# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1899_S77
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Ninth Delegate Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States, 1899. 77

At the Subcommittee's meeting on November 27, 1896, it could be reported that
the schoolhouse construction at this station had been completed, and on April
30, 1897 the Subcommittee was also informed of the completion of the mission
house in Krishnagiri. On April 11, 1898 the Subcommittee was informed that a
further small school had been opened in Krishnagiri, and the Committee
resolved to authorize the purchase of a schoolhouse that was offered for about
$8.00.

"As to the activity of our four missionaries, it can be reported in general
that, in cordial unity, they carry on the difficult work entrusted to them
with diligence and faithfulness. To foster unity of spirit and to deliberate
carefully on the affairs of the mission work in general and of the individual
stations in particular, our brothers hold regular conferences, on which they
render the Commission a full report. Besides these conference reports, the
individual missionaries also send in reports on their own work. Finally, our
missionaries remain in constant contact with us through the correspondence
carried on between them and our mission director.

"From all these communications reaching us, year in and year out, from the
distant mission field, it can now be seen that over there, in the heathen
country, the workers serving our mission have unceasingly sown the seed of
the Gospel in the years that have passed — a seed which, as always, and just
as much here as over there in that distant land, carries the promise that it
shall not be sown in vain but, as the word out of God's own mouth, will
accomplish what pleases Him. On the other hand, we must also learn, in our
work in the heathen country, that fruit and increase are not the product of
our own labor but God's gift, and that we and our dear missionaries must carry
out the work entrusted to us as a work of faith, love, and hope, and that
even over this labor the word of our Lord and Savior holds true for us:
"Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe." Even though no
firstfruits of our sowing in India have yet ripened before our eyes, none of
us can know what has become, everywhere, of the seed that was scattered, or
where some word of God preached to those heathen may have remained lying in a
heathen heart, to sprout in its own time and hour and send up its stalk from
the dry ground. Nor are we in any way the first or the only ones who must
learn that in heathen lands the harvest does not soon follow the sowing.

"With that we have laid before the Reverend Synod what we have to report,
concerning our mission, for the three years that have passed since the last
Synod convention.

"As for the continuation of the mission work begun in East India and grown to
its present extent, it has —