# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1944_S975
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

392 MISCELLANEOUS MATTERS

pared to enter Japan. Japan’s transition from gross paganism to
materialism resulted. Today we have a sequel to that lost
‘opportunity for the Christian Church. God grant us a vision
to see and grasp the opportunities among the four hundred
million Chinese. Never before in the history of any pagan nation
has the door been so wide open to Christian missionaries as it
' .is in Free China today. Surely, if we plan today for a postwar
expansion of our Mission in China, God will not let our plan-
ming come to naught.

5) Up to the present time our actual work in India has

‘probably suffered less from the war than that of any other

foreign mission field. And even now there come in-

India _ sistent calls for expansion of the work. Here, too, there

is a great lack of workers in the harvest fields. We

pray and hope that the political and economical upheaval which

is now being suppressed, in India, but which will doubtlessly
boil over, will not close the door to missions in India.

6) Latin America presents great and vast opportunities for
mission work today. The strangle hold which the Catholic
Church has exerted in many of the countries in Latin America
is gradually being broken. In spite of much propaganda on the

part of the Catholic Church under the guise
Latin America of “Good Neighbor” policy to keep evan-

gelicals from entering these vast mission
fields, more and more missionaries are being sent to Latin
America by the Protestant church of North America. ‘The Emer-
gency Planning Council is financing the cost of special Spanish
classes at Concordia Seminary. About 42 students are taking
Spanish. The cost is about $275 a year. We hope that the
Church will make funds available and that God will open up
_ further doors in South America to permit a vast expansion of
our work there. , ,

7) When we begin to think of postwar work in Europe,

it is necessary that we think in terms of a long-range program.
Europe is a shambles already today. It will
Postwar Work be a heap of rubble tomorrow. Govern-
in Europe mental and church organizations are under-
taking vast plans of physical reconstruction

and rebuilding. Our Church must, however, think in terms of
the larger and more difficult task of reconstructing the spiritual
and church life of Europe. “ -