# The Lutheran Pioneer_St. Louis_1932_S94 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) 92 THE LUTHERAN PIONEER The Deaconess: Movement.— Among modern churches the Lutheran Church was the first to see the importance of training women for church-work. The first school for the training of such women workers was at Kaiserswerth, Germany, founded over ninety years ago. The Lutheran Church to-day has probably almost 20,000 trained women in religious work. They are found in every quarter of the globe, doing duty in schools, hospitals, institutions, parishes, and are valued in every line of work. Within the Synodical Conference we have a splendid corps of about fifty consecrated trained women filling posts of responsibility at home and abroad. Earnest, intelligent Christian girls anxious to make their lives count for something should seriously consider opportunities offered them as deaconesses. Church Extension Funds. — Mission boards realize the great value of church-extension and building funds. Many a promising mission never comes to anything just because the funds are lack- ing to provide it in its infant stage with an adequate building. The District Home Mission boards there- fore-put forth strong efforts to enlarge their Church Extension funds with the needed means to supply promising missions with funds to build chapels and schools. Among these District boards there is none more active in this respect than that of the Atlantic District. Members of this District have placed at the disposal of the Atlantic District Home Mission Board the sum of $94,500, all without interest, with the exception of an annuity bond of $1,000. Funds sufficient are always kept on hand to redeem out- standing bonds on demand. This particular Home Mission board is expecting to increase its Church Extension Fund by issuing annuity bonds as soon as the necessary plans have been completed. Chicago as a Home Mission Field. — This city offers one of the greatest Home Mission fields in the world. No doubt every year thousands of Lutherans are lost to our Church in Chicago through lack of a sufficient missionary program and machinery for keeping in touch with the shifting population of this great metropolis. Thousands of children in Chicago are growing up without receiving any re- ligious training in home or in school. If anywhere, our churches in the large cities should have aggres- Sive missionary programs to successfully and sys- tematically attack the heathenism that surrounds * them. Three India Mission Films. — The India Mis- sion of the United Lutheran Church has completed three new films of motion-pictures under the titles “Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic in India,” “Preparing Indian Youth for Christian Service,” and “Training Christian Leaders in High School, Seminary, and College.” These are supplementary to the films which were previously prepared and have been shown to many congregations in the United Lutheran Church in America. Still in the Hands of Bandits. — Rev. Bert N. Nelson, missionary of the Norwegian Lutheran Church to China, is still being held by the Chinese Communists who captured him more than eighteen months ago. He is at present in the communist prison camp at Yang Chia-Gar, Hupeh. He reports that he is allowed considerable liberty and that of late he has been served a greater variety of foods. Under date of January 21, 1932, he writes: “It is wonderful how God cares for me in every little detail. I get healthful food, or He makes it so. His mercy endureth forever. He has through friends even sent delicacies. I can digest bird-seed or parrot food (sunflower seeds) or, in fact, anything because He has made the weak strong. Of late I sleep as I never have before. . He shelters me so the wind is mild and rain or snow has not drifted through the tile more than enough to remind me that I am under His special protection. Then, above every- thing else, He has let me keep His Word in a place where it is not liked and, furthermore, gives me op- portunity to witness.” — News Bulletin, N. L. C. Catholic Colored College in New Orleans. — The Catholics, some years ago, bought the old buildings of the former colored State high school, Southern. University, when the institution was re- moved to Baton Rouge, the State capital. The Catholics have quietly developed the school since its purchase, and the former Miss Catherine Drexel, now a Catholic nun, has furnished the funds to erect a splendid building on Washington Avenue near Carrollton Avenue, where the school is to be telocated. Advance of Catholicism in Norway. — Accord- ing to Tidens Tegn the plans to reorganize the Catholic Church in Norway are going forward as expected. The number of Catholic priests to be stationed in Norway will be increased to forty. There are, according to a report, at the present time four Norwegian Catholic priests in Norway, and a fifth one will be added in the summer. Young Norwegians are now’ being educated as Catholic priests in other countries and are expected to return to Norway upon the completion of their studies. News Bulletin, N. L. C.