Young women: what is your calling? (part 2) Amy Carmichael: celibate pioneer

We’re not here for that long really … and the memory of us will eventually die. But while we’re here, the challenge is to influence people for God – I mean, as much as we can, with God’s enabling. Some people (including me and quite a few of my friends) choose to do this by embracing a celibate calling – choosing committed singleness for life - seeing it as a fruitful means to this end. Such, too, did Amy Carmichael. 



Amy Carmichael was a woman who etched a deep mark on many people’s lives. Indeed, her influence is still with us in the books she wrote and in the ‘Dohnavaur’ fellowship which she founded and which still exists today. 

Amy Carmichael was a celibate visionary leader, a pioneer, a woman of deep spiritual insight, a writer, a pray-er but above all a lover - of her spiritual children, the lost - and most of all, Jesus.

Born in Northern Ireland in 1867, Amy was converted as a teenager after her family moved to Belfast. When she was about 20, she founded 'Welcome Hall' as a mission to reach Belfast's mill-girls. When her family moved to Manchester, Amy again worked amongst the factory girls in the slums.

Amy sailed for Japan in 1893 to be a missionary. Her dream ended just over a year later when she returned home exhausted and unable to cope with the extreme climate. At this time she received a strong call to celibacy. Years later she described how she found a solitary cave to pray. "I had feelings of fear about the future. That was why I was there - to be alone with God. The devil kept on whispering 'It's all right now, but what about afterwards? You are going to be very lonely.' And he painted pictures of loneliness - I can see them still. And I turned to my God in a kind of desperation and said, 'Lord what can I do? How can I go on to the end?' And He said, 'None of them that trust in Me shall be desolate.' That word has been with me ever since. It has been fulfilled to me."

The following year Amy sailed to southern India and soon gathered a group of women whom she formed into a woman's band, called the 'Starry Cluster.' Under her leadership the women travelled around the villages, visiting homes and speaking to women and children who were willing to listen to the gospel. When two teenage girls who wanted to become believers escaped from their homes and came to her, the threat of violence forced them all to move to Dohnavur, on the southern tip of India. Amy lived there for the rest of her life.

In 1901 Amy rescued her first temple child. Such children were destined for a life of prostitution in Hindu temples. Over the years she rescued, and had brought to her, many other children in similar danger. A home was made for them amidst a community of believers, later called the Dohnavur Fellowship. Like Amy, many at Dohnavur chose to remain single 'to attend upon the Lord without distraction' as one of them said.

In 1916 Amy formed 'The Sisters of the Common Life' for single women like herself. In a book of guidelines for them Amy wrote: 'There is nothing dreary or doubtful about this life. It is meant to be continually joyful..' She describes those who embraced this lifestyle as ones 'being willing to follow the Lamb wherever he goeth.'

Amy, called 'Amma' (mother), was not only a spiritual mother to many of her fellow workers but to her adopted children as well. Her aim was to train the children 'to serve, to be evangelists and lovers of souls' and to send out teams to evangelize the people of southern India. 

 In 1931 Amy broke a leg which left her disabled for the rest of her life. For the next 20 years, confined to her room, she continued in her role as 'Amma' to the family as well as writing many books. In one of her books called 'Ploughed Under' she writes of the need of celibates to be spiritual parents. 'Perhaps because there are so many perishing for lack of love in a world which can be hard and cold to birds which have no nest of their own, He wants some mother-hearts to be free to make nests for them, just as He wants some of His knights to be St. Pauls ... and for Francis of Assisi there is need everywhere."

'Why was it ever forgotten I wonder?' she wrote of celibacy. The word she received so many years ago - 'It has been fulfilled to me. It will be fulfilled to you.'

Amy’s legacy of compassion, obedience and devotion as a celibate pioneer lives on – both in the books she has written and in the continuing fellowship she planted at Dohnavaur.

Give us more like her, O Lord … give us those with undivided hearts … surely the spiritual malaise, the apathy and lack of desire we so often suffer from would be turned around  …. and the church would be rooted deeper in God, more single-minded, standing stronger – for Him alone.