# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1928_S43
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1928. 43

will have completed, says with regard to the generosity of our colored members:

"Our Negroes are mostly poor. The contributions for the congregation are therefore, as cannot be otherwise, small with many. And yet one has often had fine experiences precisely here. In one of our congregations the people were asked to subscribe a sum for a certain purpose and to pay it in during the course of the year as they were able. It did not go forward at all well at first, perhaps because it was a new thing to them or because they feared they would not be able to redeem their promise. At last a few came with their signatures, among them a widow who earns her living by washing and the like. She subscribed $25.

"A few days later she came, quite excited, to the missionary in the sacristy and handed him an envelope with $5. She had unexpectedly received a Christmas present from her people and now gave this very money quickly, before it could be spent otherwise, as a down payment on the sum she had subscribed. Every month she regularly brought her two dollars.

"One Sunday evening she came again, and this time with tears of joy in her eyes, to the missionary, and with trembling hands handed him an envelope with $7, the last payment on her subscription. She said as she did so that the dear God had blessed her beyond all expectation; she could not thank him enough for it. This money she had earned quite unexpectedly, and the dear God should have it back. Here 'giving' was indeed, as the missionary had it before his eyes, 'more blessed than receiving.'"

When the late Prof. J. Ph. Smith began the mission work near Kannapolis, N. C., in the year 1902, the services were held in the house of a member named Russell. Of a grandchild of this Russell our colored Superintendent F. D. Alston reports the following: "Little Frances Russell, who will be nine years old, is already counting the years that must still pass before she can be confirmed and admitted to Holy Communion. Since the confirmation of her two older sisters she has longed for this time more and more earnestly. Almost daily she pesters her mother with questions about it. On the third Sunday in September 1926 we took up an extra collection for our building fund. Little Frances said to her mother: 'I cannot wait four more years. Give me some of my money for my church!' She had earned some money picking cotton and wanted to give some of it to the Lord. Her confirmed sisters as well as father and mother brought larger gifts; but the gift of little Frances also had the right ring in God's ears as it fell into the collection box. Although she was small, she helped make the hundred dollars full."

The Golden Jubilee of Our Mission.

Last year (1927) our Negro congregations celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of our mission among them and their fellow countrymen, jointly as well as in the individual congregations. In doing so they thanked God for the great spiritual blessing which he has poured out upon them through the mission work in church and school. But they also thanked our *Synodalkonferenz* [Synodical Conference]. Our colored Pastor Jesse Hunt, in the name and by the commission of our Negro congregations, addressed the following fine letter of thanks to the Synodical Conference: