About the Book
"Make Fear Bow" by Gary V. is a motivational book that offers insights and strategies for overcoming fear and achieving success. It encourages readers to confront their fears head-on, develop a fearless mindset, and take action towards their goals. The book emphasizes the importance of self-belief, resilience, and courage in overcoming challenges and pursuing one's dreams.
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 father’s 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, “Carmichael, Amy Beatrice,” 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.
“Ammai” 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 England’s 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 Carmichael’s 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 “Ammai”, revered mother, which the children of Dohnavur called Carmichael.
Carmichael’s 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
Will I Trust God
Had you been there that very moment, watching from a distance, you wouldn’t have observed anything dramatic. I’m talking about the moment Abraham (still called Abram at the time) stepped out of his tent and gazed into the heavens, looking at the stars. You may have heard him muttering something or other, perhaps at some point raising his hands or bowing to the ground. These gestures wouldn’t have seemed out of character to you because everyone knew Abram was a deeply pious man. And being tired, since it was the middle of the night and all, you probably would have left Abram to whatever he was doing and headed to bed. You would not have known that this was a defining moment in Abram’s life. You certainly wouldn’t have guessed this was a defining moment in world history that would impact billions of people. Because it would have seemed so undramatic. But that’s the way moments like these — moments that powerfully direct and shape the arc of history — often appear at first. And in this case, what made the world-changing minutes of stargazing so quietly monumental was that this old man, in the deep recesses of his heart, believed God. Pushed Nearly Beyond Belief To understand the profundity of this defining moment, however, we need to see how this old man’s belief had been pushed to the very brink. It all began in Genesis 12, where God delivered to Abram a promise that would have been incredible on its own, quite apart from the fact that Abram, at age 75, and Sarai, at age 66, as yet had no children: Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:1–3) So, “by faith Abraham obeyed,” packing up his household and setting out, though “not knowing where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8). And when he and his small tribe arrived at Shechem, God spoke to him again and said, “To your offspring I will give this land” (Genesis 12:7). Time passed. God’s blessing rested on Abram and his tribe, which included his nephew Lot’s household, and their combined possessions and herds grew larger — so large, in fact, that Abram and Lot had to separate into two tribes. Still, Abram had no offspring — the key to the fulfillment of the Lord’s greatest promise to him. Nonetheless, the Lord once again affirmed his promise (Genesis 13:14–16). More time passed. God continued to prosper whatever Abram did. And once again, the Lord appeared to him and said, Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great. (Genesis 15:1) But for Abram, now in his eighties, and Sarai in her seventies, there was still the same glaring problem. Amid all the abundant blessing of prosperity God had showered on him, there was one conspicuous, crucial place of poverty: Abram still had no offspring. Desperate Prayer of a Man of Faith It was at this point that Abram could not contain his anguished perplexity over the ongoing void at the core of God’s promises, and it poured out in a desperate prayer: “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” (Genesis 15:2–3) The apostle Paul later wrote, “No unbelief made [Abram] waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised” (Romans 4:20–21). But in this prayer, do we overhear Abram’s faith wavering? No. What we’re hearing is not unbelief, but sincere perplexity. And there’s a difference. Abram’s perplexity is similar to the young virgin Mary’s perplexity when Gabriel tells her that she will “conceive in [her] womb and bear a son.” She responds, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” (Luke 1:30, 34). It’s a reasonable question; virgins don’t get pregnant. Abram’s question is also reasonable with regard to nature; barren women past childbearing years do not get pregnant. God was not offended or dishonored by Mary’s or Abraham’s sincere perplexity, which is why he responds to both with gracious kindness. And God’s answers are also reasonable, even if his reasonableness often extends far beyond the limits of human reason (“Is anything too hard for the Lord?” Genesis 18:14). So, in answer to Abram’s sincerely desperate prayer, God graciously invites him to step outside. Starry, Starry Night God says to Abram, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” (Genesis 15:5) Here, suddenly, is a defining moment for Abram. God’s answer doesn’t include how Abram is going to obtain descendants. All God does is reaffirm, and even expand the scope of, what he has already promised. In other words, “I’m going to give you more offspring than you can count or even imagine. Do you believe me?” And old Abram, with an old wife and a childless tent, looking up into the night sky so full of stars that in some places they looked like clouds of light, with the word of the Lord ringing in his mind, realizes that whatever God is doing is about something much bigger than he has yet grasped, and so he resolves to trust “that God [is] able to do what he [has] promised” (Romans 4:21). [Abram] believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness. (Genesis 15:6) “The world would never be the same because of that moment on that starry, starry night.” No one, not even Abram, could have seen just how history-shaping, how destiny-determining, this moment was, when a man was justified — counted righteous — in the eyes of God simply because he believed God. Because a man believed God’s promises over his own perceptions. Because a man trusted God and did not lean on his own understanding (Proverbs 3:5). The world would never be the same after that moment on that starry, starry night. Joy Beyond Belief I’m not saying it was smooth faith-sailing from then on for the man God renamed Abraham, “the father of a multitude of nations” (Genesis 17:5). It wasn’t. The Hagar and Ishmael event, as well as others, were still in the future. Isaac, the first of the promised offspring, wouldn’t be born for another fifteen years or so. And God had another defining moment in store for Abraham on the slopes of Mount Moriah. The path of faith is a rugged one, and almost always more demanding than we expect. But after that night, Abraham did not waver in his belief that God would, somehow, do what he had promised. And God did. He made both Abraham and Sarah, and all who knew them, laugh for joy — “joy inexpressible and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:8) — when Isaac was finally born. For that’s where the rugged path of faith, the hard way that leads to life (Matthew 7:14), ultimately leads: to “fullness of joy and . . . pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11). “The path of faith is a rugged one, and almost always more demanding than we expect.” God leads most of his children, who are Abraham’s children because they share Abraham’s faith (Romans 4:16), to defining moments of faith, moments when our faith is pushed nearly to a point beyond belief, or so it seems to us. These moments may not appear dramatic to others. But to us, in the deep recesses of our hearts, everything is on the line. And at these moments, everything comes down to a simple but profound, and perhaps anguishing, question: Will I trust God? What usually isn’t apparent to us is how significant the moment is for an untold number of others. For it is often true that in “obtaining [as] the outcome of [our] faith, the salvation of [our] souls” (1 Peter 1:9), what also results in the years and centuries that follow is the salvation of others — so many, perhaps, that they would boggle our minds if we could see them. When you believe God, he counts it to you as righteousness, as full acceptance from God himself. And when you believe God, it leads to the Isaac-laughter of inexpressible joy as you at last see God do for you what he has promised. And when you believe God, you will share inexpressible joy with a host of others who, because you believed, will be laughing in joy with you. Article by Jon Bloom
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