RESCUER OF PRECIOUS GERMS

           Dear children of God, greetings, our Lord Jesus Christ the rescuer of our precious souls will reward you according to the work each one has done. If we built with gold, silver, precious stone, wood, hay, straw…, the fire will test what sort of work each one of us has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he or she will receive a reward. Jesus is the only foundation that we can build. Let us see and review our works how we built?

Dear friends, I had an opportunity to work and do ministry in Caruniapurm where Amy Carmichael first launched her ministry in South India. Where she built a church, school and home for destitute girls and fallen women and from then she shifted to Donavoor. Today Amy Carmichael memorial church and school are running under Kalanthapanai pastorate.  

        Amy grew up in a big house in Ireland and had lots of fun with her brothers and sisters. But one day her father died, and the family had to move to a big city and a smaller house. They could no longer afford help with the house or garden. She had to help her mother raise the younger children. But that wasn’t too hard. Amy had learned to love God first of all, and she wanted more than anything to know and follow Jesus. She loved His word and believed all His wonderful promises. She wasn't afraid, for she knew that Jesus would be with her always.

           Once, before her father died, she had travelled to big city with her mother. They stopped at a tea-room for lunch. While they were eating, Amy noticed a little girl outside. Her face was dirty and her hair was straggly as she pressed her nose against the window. Her sad eyes looked right into Amy’s. Amy could never forget the poor little girl. So when she was backing home again, she wrote her a special promise. She gave it to God, since she couldn’t deliver it to the poor child. When I grow up and have money, I know what I will do; I’ll build a great big lovely place for little girls like you. Amy didn’t know that one day; God would send her all the way to India to fulfil that promise. Walking home from church one Sunday; something else happened that forever changed her life. She and her two brothers… dressed in their best clothes… were way ahead of the others, when she spotted a poor beggar woman, dressed in tattered old clothes. Her feet were wrapped with strips of rags, now heavy with mud. When Amy and her brothers saw the old woman stagger and almost fall, they hurried to catch up with her. The older boy lifted the bundle off her back, and hung it over her shoulders. The other two each took the woman’s arms and helped her along.

One by one, church members stared at the strange sight as they walked by. Amy felt her face getting hotter as each person from church passed them, especially when one woman hurried her children to the other side of the road to avoid the four of them altogether.

Amy remembered the Good Samaritan story told by our Lord Jesus Christ. A man was going from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him and he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and “bound up his wounds” pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two “denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, “ take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.

          Embarrassed, Amy and her brothers kept their heads down, not even looking at each other and hoping no one important came along and saw them. There was a fountain in the centre of the road, and trying to take her mind off walking along beside the beggar woman, Amy studied it closely. Amy suddenly stopped. Someone was talking to her. She clearly heard a voice say, “Gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw…, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the foundation survives, he will receive a reward”. Amy turned to see who was speaking. There was no one there. But she had heard a voice, plain and clear. Puzzled, she walked on with the old woman on her arm.

          As she did, something felt very different inside. Amy was no longer embarrassed. In fact, she walked with her head held high for all to see. The trio escorted the old woman to where she wanted to go then ran to catch up to their mother. After lunch, Amy went to her room. She knelt down by her bed side. After several hours of praying and thinking, Amy finally decided she knew what the words from the Bible meant her. She wanted them to be found worthwhile and to be seen as gold and silver, not ha and stubble. For another thing, she would never again worry about what people thought of her. If what she was doing was pleasing to God that would be enough for her. If other people, even other Christians, didn't want to walk with beggars, that was their business, but Amy would walk with them.

              Amy was important in God’s eyes. She was able to abolish the practise of devadasi system which held in south part of Tamilnadu. Her love for the poor girls sold to the Temple as deva dasi. She brought the girls to her house to feed them and to educate them to help them to live respectively in the society. She was mother to the Tamil girls and women. Her karuniam and love for the young girls and women brought Donavoor fellowship. Amy Carmichael was a rescuer of precious germs.