Amy Carmichael - Rescued Child Temple 'Prostitutes'

Amy Carmichael was an ordinary woman with extraordinary love for people. She was born in Ireland in 1867, the first child to Christian parents, David and Catherine Carmichael.
...After Amy had lived in India for some time, she continued to be concerned about a distressing situation that existed in most of the pagan temples of India. Young girls were taken in, many times only as children, and made temple prostitutes. The girls had a horrible existence and Amy became deeply grieved for them. She became convinced that she must help these young girls wanting to escape their horrible life in the temples. While living in Dohnavur, India, with a band of women that had been converted to Christ, Amy founded the Dohnavur Fellowship which became a haven for homeless children, especially those girls who had escaped from temple prostitution. She was even given “temple babies”, infants that were born of the temple prostitutes, to raise in her “home”. While the Dohnavur fellowship began mainly as a haven for girls, later a home for boys was also built. more http://www.historyswomen.com/womenoffaith/amy.html

Catherine Booth - Kingdom Worker

Catherine began her writing career with a rebuttal to a local pastor who demeaned women’s spiritual understanding. She argued that nurture, not nature, was to blame and set out to change the status of women in the church through speaking engagements and self-publishing. Monies she earned were funneled back into her husband’s growing ministry to the poor.... more http://www.historyswomen.com/womenoffaith/CatherineBooth.html

They had never known a man like this Man

quoting Dorothy Sayers: (author of 'Lord Peter Wimsey' crime mysteries)

"Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross. They had never known a man like this Man -- there never has been such another. A prophet and a teacher who never nagged at them, never flattered or coaxed or patronised; who never made arch jokes about them, never treated them either as 'The women, God help us!' or 'The ladies, God bless them!'...;  who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension; who took their questions and arguments seriously; who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female; who had no axe to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them as he found them and was completely unselfconscious. There is no act, no sermon, no parable in the whole Gospel that borrows its pungency from female perversity; nobody could possibly guess from the words and deeds of Jesus that there was anything 'funny' about woman's nature."

Is It Really Fresh? Is It Really Simple?

Just spent a couple of hours reading at various Christian blogs.
Most were very encouraging, even if I found some frustration rising at some of the traditional churches' peoples now realising the need for simplicity of meeting, buildings, [e.g. 'Fresh Expressions'] etc etc etc
How many years have 'we' wasted while people's lives, families, [eternal destiny] got worse and worse because walls of miscommunication and division remained, with other believers and with non believers because of the liturgical and other religious requirements which some felt were needed to be (proper) 'church' :(

but what discouraged me mostly was the fact that religiosity is still clung onto by those who now speak about seeing the need for simplicity for the sake of those outside of the Church (it's hard to fully explain what I mean by this as it's multi-faceted)

I just wish, though, that simplicity of speech, authentic down to earth, ordinary words would go hand in hand with these new simpler expressions...I see a number going through the same things that many of us discovered in the 80's - like history repeating itself...
will all the following stages have to be gone through too? I'm not speaking of new believers going through stages of growth [of course I have grace for that as I am still going through my own stages of growth and always will be]

but so much talk talk..so many words
I'm not being cynical when I say 'I've heard it all before,' nor arrogant. I just feel sad.
What can I do...
those who are already [carefully] digging up hard ground [which has got harder over those wasted years] seem few...while there are so many talking about it, going to conference after conference, training session after training session.
As I said, if it's new[ish] believers - fine - I benefited greatly from Christian conferences and training in the 80's and early to mid 90's - but when do we start using what we learn?

John White Women in Leadership (3)

John White Women in Leadership (2)

John White Women in Leadership (1)

John White, who was a Presbyterian leader for many years explains why he has changed his view on women in leadership.
Part 2 next