Guidance for parents

What a treasure trove are the works of Amy Carmichael, the missionary who rescued children from temple prostitution and raised them in a large loving home that was Dohnavur. I pulled the original "Dohnavur blue" edition of Kohila off my shelf several nights ago and began reading the short chapters loaded with wisdom. Her goals for raising these children God had sent her to rescue, may they be, and have been, mine own:

Make them good soldiers of Jesus Christ: let them never turn themselves back in the day of battle.
Let them be winners and helpers of souls.
Let them live not to be ministered unto, but to minister.
Make them loyal; let them set loyalty high above all things.
Make them doers, not mere talkers; make them sound.
Let them enjoy hard work and choose hard things rather than easy. Forbid that they be slackers. Make them trustworthy. Give them grit.
Make them wise, for it is written, He hath no pleasure in fools.
Let them never come under the dominion of earthly things; keep them free.
Let them grow up healthy, happy, friendly and keen to make others happy.
Give them eyes to see the beauty of the world and hearts to worship its Creator. Cause them to be quick to recognize "the figures of the true."
Let them be gentle to beast and bird; let cruelty be hateful to them.
May they walk, O Lord, in the light of Thy countenance.
Let this be the inheritance of these children--the upper springs and the nether springs of life.
And for ourselves we asked that we might learn how to brace and never weaken. "God is my strong salvation," we asked that we might train them to say that word and live that life, and pour themselves out for others unhindered by self.
So with these thoughts clear in view, there was no softness, though there was much tenderness, in the nurseries. From the beginning work was mixed with play. There were pots and pans to scrub and brass vessels to polish, and the ground round the nurseries were to be swept with brooms made of grasses fastened together in an ingenious Indian way; and there were floors to wash. These floors are of tiles, which are made locally, and are dull and uninteresting when they arrive. But we soon change that. Continual scrubbing with old rags gives them a shine which reflects almost like red water. Later on, the Annachies followed the same tradition which cuts across the softening Indian way of bringing up boys.
And from nursery days onward one of the most vigorously-sung songs always has been, "Hate not laborious work" (a line straight from Ecclesiasticus), "joy, joy, is in it." But one day somebody asked for a Scrubbing-song, which a boy or girl, who was not keen on laborious work, might sing if so inclined. Before long a small person was heard singing,

I scrub my pots, I scrub my pans,
I scrub my brasses and my cans,
I sweep and scrub each red floor-tile
Till I can see it smile.

And as I scrub I feel so gay
It might be my own Coming-day*;
For work is such a jolly thing
It makes one want to sing.

. . . We [taught our children] more than children are usually taught about angels, for we think of them as friends. Kohila and her little sisters therefore learned to keep the backs of their nurseries as tidy as the fronts, so that the angels (and above all the Lord of the angels) might see nothing displeasing anywhere. Long afterwards, when Kohila was head girl of a nursery, someone said of her, "She finds it hard to be tidy, for her hair is the sort of hair that never looks tidy; but she is always very particular about the backs of places." Perhaps no word could have been more refreshingly reminded me of those early days when one of us used to take a little curly-headed Kohila round to the back of her nursery, and pointing to some evident carelessness say, "If the angels came here, what would they say about that?"

*as we do not often know birthdays, we keep, instead, the anniversary of the day a child comes to us.