Dohnavur Fellowship

Amy Wilson Carmichael (16 December 1867 - 18 January 1951) was a Protestant Christian missionary in India, who opened an orphanage and founded a mission in Dohnavur. She served in India for 55 years without furlough and wrote many books about the missionary work here.

'Amma' (Mother), as she was known to her large Dohnavur Family, gave fifty years of her life to rescuing babies and children from situations and backgrounds of extreme danger, until her death in 1951, aged eighty-three. The first child, Preena, who was seven years old, escaped from a temple where she was being trained for a life as a cult prostitute; she begged to be protected. In 1947 the government of India made the custom of giving babies and young children to this kind of life illegal, but the practice of infanticide, as a way of coping with poverty and unwanted female babies, is widespread. Other family tragedies also put children's moral and physical safety at risk and the little ones who come to The Dohnavur Fellowship today, come with the same spoken or unspoken cry for protection on their lips. Our Unseen Leader, the Lord Jesus Christ, still says, "Let the little children come to me".