Global Kingdom worker: Amy Carmichael
Role in The Mind of a Missionary: She appears in section four: Rewards, chapter ten: Joy on the Journey.
Dates: December 16, 1867—January 18, 1951
Location of missions work: India
Known for: Amy Wilson Carmichael was a Protestant Christian missionary in India, who opened an orphanage and founded a mission in Dohnavur. She served in India for 55 years without furlough and wrote many books about the missionary work there.
Famous quotes: “Joys are always on their way to us. They are always traveling to us through the darkness of the night. There is never a night when they are not coming.”1
“He has brought you into the company of the happy-hearted, and you will carry His happiness wherever you go. How we dishonour our good Master when we carry fogs and mists and a general sense of dreariness. The Lord of joy keeps us in the glorious way of joy.”2
“Does it not stir up our hearts, to go forth and help them, does it not make us long to leave our luxury, our exceeding abundant light, and go to them that sit in darkness?”3
“Joy, not suffering, is eternal. And there are many joys now. May your day be full of joy, the kind that is strength.”4
In The Mind of a Missionary, section four: Rewards, chapter ten: Joy on the Journey, you see how God desires to infuse joy into your missional efforts. Without the gift of joy, ministry is drudgery at best. Through the life of Amy Carmichael, you will see en example of fervent toil tinged with joy. This propelled Amy to impact an entire nation. Joy is a reward for Christians who take part in God’s global mandate. Life’s struggles are boundless but the joy of the Lord is your strength. You will see the Divine sequence of events that God is arranging in the background. Jubilance awaits your arrival to the feet of Jesus; in His presence is joy everlasting. This is not theory. You will see this reality in the life of Amy Carmichael and realize that God gives you the promise of joy as well.
On October 11, 1895, Amy Carmichael sailed for India. She left Britain at the age of twenty-seven, never to set foot again on British soil. “Of the blistering days before I sailed and of the goodbye I will say nothing,” Amy Carmichael wrote of her departure to India. “We shall all be together soon in the Father’s Country. Such days will seem worthwhile There.”5
Yes, dear Christian, there is a price for obeying the commands of Christ, but the rewards far outweigh the expense. For at the feet of Jesus is joy everlasting.6
Her family and friends lined the shore to see her off. Tearful farewells rose from the depths of each one’s heart and passed between parted lips. Amy’s mother wept. Slowly, the ship departed the dock, and the gap between land and sea widened. “God bless you all!” Amy called to her well-wishers; they echoed blessings back to her. The rudder churned the ocean below; swirling eddies formed on the water’s surface. The sounds of the sea mixed with the crowd’s refrain as their unified voices broke into song: “Crown Him, crown Him, crown Him Lord of All!” The distance between ship and land swallowed the sound of song. Amy gazed back at the people, the coastline, the city, and the mountains. Everything became vague—a blurred memory of her homeland. Overhead, seagulls cried.
Physically frail yet mentally alert, twenty-two-year-old Amy landed on Indian soil on November 9, 1895. Illness immediately greeted her already weakened frame. She contacted dengue fever, a dangerous and often fatal virus that causes a skin rash, joint pains, fever, and headaches. The illness laid her low for a period, but her focus remained on things above.
Joy is found in the lines within a chapter, the pauses between a play, and the interludes of a performance. Inevitable difficulties mark the drama, but the show must go on until the culmination of the plot. In the messy middle, better a merry heart than an anxious mind. The joy of the Lord is your strength today, here in the halfway moments, ever available for those who choose to accept it.7
Amy immediately gravitated toward the women and children, of whom the latter she wrote seemed to live “in a land where childhood ends almost as soon it begins.”8 Their hollow eyes beckoned her help. Perhaps the cry she heard on January 14, 1892—“Come over and help us”—issued from the hearts of these little ones. Here now she stood on Indian soil as a ministry budded, ever so subtly at first, that would initiate a far-reaching, transformative effect.
One of the principal keys to thriving on mission is to draw near to the Lord of joy. Cast off the fog and mist and dreariness! A gloomy disposition not only dishonors our happy God but steals our strength in the process. Joy hoists up the heavy-hearted to exhibit the good news of the Gospel; it compels us to steal into the dark regions of the enemy’s territory, spread the glorious light of salvation, and reclaim those bound by Satan.
God does not want global goers to be mindless gears in the missions machine. A missional fervor devoid of relational intimacy is not His ultimate goal. God invites every believer into the joy of partnership with Him. The Great Commission enterprise is not comprised of commonplace Christian cogs, but integral, God-ordained components in the body of Christ.9
We need trailblazers who hack new passageways in the wilderness; who do not go where the path may lead, but go instead where there is no path to leave a trail. This apostolic anointing invigorates the weary, inspiring courage from inaction. The pioneer we need is bored by the status quo and motivated by an intrinsic drive to make God’s glory known in the earth. Christian pioneers encourage us to be all that God called us to be.
There are no commonplace Christian cogs in the Great Commission enterprise. Every Christ-follower is an integral, God-ordained component in His divine plot. God puts each puzzle piece in place to construct the timeless masterpiece of His story. True missional beginnings commence at the feet of Jesus and continue by His sustaining grace. And in the assembling process of divinely intertwined sequences, an unearthly joy undergirds our every step.
God thinks highly of His children, esteems our uniqueness, and values our individuality. Every spiritual gift matters; every missional offering carries importance. Every citizen of God’s Kingdom is significant.10
In our moments of uncertainty and confusion, God delights to lead us into our destiny. In chapter ten of The Mind of a Missionary, you will see that God reveals each step as it comes, guiding us along an unfamiliar path. Our only choice is to cling to His promises, draw closer to Him, and seek not His wonders but know His ways.
Amy Carmichael was one of the female missionaries who transformed the world of missions. The frontier advanced on the stepping stones of missionary graves, paving the way for modern-day ministers. Through Amy’s example, you will realize that God grants you the gift of joy as well that you might thrive on mission today.
Make no mistake about it: grief is a two-sided coin. Behind the facade of sorrow, gladness grows—ever so slowly at first—until the bloom undergoes a complete transmutation. In His mercy, God injects joy into our pain. Godly gladness is, after all, the gift through which we find strength amid strain and struggle.11
The Mind of a Missionary: What Global Kingdom Workers Tell Us About Thriving on Mission Today by David Joannes includes the following missionary guides: Jim & Elisabeth Elliot, C. T. Studd, Nikolaus Zinzendorf, Robert Moffat, Jackie Pullinger, David Eubank, Nik & Ruth Ripken, William Carey, Hudson Taylor, Amy Carmichael, Don Richardson, Heidi Baker.
Books/resources:
Candles in the Dark by Amy Carmichael
Things As They Are: Missionary Work in South India by Amy Carmichael (Free PDF)
The Continuation of a Story by Amy Carmichael (Free PDF)
Gold Cord: The Story of a Fellowship by Amy Carmichael
From Sunrise Land: Letters from Japan by Amy Carmichael (Free PDF)
Books/resources referenced in chapter ten of The Mind of a Missionary:
Amy Carmichael: Beauty for Ashes, A Biography by Iain H. Murray (Free PDF)
Triumphant Love: The Contextual, Creative and Strategic Missionary Work of Amy Beatrice Carmichael in South India by J. (Hans) Kommers
A Chance to Die by Elisabeth Elliot
- Amy Carmichael, Candles in the Dark, Kindle Locations 907-908, CLC Publications, The Dohnavur Fellowship, 1981
- Amy Carmichael, Candles in the Dark, Kindle Locations 904-906, CLC Publications, The Dohnavur Fellowship, 1981
- Twenty-year-old Amy Carmichael in Scraps, a Carmichael family magazine, beautifully handwritten, illustrated, and published monthly for family and friends; It was Amy who proposed a family journal. The object of Scraps was “for the improvement and amusement of the members” (Scraps, March 18, 1887 onwards). Amy signed all her contributions with the pseudonym “Nobody.” This quote is also found in Amy Carmichael (Heroes of the Faith) by Sam Wellman, page 32, Barbour Publishing, Inc., 2012
- Amy Carmichael, Candles in the Dark: Letters of Hope and Encouragement, page 99, Christian Literature Crusade, 1982
- Amma’s Book, Amy’s Autobiography, page 41, unpublished (In the Dohnavur library)
- David Joannes, The Mind of a Missionary: What Global Kingdom Workers Tell Us About Thriving on Mission Today, chapter ten: Joy on the Journey
- David Joannes, The Mind of a Missionary: What Global Kingdom Workers Tell Us About Thriving on Mission Today, chapter ten: Joy on the Journey
- Amy Carmichael, The Continuation of a Story, page 37, London : Dohnavur Fellowship, 1914
- David Joannes, The Mind of a Missionary: What Global Kingdom Workers Tell Us About Thriving on Mission Today, chapter ten: Joy on the Journey
- David Joannes, The Mind of a Missionary: What Global Kingdom Workers Tell Us About Thriving on Mission Today, chapter ten: Joy on the Journey
- David Joannes, The Mind of a Missionary: What Global Kingdom Workers Tell Us About Thriving on Mission Today, chapter ten: Joy on the Journey
