Lessons Learned From Amy....

I heard her story at church camp, the summer of 1989. Camp Pamadeva was a miserable little hole nestled somewhere in Maryland, let me put emphasis on miserable! Bug infested, dilapidated, over-crowded, hot........ life changing. Each morning we had story time under the pavilion. It was in that rickety old pavilion that I was first introduced to my hero, Amy Carmichael, a missionary to India.

I could re-tell her story here, but if you don't already know it, you really should read Elisabeth Elliot's A Chance to Die, her life was remarkable! Amy surrendered all to become "Amma" to hundreds of children, many that she rescued from prostitution and idolatry. On the last night of camp, way-back-when, while the mosquitoes were swarming and my heart was pounding, I walked the aisle during the invitation. I knelt down at the alter and I prayed, "Make me like Amy, Lord." She has been my inspiration for the last twenty-one years.

Ministering to children has literally been my passion since I was a child myself! I am painfully aware that the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Matthew 26:41 Many misguided steps and sinful blunders have distracted me along the way.....but the call hasn't been diminished. I desire now, more than ever, to share the love of Jesus with the broken, with the weak, but most especially with the smallest of these. I am asking tonight, just as I did when I was twelve, "How will you use me God?"

Amma taught her children that it is enough to ask the Father. Indeed!