# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1911_S102
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

102 Proceedings of the 28th General or

...Latvian Commission, in view of the various languages of the missions placed under its oversight, called itself from then on the "Commission for Foreign-Language Missions." It has been known among us by that name ever since. — The territory of these missions is the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, and the northwest of Canada. So much for orientation.

A review of the work in this field over the last three years first calls for fervent thanksgiving to God, who has also placed his divine blessing on this work of our dear Synod. At every point in this large field where these missions have gained a foothold, the work has not merely been maintained but has expanded, and new fields have been added to the old ones — fields that justify good hope — just as the workers, too, have grown in number rather than diminished. It is especially worth noting, and gratefully acknowledged, that we can report that God the Lord makes the hearts and hands of our Synod's dear Christians willing precisely for these missions as well, so that the Commission, after the state of these missions was set out in the Lutheraner in the summer of 1908, never had to complain of a shortage in its treasury, but could meet all the legitimate claims of its missionaries; and that it was not a lack of money but only a lack of suitable men that kept it from taking up still more — indeed, promising — fields.

We now take the liberty of giving an overview of the various missions, arranged for the sake of clarity under the headings: Estonian and Latvian, Lithuanian, and Polish Mission.

I. Estonian and Latvian Mission.

To the three missionaries who were in the service of this, the oldest of our foreign-language missions, when the last General Synod convened, a fourth has been added this past year: Pastor E. Jurawitz, from our theological seminary at St. Louis, who at present is, admittedly, still also serving the German mission in Wisconsin, but who is expected to enter fully into the service of the Estonian and Latvian mission this coming spring. He is presently doing mission work among his countrymen in Wisconsin and in Chicago, Ill. And Chicago in particular seems to be so large and promising a field that a missionary of its own ought under all circumstances to be placed there. At the Commission's request — since its seat is too far from Chicago for the field there to be effectively surveyed and overseen — Pastor L. Hölter of Chicago, in agreement with the wishes of the local Pastoral Conference, has consented to take over the direction of the mission there temporarily, until a suitable man can be called to serve the congregation already existing there and to do mission work in nearby places.