# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1911_S296
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 82 —

Including candidate Stallmann, there are now 11 missionaries in the
service of our heathen mission, of whom two are currently on
furlough and a third has left India, we hope, only for a short time.

We have a particular reason for thanks to God in that the love of
our Christians in these three years has supplied everything needed
for continuing and expanding our work. Through the building, which
became necessary, of a second missionary's dwelling in Ambur and in
Nagercoil, the reserve in the mission treasury — already considerably
diminished but still present three years ago — has been used up, and
at the end of the next-to-last fiscal year the treasury showed a
deficit, small though it was. But even though a second dwelling house
also had to be built in Nagercoil and two new missionaries were sent
out, the commission nevertheless always had the necessary funds at
its disposal.

Two changes have taken place in the personnel of the commission.
Mr. Gottlieb Schmidt has been elected in place of Mr. H. Harms, who
died in 1909. Through the death of Pastor O. Hanser, the heathen
mission has lost, one may fairly say, its warmest-hearted advocate,
whose loss we deeply regret. Prof. W. Dau has taken his place.

With the most heartfelt thanks to God for all the advancement our
mission has experienced in the last three years, the commission joins
a hearty request to all our dear Christians to continue taking up
this work of God with eager zeal.

Two further matters remain to be laid before the Synod. Our
mission in India was begun in 1894, and in the course of this time
the need has emerged for a visitor to be sent there now, partly to
become acquainted with conditions as they have since developed, and
partly to enter into personal contact with the missionaries and their
work. The Reverend Synod is asked to resolve on this visitation.

Nearly all mission societies nowadays employ mission physicians,
whose services benefit above all the heathen population. Although
such aid is not directly the task of the mission, it cannot be denied
that it thereby provides a shining example of Christian charitable
work and furthers the spread of the Gospel. We too have already
several times been urged to take up this work of love. The commission,
however, cannot consider itself authorized to take steps toward
introducing this kind of mission activity, and therefore asks the
Reverend Synod to state its position in principle on medical mission
work.

The Commission for Heathen Mission:

F. Zucker.                    W. H. T. Dau.                P. Brand.
R. Kretzschmar.                G. Schmidt.                  H. Succop.
L. Fürbringer.                 C. M. Zorn.                  P. Rösener.
R. H. Leonhardt.
                      March 1911.