# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1950_S463
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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466 MISSIONS

store for China. However, we should hold ourselves in readiness
to resume the work on full scale as soon as possible. In the mean.
time we must support the workers still on the field and Pray
earnestly for the cause of the Gospel in China. At the same time
we rejoice to see that our four workers in Hong Kong have devel.
oped such a fine mission activity. They report teaching 300 high
school pupils so that these receive two hours of religious instruc.
tion a week. They are conducting missionary services in refugee
camps and teaching wherever opportunity presents itself.

Of our former China personnel, Missionaries R. Bringewatt,
P. Martens, K. Voss, G. Wenger, and A. Ziegler have accepted
calls in the United States. Missionary V. Hafner is stationed in
Hawaii under the Board for Home Missions. Missionary H. Hinz,
after his year of furlough, is temporarily engaged in Panama and is
planning on doing work among the Chinese in California after
June 1. Missionaries R. Egolf, L. Hass, P. Kreyling, R. Meyer, and
R. Suelflow, and Nurses N. Lenschow and A. Mueller have been
moved to Japan. Missionaries L. Buuck, H. Kretzmann, and J.
Wilenius are at work in the Philippines. Miss Olive Gruen is at
present on furlough in America. At this time it is truly a matter
of praise to the Lord that throughout the disturbed conditions in
China and with the possibilities of many things going wrong, amid
much perplexity and anxiety, God has protected our missionaries
so that not one of them suffered harm.

The Philippines

Three years ago, when Synod met, we had two missionaries
in the Philippines, Alvaro A. Carino and Herman R. Mayer. Today,
by the grace of God, there are thirteen ordained pastors at work

in the Philippines. Mission work is never easy, and in the Philip--

pines we do not have mass conversions. Mission work there is
about the same kind of mission work as you have in the average
American city. It is a matter of winning souls one by one, instruct-
ing them, strengthening them, training them to reach out for others.
Nevertheless our missionaries have gained a. foothold in various
fields, and the work is developing nicely. Thus while in 1948 they
reported a total.of about 550 souls, they were able to report 720
at the end of 1949. In Manila there are two organized congrega-
tions, Bethel and Immanuel, while Grace Mission is approaching
that point, and Trinity is also getting under way. At Bethel there
is a Christian day school offering instructions in Grades 1 and 2.
Pastors R. Prange, L. Buuck, O. Buntrock, and R. Plagens are
serving the fields named above in that order. They are ably as-
sisted. by the Rev. G. Dionisio, our first national pastor who was

MISSIONS 467

trained in the Philippines. He preaches in the Tagalog dialect
three times each Sunday and delivers a radio sermon in that
dialect every week. Our missionaries also do considerable radio
work in Manila. There is much mission activity and work with
instruction classes. In the Binalonan field, 120 miles north of
Manila, Missionaries E. Aradanas and N. Becker are at work, serv-
ing also Moreno, Urdaneta, and Dagupan. Still farther north, at
Candon, we have Rev. A. A. Carino, where he can put his knowl-
edge of the Ilocano dialect to good use. He also serves at Darapidap
and several other places. New work has been started in the Moun-
tain Province with Baguio as base. The work reaches northward
from here into the valleys inhabited by the Igorots. Missionaries
L. Nieting and H. Kretzmann serve here. Mr. Simon Bilagot, in
training for the ministry, assists them as guide, interpreter, and
evangelist. On the island of Mindanao, Missionaries H, Mayer and
J. Wilenius work as a team in and out of Cagayan, while Mis-
sionary A. Strohschein is working from Davao eastward.

There are splendid opportunities for us in the Philippines.
There are also very urgent needs, such as chapels and housing
facilities and mechanical helps. Jeeps and Gospel wagons and
visual-aid materials of all kinds are required to carry on the work
energetically. Literature must be developed and provided. We
must carry forward plans for the training of the native ministry.
We must intensify our efforts to build an indigenous Church.
One very encouraging feature of the work in the Philippines is the
hearty manner in which the members already gained have shared
in the work, contributing their time and talents, and in a com-
mendable fashion, their earthly possessions.

Japan

Astonishing, really breath-taking developments mark our mis-
sion effort in Japan. Your last convention authorized beginning
work in Japan. It was difficult to gain entry into the country, but
with the very able assistance of four of our chaplains, a survey of
mission opportunities was made hy the Executive Secretary of
the Board during August and September of 1948. On September 19
of that year he was able to install the Rev. William J. Danker
as our first missionary in Japan. Since then, only a year and a
half later, the number of our missionaries has grown to its pres-
ent strength of ten ordained missionaries, their wives, and two
nurses. Footholds have been gained in a number of places. After
consultation with other mission groups a strategy was developed
which looks to work by our Synod in the Tokyo and Yokohama
area and then northward. Accordingly, we have opened a station