# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1950_S1324 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) 854 MISCELLANEOUS MATTERS Christian Literature Ten thousand copies of Pieper’s Christliche Dogmatik, a hun. dred thousand evangelistic pamphlets, quantities of European Sunday school literature, prayer books, pamphlets, 200,000 tracts, Bibles, devotional booklets, catechisms, make an immense stack of boxes to be sent across the ocean. But just such quantities were shipped to Europe. From 1947 to March, 1950, approximately 31,309 pounds of Christian literature was shipped to Europe by the Emergency Planning Council. . As previously noted, much of the Council’s Christian literature was printed by the German Hilfswerk with cellulose bought in Sweden. In December, 1947, a grant of $20,356 was made for this purpose, followed by an additional grant of $50,000. Every ounce of this paper was utilized to bring God’s Word and the message of salvation to not only physically, but also spiritually sick peoples. The timely financial assistance of the Emergency Planning Council enabled many individuals and groups to produce significant Chris- tian literature in a number of cases of very urgent need. So for example — through the Council’s help Rev. Wantula was able to print 1,000 Epistle and Gospel sermon books in the Polish language; $7,000 permitted the Evangeliumsverein of the Finnish Lutheran Church to print a Finnish version of Pieper’s abridged Dogmatik; the facilities of the Lutheraner Verlag could send copies of the German Lutheraner into 22,000 homes every month for the past three years; ministers’ libraries which were bombed out or destroyed were replenished with worth-while theological - books; thousands of children who had never seen a catechism were introduced to “Luther’s doctrine pure”; thousands of Christian families whose belongings were gone counted again among their - possessions a complete Bible or select portions of God’s Word. It has always been the policy of the Emergency Planning Council, wherever possible, to bring God’s Word into the hearts of nations and peoples who because of their physical environment are dejected and downtrodden. For years the Nazi restrictions curtailed or terminated the activities of Bible societies. To counter- act such neglect of God’s Word in Germany, a grant of $150,000 was made to the American Bible Society immediately after the last war. Repeatedly, since then, other funds have been granted so that to date $247,409.64 has been given to the American and other Bible Societies for the printing of God’s Word in German, Japanese, and Norwegian. ’ To enumerate in any detail the wealth of Christian literature sent or published by the Emergency Planning Council would be beyond the space allotment of this report. Suffice it to say that every group — child, youth, or adult — was thought of in the allo- Aint i len emceammamatatante me MISCELLANEOUS MATTERS 855 cation of funds for the publication of His Gospel message. It is no overstatement to say, judging from the thousands of acknowledg- ment letters received from pastors, laymen, women, and children, that this phase of our Church’s relief activity was a major boon toward rebuilding and strengthening the spiritual ramparts of Europe. Canadian Lutheran World Relief Canadian Lutheran World Relief is one of the four component parts of the Canadian Christian Council for the resettlement of refugees — others being the Catholic Immigrant Aid Society, Canadian Mennonite Board of Colonization, and the German Bap- tist Immigration and Colonization Society. For the past four years Dr. T. O. F. Herzer, chairman of the Council and a Missouri Synod Lutheran, has been zealously helping refugees to resettle in Canada. The Canadian Lutheran World Relief handles thousands of refugees for all of Canada. Processing takes place at Muehlenberg Camp at Hanover, from where they are taken aboard the Beaver- brae, a refugee ship which plies between Canada and Europe every thirty-five days. In addition to the large number of refugees in Germany, there are about 300,000 refugees of German origin in Austria who are being processed and sent out at the rate of 75 to 100 per month. The total number of Volksdeutsche immigrants brought to Canada as of March 1, 1950, is 10,839. To assist in this work and other relief measures of the C.L.W.R., the Emergency Planning Council has to date given approximately $200,000 of its funds. CROP The Christian Rural Overseas Program (CROP) has for the last four years solicited goods in kind from rural communities throughout the States. In this way it has gathered trainload upon trainload of foodstuffs, mostly grain, for the needy in Europe. At times CROP has also accepted cash donations, which in turn were converted into commodities. Since CROP is a relief agency associated with Church World Service, our Council did not deem it necessary to take up active participation with it. But for two years (1948—1949) we have endorsed CROP wholeheartedly, encouraged our pastors and con- gregations to contribute, have sent numerous letters of recom- mendation, and in other ways asked our people to help with this humanitarian effort. Our people responded most gratifyingly. Next to the Methodist Church, the Missouri Synod contributed more toward CROP than any of the other eighteen participating de- nominations. In all,-we have given more than $100,000 to CROP in 1948 and 1949.