The Lily on Kolli Hills

 

Lilies are in the field and also seen on hills. These lilies on the Kolli Hills had caught my attention for some reason. That afternoon when I reached Kolli Hills, the sun was shining above our heads. When I captured these lilies on my Lumia Mobile, I never knew a woman who lived on this hill 100 years ago uttered a prayer out of the dryness of her heart, at the sight of these flowers that bloomed brilliantly in that dry season! 

She said, 

"Let me be like that, Lord, flowering best when life seems most dry and dead."

Evelyn Brand, fondly called later as Mother Brand had come over to these hills from England 100 years ago to live and die here, only lead at least some from death to life!  

As I stood in awe before the God who created the mountains and called people to go to the ends of the earth I was perplexed at the paradox of mission-immigration today for better prospects of life in the west! 

I have found the following beautiful piece about Mother Brand and sharing it here in continuation to my earlier post (https://pvarticles.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-mann-on-mountains-of-death.html) for those who did not have a chance to hear about her. (The source is acknowledged)

- Philipose Vaidyar

The Lily on Kolli Hills: Mother Brand 

“Evie Brand burst into tears. She pleaded with the mission board, but its leaders would not yield. Rules were rules, they said. She was too old to go back to India. She must retire.

The decision was hard for the board. Evie had long sacrificed comforts and family to the mission. Year after year, she had lived entirely on a small inheritance and set aside her official salary to buy land for the mission. But ever since her husband Jesse died of fever, pioneering with her in the Mountains of Death, the mission had not been sure what to do with her. The one task she wanted--to open new work in the mountains--was denied her because she was elderly, single...and opinionated.

From the board's point of view, it was senseless to appoint a 68-year-old woman to another five-year term. But years before, Jesse and Evie had vowed to reach five mountain ranges with the Gospel. Four still had to be reached. Evie felt God was calling her to fulfill that vow.

Evie grasped at one last straw. "Please just send me back for one year," she pleaded. "I promise not to make any more trouble. At the end of one year, I will retire." Reluctantly, the board agreed. Had they known the secret plan that Evie had confided to her daughter, they surely would have refused permission.

Then Came the Shocker
Evie said goodbye to friends and relatives in England and was back in India by January 1947. The mission appointed her to the plains. Evie did not mind much. It was only for a year!

Camping in the Kalrayan range on every holiday, she plotted her next move. Her son designed a little house for her, and she scrounged building materials and organized it into loads light enough for helpers to tote uphill.

Her year with the mission ended. Fellow missionaries gathered to wish her a tearful goodbye and presented her with a parting present: a lovely lamp.

Evie informed them gleefully that she was retiring from the mission--retiring to take up independent work in the mountains, to fulfill the commission that she and Jesse had undertaken years before. Her colleagues' protests and warnings fell on deaf ears. As far as Evie was concerned, life begins at 70.

Frilly Dresses
Strictly speaking, life begins a little sooner. Evelyn was born in England in 1879. Her father was a well-to-do merchant; as a young woman, Evie cut a fine figure in plumed hats and frilly dresses. Her family was involved in missions, street work, and charities. Her father protected his daughters, even trying to dissuade them from marriages that would take them away from him, but one by one they started families.

Evie learned to paint. Her idol was John Joseph Turner, who seemed able to capture light on canvas. To the end of her days, she sketched and painted with gusto. But when she entered her 20s, she found that art did not feed her soul.

Evie was 30 when she spent a few weeks in Australia, helping a sister. Sailing home, she sensed a divine calling to be a missionary. Yet how was she to break the news to Father? The arrival of a young missionary from India helped. Evie found Jesse Brand too intense for her taste. But at a missionary meeting, he seemed to look directly at her as he described the filth and squalor on the mission field. She heard an unspoken question in his words: could she, a fashionable girl, handle such things? Resolve rose within her. Yes, with God's help, she could! And she was riled up enough to tell her father so.

He took her announcement hard. A missionary? Aren't there enough lost souls in London? Evie insisted that she had to obey God's call. Finally, her father yielded. She could go, but she must allow him to provide her entire support. At her farewell party, she wore her usual finery. "She looks more like an actress than a missionary," said someone.

Wedding Bells in Madras
Assigned to Madras in the plains of India, Evie discovered that Jesse Brand had been transferred there too. She fell in love with him and with his vision for the people of the Mountains of Death. Then she found out that Jesse was engaged. Hot and shaking, she fled to her bathroom and poured cold water over herself. She had made a fool of herself!

Her heart grew dry. Looking at India's flowers, blooming brilliantly in the dry season, she prayed, "Let me be like that, Lord, flowering best when life seems most dry and dead."

Language study took her to the hills. Jesse contacted her. His engagement was off. Would Evie marry him? They would work the mountains together.

Evie's honeymoon was a "perfect" introduction to life in the hills. Dressed in wedding white, she joined Jesse in the canvas dholi (carrier). Her bearers had gone off to hunt a wild pig. New men were found, but thunder rumbled in the sky. Heat wilted her dress. She tried not to give way to terror as the men lurched along steep precipices. Thorns caught her clothes. Rain drenched the carrier. When she dismounted to walk, she sank deep into mud holes. They lost their way in the dark.

Mountains of Death
That was the beginning of their work in the mountains. It was not glamorous. At the start, a dying man gave his heart to Christ. It was seven years before they saw another convert on the Kolli range. Because Hindu priests feared losing their influence and revenue, they opposed the Gospel. People wanted to follow Jesus because God enabled Jesse to heal many of their diseases, but the priests frightened the people away from the new faith.

Jesse taught them better farming methods, treated their sickness, built houses, and fought their tax battles. He showed Evie the five ranges of hills he hoped to win for Christ: their own Kolli, and beyond it Pachais, Kalrayan, Peria Malai, and Chitteris.

The two went from village to village preaching the Gospel and tending the sick. Yet the people always pulled back from Christianity for fear of their Hindu priests. A breakthrough came when a priest caught the fever. Jesse hurried to his aid. As he died, the priest entrusted his children to the Brands. The Jesus God must be the true one, he said, because the Brands alone had helped him in his hour of death.

The people marveled at a God who made Jesse care for an enemy's orphaned children. Evie eventually became a mother to many abandoned Indian children. Through her motherly love, a small Christian community was born.

Still, the progress of the Gospel remained painfully slow. Painful also was the need for Jesse and Evie to leave their two children, Paul and Connie, in England for schooling. Evie said that something "just died in me" the day she had to say goodbye to them. It was the hardest test of loyalty God asked of her.

Widowed by Blackwater Fever
In England, Paul and Connie learned that their father was dead. He had contracted blackwater fever. Although Evie felt hollow, she prayed that the Lord would allow Jesse's death to win more souls than his life had. Hindu and Christian alike mourned the man who had poured out love to them, and they vied with each other for the usually contemptible job of digging a grave and lowering a dead body into it. Evie struggled on in the work alone until a replacement was found. Jesse had promised to show her a shortcut to one village. "Now he'll not be able to," she lamented. She was wrong. Riding his horse one day, it remembered the new path and carried her along it.

After a visit with her children in England, Evie was determined to return to the Kolli hills. Mission leaders were uneasy. Would it work?

They were right to ask. Evie expected co-workers to do as Jesse would have. When they didn't, she spoke up and tension resulted. She pleaded to be allowed to start new work on one of the other ranges. Mission leaders refused. Mountain work did not show good returns. They transferred Evie to the plains. At times she considered leaving the mission to strike out on her own, but circumstances always held her back...until she retired.

Fulfilling Jesse's Dream
At 70, she began to fulfill Jesse's dream. Everyone called her "Granny," but she felt young. Just as in the old times, she traveled from village to village riding a hill pony, camping, teaching, and dispensing medicine. She rescued abandoned children. The work was harder now and she was thin. Carriers whacked her head on a rock. She never got her balance back after that and walked with bamboo canes. Yet she was full of joy and laughter. "Praise God!" she exclaimed continually.

Despite broken bones, fevers, and infirmities, she labored on. In fifteen years, she almost eradicated the Guinea worm from the Kalrayan range. Through her efforts, the five ranges were evangelized, and a mission work was planted on each. She added two more ranges to her plans. Granny insisted this extraordinary accomplishment was God's doing, not hers.

Wherever she was, she proclaimed Christ. In the hospital with a broken hip, she wheeled herself from room to room (or scooted on a carpet!) and talked to the other patients. She painted landscapes for them. Her bones knit in record time, and back she went to the mountains to fight marijuana growers.

When her son, Paul, visited her in the mountains, he found her looking younger. Her smile, brighter than ever, made the difference. "This is how to grow old," he wrote. "Allow everything else to fall away, until those around you see just love."

Granny tore some ligaments and had to go to the plains for treatment. Before she could return to her beloved mountains, her speech became jumbled and her memory failed. Seven days later, on December 18, 1974, she died. The next day her body was taken back to the hills and laid beside Jesse's as a multitude wept. The woman who had been declared too old for India had carried on for 24 more years, working almost to her day of death.

About Paul Brand
Evie's son, Paul Brand, became a famous surgeon. He also developed new ways of treating leprosy. With Philip Yancey, he wrote Fearfully and Wonderfully Made and In His Image, two books that compare the body of Christ with the human body. He also wrote The Gift of Pain and God's Forever Feast.

_____________

Courtesy: https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1901-2000/evelyn-granny-brand-11630789.html   

Read more on the Brands with more visuals at The Mann on the Mountains of Death

The Mann on the Mountains of Death!

The Mann on the Mountains of Death

 Philipose Vaidyar

Kolli Hills, known as ‘Kolli Malai” on the Eastern Ghats, is not much widely known for tourism. But people and tourists do go there. It’s a small mountain range located in the Namakkal District of Tamil Nadu with heights up to 1300 meters above the mean sea level. It is 90 kilometers away from Salem, the nearest railway station on the main railway line. People go there with different interests -the old Ghats road is steep with 70 hairpin curves. It interests the motorists. The hills are scenic with tropical evergreen, rich, diverse, and large and wide stretches of forests. There are rare species of trees and plants which are also protected here. There are silver oak, coffee, and fruit plantations on these hill ranges. 

 

But I had a different reason to visit these hills. I had heard about Mother Brand who worked on the Eastern Ghats, who used to go around challenging people into missions. When I lived in Salem for some time, the long desire of having a peep into this 'tribalscape' was coming true. 

Part I

Kollimalai means Hill of Death! so-called because of the widespread diseases in the area, and particularly that deadly malaria that took the life of the inhabitants here. But that did not stop Jesse Mann Brand to come to these interior mountains to help the helpless people.

Just before World War-I, 108 years ago, Jesse Mann & Evelyn Brand as newly wedded couples came over here by horseback and walking hills and jungles when there were no roads. They came here to serve the people with healthcare, education, and to enlighten their life by sharing the love of God who created these mountains. Their vision also stretched to three more hill ranges Kalrayan, Javari, and Yercaud hills.

 

Jesse Mann Brand, the all-rounder man

Jesse Man Brand was born in July 1885 - Guildford, Surrey, England to Henry Brand and Lydia Mann. At the young age of 22 in 1907 Jesse reached India as a missionary after a long voyage. He worked in the plains around Madras, presently known as Chennai. During his stay at different mission stations in Tamil Nadu, he had heard about Kolli Hills- the mountains of death, where native tribes lived in ignorance and were affected by various sicknesses with no cure or health facility to access. He longed to go and serve those hill people. The terrain was difficult to reach with no roads to travel. 

 

He used to write about the plight of the people and it was published in the mission newsletters in England. During his next vacation, he was speaking at a Baptist Church in England and shared about the darkness that pervaded the hills in those South Indian hills. 

The Woman who became Mother Brand

Evelyn Constance Harris was born in England in 1879 as the daughter of a well-to-do merchant. She grew up in a strict Baptist home in the fashionable St. John's Wood area of London. Her father saw that she had the best of education suitable to young ladies of that age and station in life she accepted Christ as a young girl and was baptized at eleven years of age. Young Evelyn was very fond of artwork and painting. But after 20 years she began to turn her attention to missions which became her passion. 

 

Her family was also involved in ministries to street and slum dwellers. In the home and at church she was exposed to missions, particularly those in India. As a young lady, she would at times break out of the protection of her home, going into the London slums on missions of mercy. As a young adult, she was challenged by the letters published in a missionary journal written by a missionary to the hill people of south India. 

 

At the age of 30, she had an opportunity to visit and help her sister in Australia for a few weeks. As she sailed back she felt a strong call to missions among unreached places. 

Evelyn was deeply moved by the stories of the church bulletin about the tribes in Kolli Hills and their plights. She could also attend the meeting at the Baptist Church where Jesse Mann Brand was sharing. While she spoke, she realized that it was he who had written about the Mountains of Death in the pamphlet that thrilled her. At the mission challenge, she answered silently, “Here am I. Send me!” From that day her heart began to long for India. When she expressed her desire to go to India, her father exclaimed: “A missionary? Aren't there enough lost souls in London?” But at her persistence to obey God’s call, her father had to yield.  

 

As much as her parents hated to see her leave home, they recognized that the hand of God was on her and that she must be obedient to the call of God. After a short course of missionary medicine, she proceeded to India in 1912. Her first task was to learn the difficult Tamil language. The hot, humid climate of Madras was depressing as well. Here again, she met Jesse Brand, who spoke Tamil like a native speaker. It was first as a language instructor, encourager, friend, and subsequently beloved that the relationship grew rapidly. For some time due to sickness, she had to move to a healthier hill station to recover. Later she joyfully accepted Jesse’s proposal of marriage.

 

The Wedding Bells

Jesse went up to the mountains to build a very simple three-room house with a small outhouse for cooking. They were married on 27 August 1913 and the same day, they both moved to Kolli hills. She was carried by men in cane woven basket through the forest hills and she was drenched in the wedding dress in the downpour. 

(On mobile, you can click open the  following images for a better view or to read the captions)

Part II 

“Together Jesse and Evelyn ministered to the people around the hills. They trekked all over the mountains on foot or hill pony. Jesse was a man with many talents—doctor, dentist, preacher, teacher, counselor, agronomist, builder, and much more - all things to all men. His medical skills, which he had learned in England, broke down barriers. Their first convert was a lad whose salvation brought great joy to their hearts. But he died very soon of pneumonia. It was six more long years until the next fruit was realized from their labors. Over the years, the work among the hill people progressed. A church with outstations was established. 

Two children were born to the Brands: Paul and Connie. They trekked with their parents and were a part of the team. In due time they were left with family in England to pursue their education. 

Strong, energetic Jesse was rarely ill; but in July of 1929, he was affected severely with malaria that soon turned into black water fever—one of the most toxic complications of that disease. He died on July 15, 1929. There was a simple service, and his body was buried there on the "mountains of death."

Evelyn was devastated, alone there in the mountains. The sooner a niece, Ruth, who was in her last year of medical training, dropped out of her college and came to be with her aunt in India. Some three months later she accompanied her back to England. By this time Paul was 15 and his sister 13. After a long gap of years, they met their mother again. A year later she returned to her beloved mountains. It was hard without Jesse, but she was soon into the routine of medical clinics, teaching, disciplining, correcting, and exhorting people all over the range of mountains for the next five years.  

It was a turbulent time in India with the war years; the political unrest on the division of India and Pakistan and years of bloodshed. The mission board would not let her go back to the mountains. They thought it would be too dangerous for her to be alone in the mountains. She served reluctantly on the plains, but she was always persisting the board to allow her to return to the mountains. Finally, in 1947, there was a new India, now an independent nation. Paul, now a medical doctor, returned to India as a missionary to the Vellore Christian Medical College. Evelyn, at almost 70, went to a new range of mountains. She built a small wattle-and-mud hut for home and tirelessly ministered to the neglected people.

Paul was gaining a reputation for his work in leprosy. In 1953 Granny fell in her home in the mountains and fractured her hip. She was carried down out of the mountains to Vellore to be with Paul and his family. At 74 years of age, Granny was a feisty old lady, very dedicated to the task to which God had called her. Paul and his family were trying to persuade her to retire from the rigors of mountain life and come live with them in a comfortable home. She would have none of it. She said, “Since no man was willing to go to these people, live under these conditions, and tell the people of Jesus, I would go back”. And she did.

In 1963, at the age of 84, she moved to the third range of mountains. Again, she had the same pattern of extensive trekking on a small hill pony, walking with two bamboo poles for support, and living in very simple conditions. She had an utter lack of dependence on things.

In 1965, after working alone in the mountains for almost 35 years, a missionary nurse was assigned to work with her as her companion and continued until the time of her death. In a letter to Paul, Granny wrote that she would soon have her 95th birthday. She was sure a lot of kindly people would write and praise her and say how wonderful she was to be working still at 95 years of age. She said, "I am not wonderful. I am just a poor, old, frail, and weak woman. God has taken hold of me and gives me the strength I need each day. He uses me just because I know that I have no strength of my own. Please tell the people to praise God, not me." Her memory was beginning to fail, and so was her eyesight. In October she came out of the mountains to Karigiri near Vellore to see Paul who was on a brief visit to India. Here again, she fell, injuring her knee. There was no fracture, but the injury was very painful. She slowly went down following that injury and quietly slipped into the presence of her Lord on December 18, 1974, at the age of 95. Her frail, wasted body was carried back and buried beside her beloved husband Jesse there on the "mountains of death."

A few years earlier, she had written this free verse:

“Why did You have to break me first,

Why did You take my all away

Before You satisfied my thirst?

Why must I sink in deepest deep

Before the promises to know?

I realize now it had to be

Before He taught my soul to pray,

Before the glory, I could see,

The glory that He promised me”.

 Isaiah 52:7  

- Dr. John A. Dresibach

________________ 

Acknowledgments: 

Part II of the narrative is taken from the writing of  Dr. John A. Dresibach, published on the Gospel Fellowship Association website. Used with permission.

All photographs used inside (except the last one) are taken by Philipose Vaidyar during a visit to the hill and the mission base of the Brands in 2013.  

Photo courtesy of the last picture of the renovated tomb: Jayaprakash, Salem

Also, read more about Mother Brand  The Lily on Kolli Hills 

Coming shortly...

• The New Beginnings from where the Brands Left

How beautiful on the mountains

     are the feet of those who bring good news,

 who proclaim peace,

     who bring good tidings,

     who proclaim salvation,

 who says to Zion,

     “Your God reigns!     (Isaiah 52:7)