# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1950_S1319
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

848 MISCELLANEOUS MATTERS

the Emergency Planning Council files with screened names of needy
families. Within a matter of a few months 12,000 European families
had been adopted by our members. Many of our people made great
sacrifices to support their adopted families. Quite a number of
members sent packages to the same family, or even a number of
families, not only for a few months, but for two years and more;
and some are even today still sending packages abroad. Compute
the cost of all these packages plus the private expenditures made
by the Walther League, the L. L. L., and other groups, which were
not tabulated in the Emergency Planning Council files, and a con-
servative estimate of a grand total of millions of dollars will not
be too high. Surely we all are grateful to God for giving so great
a measure of compassionate love into the hearts of our people.

Youth Work

One of the main concerns of the German Protestant Church
today is the rewinning of the youth, which because of shattered
ideals and frustrated ambitions has often turned its back upon the
Church and its Savior. This fundamentally necessary task of
_gaining the estimated 500,000 wayward youths was realized early
by our Church and its relief agency. Allotments. of food, and
clothing were sent to léading universities, such as Heidelberg,
Erlangen, and others. The Free Church Seminary at Ober-Ursel
_ and the High School at Gross-Oesingen were given considerable
financial assistance.

Through the combined facilities of the Emergency Planning
Council and Church World Service, two seminary students, Rich-
ard Wukasch and Enno Lohrmann, were sent to Heidelberg and

Karlsruhe for 18 months to organize Christian youth groups. Two

other seminary students have since continued this youth work.
A number of exchange students— seven in all— were sponsored
by the Emergency Planning Council.

Future plans call for furlough visits or sabbatical leaves to
America of younger, ordained German pastors who may, during
the space of a year, thoroughly acquaint themselves with Missouri
Synod church life.

The Evangelical Free Church

The Emergency Planning Council has always been intent
on seeing to it that much of its relief work was centered upon the
immediate necessities of the Freikirchen with which our Church
had been closely associated for years. In a meeting in Germany, in
October, 1945, attended by Drs. J. W. Behnken and L. Meyer and
nineteen brethren of the Freikirche, it was decided to send books,
Bibles, ministerial gowns, Communion sets, catechisms, Bible his-
tories, hymnals, and $100,000 for general relief. In the following