You Can Plant Seeds Like Amy Carmichael
The play, “He Is Near,” performed by homeschoolers in Cookeville, Tennessee, last week told the story of Northern Ireland-born missionary Amy Carmichael and people God touched through her ministry in southern India, in particular a girl named Mimosa.
The story begins in the garden at Dohnavur Fellowship, which Amy founded in 1901 when a girl named Preena, who had been dedicated to a pagan temple, ran away and sought refuge with Amy. Mabel Wade has read about Dohnavur through Amy’s prolific writings. She has just arrived with a porter carrying her trunk.
Mabel is a nurse and has come to Dohnavur to serve the children.
Mabel soon meets Yosepu who came to Dohnavur after his brother beat him for becoming a Christian. Yosepu serves as the fellowship’s water carrier and spreader of joy.
When many of the children come into the garden, Yosepu joins them in singing “The Butterfly,” one of several songs in the play written by Amy Carmichael.
Indian women joined in the ministry at Dohnavur. They were called accals, which means older sister. Here Mabel meets the accals and they share with her the terrible plight of many of the children before they came to Dohnavur.
After Mabel leaves, Amy and the accal Pappamal discuss the upcoming visit of Star’s father. He has sent Star to Dohnavur to reduce the number of mouths he has to feed in his family. Pappamal tells Amy her fears that Star’s father will one day take her away from Dohnavur.
When Star sees Pappamal praying, she joins her and tells her about her little sister Mimosa.
Next we see Star’s father walking through the woods to Dohnavur, along with his younger daughter Mimosa.
Star is elated finally to get to see her little sister.
While Star and Mimosa’s father is away with one of the accals making sure that what Star eats and where she sleeps is in keeping with their caste, a group of children walk through the garden, singing “He Is Near,” the theme song of the play. The short song of only five lines asks what room there is for troubled fear, because we know our God is near.
Mimosa wants to know who the children are singing about.
Star asks Amy please to tell her little sister about the Father just like she told her.
Amy has only a few moments to tell Mimosa that God is our Father, that He is the Creator, and that He loves her.
Mimosa is surprised to learn about a God who loves and that He loves her.
When her father returns, Mimosa asks him if she can stay at Dohnavur for a little while, just long enough to learn about the God they are telling her about.
Her father roughly tells her that it is already a shameful thing that Star is here and asks if she wants to shame him, too.
Mimosa cries and her father tells her to say goodbye to her sister.
The two girls wave sorrowful goodbyes.
Mimosa looks back one more time before leaving her sister and Dohnavur.
Amy, Star, and the accals in attendance talk about Mimosa’s eagerness to hear and grieve at the limited time she had to learn.
As father and daughter walk back through the woods on the way home, Mimosa tells her father what Amy told her. He responds in anger.
When he walks on ahead, Mimosa sings “He Is Near,” the song she just heard at Dohnavur.
It will be many years before Mimosa has any contact with a single person who believes in God, but the seed God planted in her heart during those few minutes will stay with her the rest of her life. Keep planting seeds in the hearts of your children. You are not responsible for the growth, just the faithful planting and watering. And, unlike Amy Carmichael in this instance, you have a bounty of opportunities.
So then neither the one who plants
nor the one who waters is anything,
but God who causes the growth.
1 Corinthians 3:7
He Is Near is based on Mimosa by Amy Carmichael, © 1924 by The Dohnavur Fellowship; Gold Cord by Amy Carmichael, © 1932 by The Dohnavur Fellowship; Amy Carmichael of Dohnavur by Frank L. Houghton, © 1953 by The Dohnavur Fellowship; and Mountain Breezes: The Collected Poems of Amy Carmichael, ©1999 by The Dohnavur Fellowship. Used by permission of CLC Publications. For more information about Amy Carmichael and The Dohnavur Fellowship, or to purchase her books, visit clcpublications.com.