# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1930_S41
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1930. 41

hundreds of parental homes. Second, strangers attend the services.
Our missionaries also visit many strangers during the week and speak
with them of the one thing needful. In these and other ways some
twenty-five thousand people are favorably influenced, directly or
indirectly, by our mission. The Last Day will one day reveal how many
have been saved through our mission whom it has not been able to
report in its statistical reports.

New Mission Stations.

In the past reporting years mission work has been begun in the following
seven places: 1. Bashi, Ala.; 2. Union Springs, Ala.; 3. New Bern, N. C.;
4. Baltimore, Md.; 5. Piney Woods, Miss.; 6. Chester, Pa.; 7. Kirkwood,
Mo. Mission work could have been undertaken in still other places. There
are, for example, requests to that effect from Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama,
and so on. The station at Elon College, N. C., has been closed permanently.
Because of removals the membership has shrunk to a handful. These were
advised to attend the services in Greensboro.

How Our Mission Came to Mississippi.

Twenty years ago the young colored candidate for the ministry C. P.
Thompson was sent to a place near Merigold, Sunflower County, Miss., to
found a mission station there. Conditions, however, were such that he had
to be transferred after only a few months. Some years later a young colored
candidate for the ministry was called for the cities of Gulfport, Bay St. Louis
and Pass Christian. He did not last long, however, and in fact had to be
dismissed. Ever since we have been waiting for an opportunity to find an
open door among the great Negro population of the state. God has
unexpectedly opened such a door for us in the heart of the state.

The winter before last, Mr. C. Johann, a member of the congregation in
Collinsville, Ill., came to our mission director C. F. Drewes to ask him
whether we had a Lutheran congregation in Piney Woods, Miss.; he and his
brother had received a splendid offer to serve there as flower gardeners.
His question had to be answered with a No. He was encouraged, however, to
travel there and take a personal look at the situation on the spot, and
then to report back. This was done. His brother stayed in Piney Woods.

At the beginning of July last year the two brothers came to Mission
Director Drewes and reported that the president of the Negro institution
in Piney Woods earnestly and sincerely wished that a worker from our
*Negermission* [mission among African Americans; the period's term
"Negro Mission"] be sent to work in the institution and the surrounding
area. Their report was so favorable that Mission Director Drewes wrote to
Superintendent George A. Schmidt in Selma, Ala., and instructed him to
travel to Piney Woods some time soon. Since the latter could not undertake
the journey just then, his assistant, P. E. A. Westcott, declared himself
willing to take his place.

P. Westcott's report was favorable. The Commission for Negro Mission
therefore resolved to instruct Superintendent Schmidt to travel to Piney
Woods in order to get the matter under way. It seemed