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Amy Carmichael (1867-1951)
One morning in March 1901 Amy sat drinking tea in Pannaivilai, a village in southern India. A woman, a Christian convert, came to her with a small girl in tow. The waif gawked so rudely Amy knew she knew nothing at all about white-faced foreigners with frizzy brown hair.
"Preena came to me last night," explained the convert. "She could think of no other place to hide. She is only seven. She escaped the Hindu Temple in Perungulam. Preena is to become a 'devadasis', a 'woman of the temple'. First they teach her to sing and dance for the temple gods. But soon - perhaps at only nine or ten - she will entertain Hindu men who patronize the temple."
A temple prostitute. What an abomination!
"Come up here with me," said Amy in Tamil, lifting the girl onto her lap. "Why, your tiny hands are scarred!"
"From burns," said the convert. "She was punished after an earlier escape."
"What a brave little soul you have, Preena." Amy hugged and kissed her. The girl melted.
"How desperately Preena wants that affection from her own mother," said the convert. "But the first time Preena escaped from the temple and ran back to her mother - her 'Amma' - she was delivered right back to her pursuers."
"Amma, I want to stay with you always," sobbed Preena.
Amma! Amy had become the girl's Amma, her mother, her protector…
[source: Amy Carmichael of Dohnavur by Frank Houghton, 1953]
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George Washington Carver (1864-1943)
George had been up and down many times. He had learned the hard way one success doesn't necessarily spawn another. So in 1896 he was nervous when he asked James Wilson, the Chairman of Iowa State's agricultural department, for a letter of recommendation for a college teaching position. George respected James Wilson above all other people. Besides teaching a Bible class for the students, Wilson was the smartest, most decent man he had ever met. Wilson was the only one in the world who could cry to his teaching assistant, "Look at your shoes, George! You can't face the undergraduates that way. Now go buy a new pair right away!" George always refused something he hadn't earned outright. But not with Wilson. Off George would go with the dollars Wilson had thrust upon him. The rumor was that Wilson would become Secretary of Agriculture under William McKinley if McKinley won the presidential election later that year. McKinley seemed sure to win. James Wilson was a man with influence.
Wilson thrust the letter out. "Here's what I wrote about you, George."
The letter declared that in cross-fertilization and the propagation of plants George was the ablest student at the college. But Wilson's praise went far beyond that. George could scarcely believe what he was reading:
Except for the respect I owe the professors, I would say
he is fully abreast of them and exceeds in special lines in
which he has a taste...I would not hesitate to have him
teach our classes here...We have nobody to take his place
and I would never part with a student with so much regret
as George Carver...It will be difficult, in fact impossible,
to fill his place…
So that was what his mentor thought of him! George felt like there was nothing in the world he could not accomplish now…
[source: George Washington Carver by Rackham Holt, 1943]
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