The Christians in Hirose had invited their friends to come hear Amy speak. One Buddhist woman showed up. She was a young silk weaver, and she had given up a day’s pay to come and hear about the new God. By the end of the night, she had become a Christian. Amy had the one convert she believed God had promised.
Four weeks later, Amy felt she should make a return trip to Hirose, so she and Misaki San spent another day in prayer. This time Amy felt God promise that there would be two converts as a result of the trip. She shared the news eagerly with Misaki San, and the two of them prayed further about it as they rode in their kuruma to Hirose. Sure enough, the silk weaver who had become a Christian four weeks before had shared her new faith with a coworker, who also wanted to become a Christian. Later in the day, Amy talked to an old woman who wanted to become a Christian, too. It was amazing. The Christian population of Hirose had gone from nine to twelve in only a month. Of course, the local Christians were excited and wanted Amy to come back again soon.
Two weeks later, Amy was back. This time she felt that God had promised four converts during her trip. On her arrival, Amy held the same type of meeting she’d held on her previous two visits, but this time there was hardly anyone there to listen. The weather was too cold for most people to come out to a meeting. Still, Amy believed there would be four new Christians in Hirose before she left. She simply had to find who they were.
Meanwhile, the other Christians in town were thinking that Amy had put off Buddhists from becoming Christians on her previous visit by making the gospel too difficult. Amy had told the silk weavers who had become Christians to burn their idols. The other Christians believed that Amy did not understand their culture and that there was nothing wrong with a Christian also having idols in the house. The idols didn’t do any harm, and telling Buddhists to burn them made it too difficult for them to become Christians. The others told Amy this, hoping she would see the wisdom of what they said, but she didn’t. She believed all idols had to go, and she would tell that to anyone who asked.
The Japanese Christians sighed. Now no one would be interested in what Amy had to say. Still, halfheartedly, they supported her meetings. But as they had thought, no one present seemed interested in the message that Amy came to share. Everyone sat and stared blankly at Amy, who soon realized she wasn’t getting through to anyone at all. Just as she was beginning to get discouraged, the room went completely silent, and then a voice spoke. It was the voice of a woman seated in the corner by the door. “I want to believe,” she said.
Amy dismissed the meeting and began talking to the woman. When the woman’s son came into the room, instead of interrupting, he stood and listened. By the time Amy had finished talking to his mother, the son too was ready to become a Christian. Amy was thrilled. A mother and a son would be able to support each other in their new faith. Amy introduced them to the other Japanese Christians before setting off back to her room for the night. On the way there, she and Misaki San stopped to tell one of the local Christians who had not been at the meeting the good news. When they entered the man’s house, he looked relieved. “I am so glad you came,” he said. “I have a guest here who wants to know how to find the way to God.”
Amy talked with the guest, and before long, she had her third convert. But what about the fourth one? By now it was very cold and very dark, and nearly all the Christians in Hirose had found their way to the house where Amy and Misaki San were. Amy asked them if they knew of anyone else who was interested in becoming a Christian. One man nodded. “My wife is,” he said. “She wants to become a ‘Jesus person,’ but she is out of town and will not be back for a week.”
Amy was puzzled. She was sure God had told her there would be four converts in the village during her visit. But how could this man’s wife be one of them if she wasn’t even in town?
Every time Amy awoke during the night, she prayed that in the morning God would lead her to the fourth person who wanted to become a Christian. At first light, a servant knocked on Amy’s door with an urgent message. The man’s wife had returned home unexpectedly, and she wanted to talk with Amy. Sure enough, she told Amy of her desire to become a Christian. Amy was overcome with joy. God had promised her there would be four converts, and sure enough, there were! What more could she ask for on her twenty-sixth birthday?
After Christmas, Amy was ready to make yet another trip to Hirose. This time she was sure God had promised there would be eight converts. When she told this to the Christians at Hirose, they were not at all happy. Eight was a huge number of converts to believe God for. What if there were not eight converts? Had Amy thought about that? They would all look foolish. They told Amy it was better to pray for God’s blessing on the meetings instead of stirring people up with actual numbers. But Amy was undeterred. She believed that God had promised eight converts, and in the end, the other Christians agreed to believe with her for that number. It was a good thing they did, because there were indeed eight new Christian converts after Amy’s meeting. The Christian population of Hirose had tripled since Amy had started holding her meetings.
Once again, Amy left Hirose with excitement in her heart over all the new converts. Over the next few months she made several more trips to the village. For some reason, though, on each of those trips, God did not promise her that a particular number of people would become Christians. Amy explained it later by saying that God makes every blade of grass unique and He makes every situation unique as well.
There was one part of Amy’s trips to Hirose that she did not like to talk about: her health. After each trip she was more exhausted than she had been after the previous trip. Sometimes she would have to stay in bed for a full week with terrible headaches, unable to open the drapes because of the glare of the winter sun.
As Amy lay in bed, she had many questions. Was her body going to betray her as it had in Ancoats? Was the China Inland Mission doctor right? Did she not have the strength to be a missionary? What if her sickness got worse? Should she go home, or should she stay and be a burden on other missionaries? These were not easy questions to answer, but as Amy found herself spending more and more time in her darkened room, she knew she would have to answer them soon.
Chapter 8
Get the Head out of Japan
The fainting was what finally did it. Amy had fainted only once before, back in Ireland when she’d held her younger brother Albert still while the doctor sewed up a gash in his arm. But in Imichi, the Japanese village she was visiting, she had fainted again. She had been out cold with no good excuse. One minute she was talking to several of the local Christians about the evening service where she was to speak, and the next minute she was lying flat on the floor. Kimono hems and the clacking of wooden shoes quickly surrounded her as some Japanese women placed damp towels on her forehead and tried to lift her up off the cold floor. Amy was shocked by what had happened. Even feeling as weak as she had in the past few months, she was supposed to be the strong one. After all, she had once told someone that fainting was nothing more than “weak-minded nonsense!”
Amy scrambled to her feet and apologized to everyone. Several concerned people suggested she call off the meeting, but Amy would not hear of it. She was the scheduled speaker, and speak she would. It turned out to be a long service, and although Amy made it through without fainting again, she paid a price for it. That church service was the last one she ever held in Japan.
When she got back to Matsuye, Barclay Buxton sent for a doctor right away. The doctor’s diagnosis was “Japanese head,” a rather vague catchall diagnosis for headaches, weakness, and dizziness. There was only one solution for Japanese head: Get the head out of Japan!
The thing Amy dreaded most had happened. Her body was not nearly as strong as her spirit. Barclay Buxton suggested it might be best for her to recuperate at Chefoo on the coast of China. The China Inland Mission had a house there for sick missionaries, and he was sure they would allow Amy to make use of it as well. There seemed to be no other course of action for her to take. After only fifteen months in Japan, Amy said a sad farewell to the country and the missionaries she’d worked with and boarded a steamer for China. She was on her way to throw herself on the mercy of a mission that had rejected her for health reasons. It was humbling for Amy, and she hoped it would not be long before she was better and able to continue her mission work.
After a tedious voyage, Amy finally arrived in Shanghai, where she was met by some women from the China Inland Mission. The women had bad news for her. The house in Chefoo was already filled to overflowing with sick missionaries, and there was no room for Amy. The women offered to let Amy stay with them in Shanghai, and Amy gratefully accepted. After a week of complete rest, she began to feel well enough to think again and, of course, to pray. She asked God what to do next, and seemingly from nowhere came the very distinct impression that she should go to Colombo, Ceylon.
The idea left Amy feeling weak again. Ceylon! How would that be any different from Japan? And what would the Keswick people back in England who supported her think? From the outside she looked like a sick woman touring Asia at her supporters’ expense. Would God ever let her settle in one place, or was she going to spend a year here and a year there for the rest of her life?
While Amy didn’t have any answers, and weak as she felt, she knew as well as she knew her own name she was supposed to go to Ceylon. So she paid out ten pounds for a ticket, and on July 28, 1894, she boarded another ship, this time bound for Colombo.
Once again, she was met by kind missionaries, who took her to their station and nursed her. Amy wrote to Robert Wilson and to her mother, explaining how she had ended up in Ceylon. Mrs. Carmichael wrote back and suggested Amy might consider coming home. Home! Amy would not hear of it. Her health was improving in Colombo, and she was back in the thick of missionary work again. She wrote another letter to her mother in which she said, “…the pain is over now and I am strong for the battle again.”
That was Amy’s opinion of her health, but it was not the opinion of the mission doctor who examined her. The doctor told Amy she had “brain exhaustion” and needed complete rest! Amy tried to rest the best she could, but she kept seeing so much mission work that needed to be done, enough work to last her a lifetime.
Amy stubbornly refused to even consider leaving Ceylon; that is, until November 27, 1894. That morning when Amy returned from a meeting she found a letter waiting for her. As she turned it over she recognized the return address, Broughton Grange, but not the handwriting. Who besides Robert Wilson would be writing to her from the Grange? She tore the envelope open. The letter was from Robert Wilson’s son William. In the letter, William told Amy that his father had suffered a serious stroke and had asked her to come home immediately.
If Robert Wilson wanted Amy, nothing on earth would keep her away. Amy whirled into action, and within twenty-four hours she was on her way back to England. To get there faster, she booked passage only as far as Naples, Italy. From there she would travel across Europe by train, cross the English Channel by boat, and then go by train again on to London, where her mother would meet her. If all went well, she hoped to arrive in England by her twenty-seventh birthday. Her plan sounded good, but in truth, Amy was still seriously ill, and there were many days during the sea voyage from Ceylon when she didn’t even leave her bunk. There were days when she didn’t eat a thing and days when her ever-present diary was left completely blank.
