basis for her first book, From Sunrise Land. Carmichael left Japan due to health reasons, eventually returning to England. She soon accepted a position with the Church of Englandâs Zenana Missionary Society, serving in India. From 1895 to 1925, her work with orphans in Tinnevelly (now Tirunelveli) was supported by the Church of England. After that time, Carmichael continued her work in the faith mission style, establishing an orphanage in Dohnavur. The orphanage first cared for girls who had been temple girls, who would eventually become temple prostitutes. Later the orphanage accepted boys as well.
Carmichael never returned to England after arriving in India. She wrote prolifically, publishing nearly 40 books. In her personal devotions, she relied on scripture and poetry. She wrote many of her own poems and songs. Carmichael had a bad fall in 1931, which restricted her movement. She stayed in her room, writing and studying. She often quoted Julian of Norwich when she wrote of suffering and patience. Many of Carmichaelâs books have stories of Dohnavur children, interspersed with scripture, verses, and photographs of the children or nature. Carmichael never directly asked for funding, but the mission continued to be supported through donations. In 1951 Carmichael died at Dohnavur. Her headstone is inscribed âAmmaiâ, revered mother, which the children of Dohnavur called Carmichael.
Carmichaelâs lengthy ministry at Dohnavur was sustained through her strong reliance upon scripture and prayer. Her early dedication to holiness practices and her roots in the Keswick tradition helped to guide her strong will and determination in her mission to the children of southern India.
by Rev. Lisa Beth White
weakness may be your greatest strength
How well are you investing the weaknesses youâve been given? Perhaps no one has ever asked you that question before. Perhaps it sounds nonsensical. After all, people invest assets  in order to increase their value. They donât invest liabilities . They try to eliminate or minimize or even cover up liabilities. Itâs easy for us to see our strengths as assets. But most of us naturally consider our weaknesses as liabilities â deficiencies to minimize or cover up. But God, in his providence, gives us our weaknesses just as he gives us our strengths. In Godâs economy, where the return on investment he most values is âfaith working through loveâ (Galatians 5:6), weaknesses become assets â we can even call them talents  â to be stewarded, to be invested. It may even be that the most valuable asset God has given you to steward is not a strength, but a weakness. But if weâre to value weaknesses as assets, we need to see clearly where Scripture teaches this. The apostle Paul provides us with the clearest theology of the priceless value of weakness. I have found 1 Corinthians 1:18â2:16 and, frankly, the entire book of 2 Corinthians, to be immensely helpful in understanding the indispensable role weakness plays in strengthening the faith and witness of individual Christians and the church as a whole. Paradoxical Power of Weakness Paulâs most famous statement on the paradoxical spiritual power of weakness appears in 2 Corinthians 12. He tells us of his ecstatic experience of being âcaught up into paradise,â where he received overwhelming and ineffable revelations (2 Corinthians 12:1â4). But as a result, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, âMy grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.â Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:7â10) In these few sentences, Paul completely reframes the way Christians are to view weaknesses, even deeply painful ones that can appear to hinder our calling and that the powers of darkness seek to exploit. What at first seems to us like an expensive liability turns out to be a valuable, God-given asset. Weakness and Sin Before we go further, we need to be clear that Paul does not include sin  in his description of weakness here. The Greek word Paul uses is astheneia , the most common word for âweaknessâ in the New Testament. J.I. Packer, in his helpful study on 2 Corinthians, Weakness Is the Way , explains astheneia  like this: The idea from first to last is of inadequacy. We talk about physical weakness [including sickness and disability] . . . intellectual weakness . . . personal weakness . . . a weak position when a person lacks needed resources and cannot move situations forward or influence events as desired . . . relational weakness when persons who should be leading and guiding fail to do so â weak parents, weak pastors, and so on. (13â14) But when Paul speaks of sin, he has more than inadequacy in mind. The Greek word for âsinâ he typically uses is hamartia , which refers to something that incurs guilt before God. Hamartia  happens when we think, act, or feel in ways that transgress what God forbids. âWeaknesses manifest Godâs power in us in ways our strengths donât.â Though Paul was aware that hamartia  could lead to astheneia  (1 Corinthians 11:27â30) and astheneia  could lead to hamartia  (Matthew 26:41), he clearly did not believe âweaknessâ was synonymous with âsin.â For he rebuked those who boasted that their sin displayed the power and immensity of Godâs grace (Romans 6:1â2). But he âgladlyâ boasted of his weaknesses because they displayed the power and immensity of Godâs grace (2 Corinthians 12:9). In sin, we turn from God to idols, which profanes God, destroys faith, and obscures God in the eyes of others. But weakness has the tendency to increase our conscious dependence on God, which glorifies him, strengthens our faith, and manifests his power in ways our strengths never do. And thatâs the surprising value of our weaknesses: they manifest Godâs power in us in ways our strengths donât. Thatâs what Jesus meant when he told Paul, âMy power is made perfect in weaknessâ (2 Corinthians 12:9) â âperfectâ meaning complete  or entirely accomplished . Our weaknesses are indispensable because God manifests the fullness of his power through them. Asset Disguised as a Liability At this point, you may be thinking, âWhatever Paulâs âthornâ was, my weakness is not like that.â Right. Thatâs what we all think. I have a thorn-like weakness, known only to those closest to me. If I shared it with you, you might be surprised. It dogs me daily as I seek to carry out my family, vocational, and ministry responsibilities. It makes almost everything harder and regularly tempts me to exasperation. Itâs not romantic, certainly not heroic. It humbles me in embarrassing, not noble, ways. And most painful to me, I can see how in certain ways it makes life harder for those I live and work with. Often it has seemed to me a liability. Iâve pleaded with the Lord, even in tears, to remove it or grant me more power to overcome it. But itâs still here. Paul also initially saw his weakness as a grievous liability and pleaded repeatedly to be delivered from it. But as soon as he understood Christâs purposes in it, he saw it in a whole new light: a priceless asset disguised as a liability. And he gloried in the depths of Godâs knowledge, wisdom, and omnipotent grace. âGod, in his providence, gives us our weaknesses just as he gives us our strengths.â I have been slower than Paul in learning to see my thorn as an asset (and honestly, Iâm still learning). But I see at least some of the ways this weakness has strengthened me. It has forced me to live daily in dependent faith on Godâs grace. It has heightened my gratitude for those God has placed around me who have strengths where Iâm weak. Beset with my own weakness, I am more prone to deal gently and patiently with others who struggle with weaknesses different from mine (Hebrews 5:2). And I can see now how it has seasoned much of what Iâve written over the years with certain insights I doubt would have come otherwise. In other words, I see ways God has manifested his power more completely through my perplexing weakness. The fact that we donât know what Paulâs thorn was is evidence of Godâs wisdom. If we did, we likely would compare our weaknesses to his and conclude that ours have no such spiritual value. And we would be wrong. Stewards of Surprising Talents Paul said that his weakness, his âthorn . . . in the flesh,â was âgivenâ to him (2 Corinthians 12:7). Given by whom? Whatever role Satan played, in Paulâs mind he was secondary. Paul received this weakness, as well as âinsults, hardships, persecutions, and calamitiesâ (2 Corinthians 12:10), as assets given to him by his Lord. And as a â[steward] of the mysteries of Godâ (1 Corinthians 4:1), he considered his weaknesses a crucial part of the portfolio his Master had entrusted to him. So, he determined to invest them well in order that his Master would see as much of a return as possible. If youâre familiar with Jesusâs parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14â30), you might recognize that Iâm drawing from its imagery. Jesus has given each of us different âtalentsâ to steward, assets of immense kingdom value, âeach according to his abilityâ (Matthew 25:15). And his expectation is that we will invest them well while we wait for his return. Some of these talents are strengths and abilities our Lord has given us. But some of them are our weaknesses, our inadequacies and limitations, which heâs also given to us. And heâs given us these weaknesses not only to increase in us the invaluable and shareable treasure of humility (2 Corinthians 12:7), but also to increase our strength in the most important aspects of our being: faith and love (2 Corinthians 12:10). But our weaknesses are not only given to us as individuals; they are also given to the church. Our limitations, as much as our abilities, are crucial to Christâs design to equip his body so that it works properly and âbuilds itself up in loveâ (Ephesians 4:16). Our weaknesses make us depend on one another in ways our strengths donât (1 Corinthians 12:21â26). Which means they are given to the church for the same reason they are given to us individually: so that the church may grow strong in faith (1 Corinthians 2:3â5) and love (1 Corinthians 13) â two qualities that uniquely manifest Jesusâs reality and power to the world (John 13:35). Donât Bury Your Weaknesses Someday, when our Master returns, he will ask us to give an account of the talents heâs entrusted to us. Some of those talents will be our weaknesses. We donât want to tell him we buried any of them. It may even be that the most valuable talent in our investment portfolio turns out to be a weakness. Since âit is required of stewards that they be found faithfulâ (1 Corinthians 4:2), we would be wise to examine how faithfully we are stewarding the talents of our weaknesses. So, how well are you investing the weaknesses youâve been given?
