# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1882_S93
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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windows, doors, flooring, etc.; and even if many Negroes had promised their help with the building, one still needed a master builder to direct the building and who had to be paid for his services.

As soon as spring came the building was begun. Since it progressed only slowly, Missionary Bühler began school and services in another, very poorly equipped building. A number of children turned up and learned comparatively diligently. The services too were fairly well attended, and soon one could hear the Negroes in the neighborhood singing our beautiful chorale melodies at their work in forest and field. The white inhabitants of Green Bay tried as far as possible to prevent the Negroes from lending the missionary a helping hand in the building; so it happened that the building could be dedicated only on January 8, 1882. Fifty adult Negroes and all the school children, 60 in number, attended the dedication, so that the little church, 20×30 feet in size, was fairly full. The building costs amount to $200.00. It is not yet plastered inside, however, which would involve an expense of about $30.00. An instrument to accompany the singing, which was very much desired, was presented by dear friends in New York.

During the winter school attendance remained good and attendance at the services fair; but when in the spring many cases of smallpox occurred in the neighborhood and field work also began, some stayed away. The services are still poorly attended even now, the number of school children was 25 in September, but the missionary expects a considerable number of children after the end of the harvest.

5. General Matters.

The mission paper published by resolution of the Hon. Synodical Conference under the name "Die Missionstaube" appeared from January 1, 1879, for two years in large octavo format, stitched and trimmed. Since, however, with a circulation of over 10,000 copies it hardly paid for itself, the Commission was obliged to reduce the costs of production, and it has therefore appeared since January 1, 1881, in quarto format, each number 8 pages and only folded. It has a circulation of 11,000 copies, not counting a fair number of free copies. A surplus of $600.00 is in the treasury, to which outstanding accounts of about $500.00 are to be added.

At the beginning of this year the mission was plunged into great sadness. The well-deserving, venerable Pastor Johann Friedrich Bünger, President of the Mission Commission, who had especially first stirred up the idea of a Negro mission, was taken from us by a blessed death on January 23. That was a bitter loss for the mission. Several