The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1928, Page 180

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180

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

invited all the jacks to attend. Winter before last
I had visited three different camps and had held
five services. ‘The services as I conduct them are
simple and not very long. At the beginning of the
service I distribute hymn-leaflets containing well-
known hymns from our hymnal. Then we sing a
few hymns. You would be surprised how well these
men sing and how general is their participation.
Then I read a portion from the Bible, and after
the singing of another hymn the sermon follows.
We conclude the service with the Lord’s Prayer and
the Benediction. After the service I distribute parts
of the Bible, tracts, and some of our church-papers.
The service over, some of the men retire to their
bunks, while others remain to read the tracts and
papers given them.

Last winter I doubled my visits, going to four

A Sawmill in Wisconsin.

camps ten times. I had young men of my congrega-
tion in all four of these camps. My reception was
most cordial, and not only my own young men, but
others also insisted upon my coming again. To
show the reader what the nature of my sermons was,
I need only give the texts: 1 John 1,7; John 3, 16;
1 Cor. 6, 20; 1 Tim. 1, 15. :

I found this work in the lumber-camps very in-
teresting and in -many respects most encouraging.
Since the lumberjacks can be reached only during
the evening hours, from supper till bedtime, it is
necessary to so arrange one’s visit as to be there at
that time.

Not all the camps are on public highways.
Many of them can be reached only by way of rough
lumber roads. This being the case, it is evident that
it is often not a very easy thing to reach the latter.
In the fall, before the ground is covered with deep
_ snow, it was possible to get within one to five miles

of these camps with a car. Young men of my con-
gregation accompanied me on some of my visits.
Up to December I returned home after the service.

In the beginning of December we have severe
snowstorms, which block most of the highways for
auto travel. Then I am compelled to find some
other way of getting out to the camps. Winter be-
fore last I went part of the way with the rural-mail
carrier and then walked the rest of the way, some-
times more than ten miles, through the deep snow.
Last winter I was fortunate enough in having oppor-
tunities to ride out to the various camps with men
who were taking provisions to the lumberjacks or
with men who were hauling logs. The logs are hauled .
on sleds drawn by a caterpillar tractor. But whether
the ride is made on a sled drawn by horses or by
a sled drawn by a tractor, it is in every case more
interesting than comfortable and pleasant for a man
of my age. (Pastor Handrich is well over fifty
years of age.)

The camps I visited last winter are from ten to
thirty-two miles from Butternut. The reader may
judge how tedious these rides were when he learns
that the teams made about four miles an hour, while
the tractor traveled no more than three. ‘To sit on
a lumber-sled from three to ten hours in one stretch
is, to say the least, very, very tiresome. Of course,
these: winter-trips always took two days, one day
going out, with a service in the evening, and one day
to get back home.

It is quite interesting to share the life of the
lumberjacks for a night and sleep in one of their
bunks in the bunk-house. There being no spare beds
for visitors, I was compelled to share the bunk of
one of my members. To sleep in a bunk is far from
being pleasant; for they by no means come up to
a bed with a soft mattress and a good spring. But
the most unpleasant thing connected with my sleep-
ing in a bunk-house with twenty or thirty men, all
in one room, was the many noises made by the
lumberjacks in their sleep. The most of them “saw”
louder in their sleep than they do when awake and
working in the woods. But, after all, what are little
inconveniences such as I have mentioned in com-
parison with the sacrifices our dear Savior brought
for us? The meals are substantial and well adapted
to the needs of hard-working men. The cooks, ex-
cept in one camp, are women. ©

Repeatedly I have been asked, “Does it pay to go
out to’those camps? Is it worth the discomfort one
must undergo?” Such questions might also come
to the mind of the reader. I wish to state that these