# The Lutheran Pioneer_St. Louis_1932_S77 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) THE LUTHERAN PIONEER 7 OU Five churches were dedicated in the District Home Mission field. A number of these had been used by sectarian congregations, now defunct. Two par- sonages were also acquired. Most of the services are held in English, the ratio being one German service to four English. Home Missions in the Kansas District. — Fifty congregations, with thirty-three pastors, four teachers, two students, and three woman teachers, are under the supervision of the Kansas District Home Mission Board. This staff of workers serves 4.700 baptized members. The communicant mem- bership is 2,355. Two hundred eighty-one children are attending the day-schools, 1,284 are enrolled in Sunday-schools, and 339 pupils attend Saturday- and summer-schools subsidized by the Board. In 1931 the missionaries baptized 177 children, and 129 were confirmed. During the same period nine- teen adults were baptized, and fifty-four were confirmed. Blessings of the Flood in China. — We cull the following sentences from the letter of one of our missionaries in China: “Because of the flood, thou- sands of refugees have been gathered on a hill a few miles out of Hankow. These people are now hearing the Gospel of Christ Crucified from the mouths of our Hankow missionaries. With the help of our congregations there our missionaries have opened five schools, with 300 pupils each. The children in these schools are taught mainly religion. Can all the losses brought about by the devastating waters be compared with the great eternal blessings which these benighted heathen are receiving? Indeed not. Though these people have lost all but their lives, they are, by the grace of God’s Holy Spirit, obtain- ing something far more precious, namely, eternal salvation. It must indeed be a pleasure to work among so many people and to bring them the one thing needful.” Another Extract. — We must bring another ex- tract from the same letter, for it shows a spirit which we rejoice to see in our missionaries. We ought humbly to thank God on bended knees for giving us missionaries who are so willing to sacrifice comforts for the sake of the cause of the Gospel. We sead: “You no doubt have also heard from the folks that we are living in a Chinese home with mud walls and paper windows. We are well satisfied with our Jiome and would not care to exchange it for a nice, foreign-style house. Then, too, we have beautiful scenery all about us. The other morning the mountain tops were covered with snow. This was a most wonderful sight. Some day you may be able to see a movie of our home and its sur- roundings.” Silver Anniversary. — A sincere friend of our Colored Missions, Mr. Edmund Seuel, the manager of Concordia Publishing House, which prints the PrIoNEER, and the Treasurer of the Missouri Synod, which furnishes much of the funds with which our Colored Missions are carried on, on March 18 cele- brated his silver anniversary as manager of the largest exclusively religious publishing concern in the United States. A banquet was given in his honor at the Claridge Hotel, St. Louis, on the eve- Mr. Edmund Seuel. ning of March 31. We feel certain that all our readers will want to join us in tendering our best wishes to the genial jubilarian. Expressive Language. — A converted China- man met a Christian Fiji on board a ship. Neither understood the language of the other, and yet they expressed their thoughts most intelligently by means of two words. One said to the other “Hallelujah,” and the other replied with “Amen.” If you have Christ in your heart, it does not take many words to let others know it. The Bible in Great Demand. — It is nothing unusual to read that the Bible continues to be the world’s best seller and leads all other books in the number of volumes distributed. When, however,