# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1911_S109
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

13th Delegate Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States, 1911. 109

...Pastor Hansen had been there, a traveling Finnish pastor — a member of the aforementioned synod, though not sent by it — had come there and, every evening for a week, had preached to the people, baptized children, celebrated the Lord's Supper, and performed marriages. The people earnestly begged him to stay with them; they wanted to keep him. But he explained that they could not pay him enough salary. So these people read their Bibles and devotional books at home, send their children mostly to the Presbyterian Sunday school, and even have their little ones baptized and their dead buried by that denomination's pastor. They heard with great joy that they might perhaps, through us, be helped to a Finnish pastor of their own. To be sure, that pastor's answer had shaken their confidence that they could get a pastor of their own. But without my even asking, they gladly and willingly promised to contribute regularly toward the support of their own pastor. All the families I visited own their own little houses. Some have already lived there six years. According to expert judgment, the copper mines are supposed to contain enough copper to last fifty years and more. It is highly probable that these people, if not right from the start, will very soon be in a position to support their own pastor. More Finns, too, keep arriving, both from the North and from across the water. A centrally located meeting place for their worship services would be available immediately at the start, namely a Presbyterian chapel.

On the strength of the above report, the South California Conference therefore resolved to call upon our district's Venerable Mission Commission to submit a petition at the next Delegate Synod, asking the General Synod either to take over the mission among the Finns, specifically at Bisbee, as a branch of its foreign-language missions, or to supply our district with the necessary funds so that it could take over and conduct this mission itself. The Venerable Synod will presumably have all the more courage and readiness for this, since:

1. It will presumably require little support to get the mission in Bisbee going; after covering travel costs and salary for a few months, it will likely be able to support itself;

2. So great a company of souls already exists (60 to 70 families) who earnestly long for church ministry, and among the large number of fallen-away Finns, with God's help, surely more than a few may yet be won back;

3. Our district is not in a position to take up this mission, since we ourselves still stand in need of our eastern brethren's support;

4. That one Finnish-speaking candidate for the ministry at Springfield is surely a sign from God that this man, with his gifts, should be allowed to serve these people (he is preparing himself — once all this was reported to Prof....