# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1896_S50
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

50 Proceedings of the sixteenth convention

service, which is the case once a month. In addition he holds a special service for the Negroes once a month. This took place at first in a private house, but now, since the chapel has not yet been sold, in the chapel. The Negroes had some benches made for themselves. During the months of July and August, his vacation time, Pastor Bäpler holds service for them every Sunday evening. They also hold Sunday school among themselves, in which he takes as much interest in them as possible. The people do not give up hope that the mission will be resumed there, and it may go with us at Little Rock perhaps as it did earlier with Meherrin, which station was discontinued but had to be resumed after two years and has since made a thriving advance.

Let us now present our actual stations in order, beginning with

New Orleans.

1. Mount Zion, founded 1878, now our oldest station. The missionary of this station is Pastor E. W. Kuss. His co-workers are the teachers E. Vix and D. Meibohm. The property of this station lies at the southwest corner of Franklin and Thalia Streets, with a frontage of 118 feet on Franklin and 96 feet on Thalia St. The buildings are a two-class school, 70 by 32 feet, which provides seats for about 200 pupils, and a new church, about 60 by 30 feet, which will have room for 250 persons, now under construction on the same site on which the old, demolished church stood. It has been contracted for $2500. The property, when the church is completed, will be worth at least $8500.

The resolutions of the Reverend Synodical Conference [*Synodalconferenz*] of 1892 and 1894 unfortunately could not yet be carried out completely, but are, as stated, in the course of execution. First, a little piece of land had to be bought in addition for $300, to make our lot rectangular; then the new school was built, before the old church, in which school had also been held until then, collapsed completely or was torn down. The congregation then waited painfully for the new church to be built as well; but since this was not yet possible for lack of funds in the treasury (we still had a debt of over $800 on the school to pay off), and the building could no longer be repaired, it made do as well as it could. To hide the most dilapidated rear part of the church from the eyes of the church visitors, a curtain of cheap cloth was hung in front of it, and attendance at the services was quite gratifying under the circumstances. The last Christmas children's service was held in the new school, because the church could no longer be heated and was dangerous on account of its dilapidated state. Also dur-