A Chance to Die Elisabeth Elliot (electronic reader .txt) 📖

While the study of Tamil had certainly been a battle, and would continue to be, the fourteen months which had seemed so long were over, and she could join the real battle, the fight for souls.

Missionary work in a place where Christ has never been named is sometimes less arduous than in places where, though named, He has not been honored by lives of holy obedience. How were the heathen to see Christianity in action, how feel its force, when so many who went by the name of Christian were nothing more than the descendants of people who had “crossed over” during “one of those dreadful mass movements” of the early nineteenth century? They were for the most part from the lower castes, lured by the hope of worldly gain. They lived in a sort of twilight, far from the true Gospel light. As for the upper castes—the Brahmans, the Vellalas, and the trade guilds—their ranks were nearly unbroken, their homes veritable fortresses into which no unclean Indian, let alone foreign missionary, could enter.

“They smile at our belief in a Power they do not see at work, while the power they see is all but omnipotent.” Amy pleaded in her letters for men. Where were the men with mental powers equal to those of the educated Indian, men who would count as refuse the success and acclaim they might have had and “lose” themselves in some out-of-the-way corner of the earth? Were there none like Ragland, Tinnevelly’s “Spiritual pioneer,”1 whose life was lived on the lines of John 12:24, “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit”?

To those who asked what they could send, Amy answered books. Missionary biographies. She was fortified and cheered to read of Gilmore of Mongolia, Henry Martyn of India, Judson of Burma, Coillard of the Zambesi. Their stories were “a sort of standing dose of mental and spiritual quinine.”

“O to be delivered from half-hearted missionaries! Don’t come if you mean to turn aside for anything—for the ‘claims of society’ in the treaty ports and stations. Don’t come if you haven’t made up your mind to live for one thing—the winning of souls.”

Again and again Amy’s hopes were raised as one after another responded momentarily to the Gospel. A caste girl declared that she wanted to be baptized. Would she have the courage to flee her home? If she did, what would happen? Would the missionary bungalow be stormed? “I hope so! I should like to see some real fight. This dead stagnation is worst of all,” Amy wrote. A young wife sat quietly and listened to the story of Jesus, shivering with pain when she learned of the cross. But they were interrupted at that moment, and when Amy tried to visit again the husband forbade it. How could such a woman follow Christ? The words of Jesus came with terrible power: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, even his own life, he cannot be a disciple of mine.”2

One day Amy went to the villages where old Saral had taught the Bible. She was disappointed to find that little seemed to have been learned. One woman who had heard the Word for five months did not know who Jesus was. Several who had shown an interest died, some of them mysteriously. A widow said, “My heart is weary, my friends cannot help me, nor can the gods I worship do me any good. Your God is God, the true God. I know He can help me. His way is the right way. I believe all that.” But she could not be persuaded to act. It meant breaking caste, and to her that was suicide. Once, speaking long and earnestly with a woman who seemed open, Amy reached out her hand and touched her. The people were infuriated. She had defiled her, degraded her, was trying to drag her by force into the Way.

Someone sent an English magazine which stated that Indian women considered English women fairer and more divine than anything imagined before. That was “very nice to read,” said Amy, but her own experience proved it preposterous. She was taken for a “great white man” because of her sun helmet. There was an argument over whether she was man or woman. All agreed that she was an “appalling spectacle.” Questions were fired: What is your caste? Married or widow? Why no jewels? What relations have you? Where are they all? Why have you left them and come here? What does the government pay you for coming? Amy answered them all, then explained why they were there—to bring Good News. And what did the people do when they heard the news? They simply stared. They sat on the floor and chewed betel leaf and stared.

In one house an old lady leaned forward and gazed with a beautiful, earnest gaze. “Then she raised a skeleton claw and grabbed her hair and pointed to mine. ‘Are you a widow too,’ she asked, ‘that you have no oil on yours?’ After a few such experiences that gaze loses its charm. ‘Oil! No oil! Can’t you even afford a halfpenny a month to buy good oil? It isn’t your custom? Why not? Don’t any white Ammals ever use oil? Do you never use oil for your hair?’ ”

Patiently the Good News was repeated, with constant interruptions—two bulls sauntered in, a cow followed, somebody went off to tie them up, children wanted attention, babies cried. Rarely were there five consecutive minutes of quiet. “As the Father hath sent me,” Jesus said, “so send I you.” How much sincere attention was there when He preached to the crowd on the mountain? How many consecutive minutes of quiet had He in which to give His message? So Amy wondered, and went on with the work, “blissful work,” she called it, remembering the answers to