In a daze, Amy hired a buggy to take her and her tin sea chest back to Broughton Grange. She didn’t know what else to do. Of course, Robert Wilson was delighted to see her return. Amy fit right back into life at the Grange, but in her heart she was restless. What had gone wrong? Why had she felt God call her to go to China and gone through all the agony of saying good-bye to her mother and Robert Wilson, only to be turned down by a doctor? She didn’t understand. But she wasn’t about to give up, either. One thing she knew for sure as she looked at the tin sea chest shoved in the corner of her room. God had said, “Go,” and she would go somewhere, and soon.
Chapter 6
Laughing in the Rain
Four months after arriving back at the Grange Amy felt “the call,” as she put it, to Japan. But what would she do there? She didn’t know a single person in Japan or anyone connected with missionary work there. Robert Wilson, of course, knew missionaries all over the world. When Amy told him she felt called to Japan, Barclay Buxton came immediately to his mind. Buxton was a missionary sent out by the Church Missionary Society, the missionary arm of the Church of England. He was the leader of a group called the Japanese Evangelistic Band. The group was made up of missionaries from a number of denominations, and Robert Wilson knew they would welcome a young, female, Irish Presbyterian missionary.
After her rejection by the China Inland Mission and her return to Broughton Grange, Robert Wilson had thought Amy would settle down. It had been so good to have her back, but now she wanted to leave again. The letter to Barclay Buxton asking whether there was a place for Amy on his team was not easy for Robert Wilson to write. He also worried about Amy’s health. If she wasn’t healthy enough to go to China, how was it she thought herself healthy enough to go to Japan? It made no sense to him. Yet he knew Amy believed God had told her to go, and she was a very determined person. So, although he didn’t want to lose her again, he did all he could to help her with her plans.
Certain that God had called her to Japan, Amy didn’t bother to wait for a reply from Barclay Buxton. Three women from the China Inland Mission were sailing to Shanghai in early March, and Amy planned to travel with them. In Shanghai she would transfer to another ship for the journey to Japan. She had Robert Wilson ask Barclay Buxton to send his reply to Shanghai so it would be waiting for Amy when she arrived.
On March 3, 1892, along with her tin sea trunk, Amy boarded the SS Valetta at Tilbury, on the river Thames near London. Amy would have preferred to climb the gangway, wave good-bye, and head out to sea, but it wasn’t that easy. Saying good-bye for an extended sea voyage was long and drawn out. Many people who left on such voyages never returned. There were shipwrecks, diseases, and disasters waiting in the Far East, and those who were staying at home often acted as though they were at a funeral rather than a farewell. Amy had said a tearful good-bye to her mother in Manchester, but Robert Wilson had insisted on escorting her all the way to the dock. Amy stood on the deck of the Valetta and waved good-bye to him. Tears streamed down her cheeks as those on the dock sang Keswick hymns to her and the other three missionary women aboard. As the ship began to drift from the dock, Amy was both sad and relieved as Robert Wilson began to fade from view. It was hard leaving him, not knowing whether she would ever see him again.
As the Valetta rounded the end of the dock and began to drift with the current on the river Thames, there was Robert Wilson again. He had quickly hiked along the dock to catch one last look at his beloved Amy. The Valetta passed so close to where he was standing that he and Amy could call to each other. They encouraged each other with Bible verses, and then, when Amy thought she could bear it no more, the ship finally pulled out into the main channel of the river, and for the last time, Robert Wilson became a tiny waving speck on the dock.
Amy had done it. She had left behind her mother and her adopted father to follow God’s leading. Later in life, she said it was the most difficult thing she had ever had to do.
Life aboard the SS Valetta settled into a pattern. Amy was seasick, but not anywhere near as seasick as many of the other passengers. As usual, she soon set to work organizing things. Within a week, there were morning Bible readings on the poop deck and Sunday services in the saloon. Amy and one of the China Inland Mission women began a Bible study aboard ship that attracted an odd assortment of passengers and crew: a high-class Indian man searching for “truth,” a Chinese woman from Sowtow, a poor Indian man who had sold himself as a slave to work in the sugar plantations in the West Indies, and a Chinese nanny.
As the Valetta entered the Mediterranean Sea and steamed along the north coast of Africa, Amy found other opportunities to talk to passengers and crew members about the gospel message. At Port Said, the ship headed south through the one-hundred-and-one-mile-long Suez Canal. Then it steamed through the Red Sea and on into the Indian Ocean. Everyone was glad when the Valetta finally reached Colombo, Ceylon. Amy and the three other women headed for Shanghai had to spend several days in Colombo before boarding another ship for the second leg of their journey. Amy spent her time visiting missionaries she’d heard about through her Keswick connections.
Finally, Amy boarded the SS Sutlej bound for Shanghai. Unlike the Valetta, the Sutlej was a nightmare, with rats and cockroaches infesting the ship. For Amy it brought back memories of living in the slums of Ancoats. But instead of complaining about the condition of the ship, Amy found a large piece of cardboard, on which she wrote the words “In Everything Give Thanks.” She placed the cardboard by her bunk where she could read it before she went to sleep every night.
Amy must have lived out what she had written, because she made a big impact on the captain during the voyage. He told her he had never seen a passenger who had such a positive attitude amid the poor conditions on his ship. During the trip he questioned Amy over and over about her faith, until he finally announced he wanted to become a Christian just like her. Of course, Amy was delighted, and more so when he asked her to write out some Bible verses on cardboard so he could stick them on the walls of his cabin. It was his way of announcing to the whole crew he was now a Christian.
The captain’s conversion to Christianity was the only bright spot of the voyage. Amy was grateful when the ship finally steamed up the Yangtze River and then the Huangpu River and docked at Shanghai, where she stayed with missionaries from the China Inland Mission. In Shanghai, a letter was waiting for her from Barclay Buxton. Yes, the letter informed her, the Japanese Evangelistic Band had a place for her, and one of their missionaries would meet her when she arrived at the port of Shimonoseki in southern Japan.
After a short stay in Shanghai, Amy boarded the SS Yokohama Maru for the last leg of her trip to Japan. During the voyage, the ship ran into a fierce typhoon. When she couldn’t dock at Shimonoseki because of the storm, her passengers were loaded onto a tugboat for a rough ride ashore.
Finally, as the typhoon began to subside, Amy set foot on Japanese soil. She had safely made it halfway around the world. Feeling weak from five days of constant seasickness, she plunked herself down on her tin sea trunk and looked around for the missionary who was supposed to be meeting her.
Through the pouring rain, Amy noticed light brown faces staring at her. She didn’t blame the people for staring. She realized she must look quite a sight. Her felt hat was completely soaked, and she could feel it flopping down to her ears. The rain formed rivulets that dripped off her hat and ran down her dress. Every inch of her, all the way to her starched petticoat, was wet.
The missionary who was supposed to meet her was not there. Feeling a little panicked, Amy began to look around for any white face. There wasn’t one. Over the howling wind she yelled, “Does anyone speak English?” There were a few giggles from those around her, but no reply—at least no reply she could understand. She tried again. “My name is Amy Carmichael, can anyone help me?” Still no answer. Suddenly Amy saw the humor in the situation. She had come halfway around the world and was now stuck on a dock in Japan in the midst of a typhoon with not the slightest idea of what to do next. She started to laugh. And the more she thought about it, the more she laughed, until tears of laughter joined the raindrops that cascaded down her cheeks.
When she finally finished laughing, two Japanese men stepped forward and motioned for her to stand up. They hooked ropes under the handles of her trunk and hung the trunk on a bamboo pole between them. They motioned for her to follow them. Amy followed as the two men talked to each other in short, fast sentences. The men led the way along the dock, around a corner, and into a street. Amy couldn’t see the end of the street; the rain was still too heavy. Besides, she had to concentrate hard to avoid the huge puddles and ruts in the road. The trio trudged on for a few hundred yards until the men ducked into a building. Amy followed. Finally, the shorter of the two men beckoned for her to sit on a woven grass mat in a room inside the building. As she did so, the men bowed and left the room. Amy was alone, sitting cross-legged on a mat. It wasn’t particularly comfortable, but at least she was out of the rain. She looked around the room. The walls were made with panels of very thin paper, and there was not a piece of furniture to be seen. Amy was aware her clothes were making a big puddle on the mat. She hoped it wouldn’t be difficult to mop up.
Amy sat for nearly half an hour before one of the men reappeared and again motioned for her to follow. The man led Amy outside to a rickshaw, or kuruma as it was called in Japan. She’d seen the two-wheeled carts pulled by a “driver” in Shanghai, but she had no idea how uncomfortable they were to ride in. Every bone in her body seemed to jolt with each turn of the huge wheels. The wind whipped at her skirt, and she pulled her soaked shawl tightly around her as if it were actually offering some protection from the storm.
Eventually, the kuruma stopped outside a house, and the driver lowered its handles and then lifted Amy’s sea trunk from between the back axles. Amy had no idea where she was, but she figured this was where she was supposed to get off. When she’d climbed out of the kuruma, the driver bowed to her, picked up the cart’s handles, and trotted off into the rain.
Amy knocked loudly on the door of the house. Much to her relief, a white man opened it. The man stood stunned for a moment at the small, wet stranger standing in his doorway in the middle of a typhoon. He invited Amy in and offered her some tea. Thankfully, he spoke English, though with an American accent. Over a cup of steaming hot tea, Amy’s story tumbled out, and soon her host was chuckling away. The story got funnier and funnier as she told it, until they were both laughing so hard Amy’s sides ached. By the time she had finished her story, Amy had made a new friend in the American trader. The trader explained to her that he knew where two missionaries lived, and although he did not know their names, he was reasonably sure they were the ones Amy was meant to stay with. If not, he was certain they would know where she belonged. After several more cups of tea, the trader flagged down another kuruma for Amy. He gave a volley of instructions to the driver in Japanese, and then Amy was off again. This time she knew where she was going.
When Amy arrived at the missionary house, she found that the people there were indeed the missionaries who were expecting her. But they were also expecting the missionary who had been sent from a mission station in the country to meet Amy. He hadn’t yet arrived, which explained why there was no one to meet Amy at the dock. The other missionaries concluded that the typhoon had held him up and he would get to Shimonoseki as soon as he could. Still, his not being there to meet Amy had given her the opportunity to learn something on her very first day on the mission field: God could make things work out, even when things seemed to be going wrong. Amy thought of the men who had carried her trunk and hired the kuruma. She supposed they had paid the driver to take her to the trader, but she had no way of ever finding them again to thank them. And the trader had done the same thing. Amy had been at the mercy of God and the kindness of strangers, and she had been helped every step of the way.
