The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1929, Page 90

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90

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

Church, $38,000, which is a total expense of almost
$2,000,000 a year by American Lutherans for for-
eign missions and plainly indicates a happy growth
in foreign-mission interest and effort.

News from India.

The Lutheran Deaconess brings the following
from a letter written by Mrs. Samuel Lang, formerly
Deaconess Clara Mueller, of Vaniyambadi, South
India: —

“When this letter reaches you, it will be early
spring over there. I cannot forget Fort Wayne in
this season. Just now everything is very brown and
barren here. One tree near our bungalow rattles in
the breeze, and it makes one feel melancholy.

“My husband is school manager. He has twenty-
five schools to look after besides two boarding-
schools. It keeps him very busy with all his other
work. He preaches twice every Sunday. And then
there are Bible classes on Monday, Wednesday, and
Friday evenings. Every other Saturday is teachers’
meeting. Being manager, he has all the salaries to
pay. The natives have the happy faculty of always
wanting money, the teachers not excluded.. Some
of the schools are close to each other, some are more
than twenty miles distant. Several weeks ago I had
the pleasure of accompanying my husband as he
visited the Gudiyattam mission-schools. One of the
villages is five miles from the main road, and the
road is simply terrible.

“We started out early one Tuesday morning.
I wish you could have seen the old Ford, loaded to
capacity. After driving twenty-five miles we reached
‘a bungalow, where we stayed till Thursday. When
one goes traveling in India, especially to the small
villages, one must take along bedding, dishes,
cooking-utensils, linens, and other articles.

“Visiting schools here is very different from
visiting schools in the United States. Here it means
that you bring your own chair along for comfort.
Also leave your nose at home, for the smells are
‘swell.’ I am sure they cannot be beat. But you can
get used to stockyard odors.

“Some native teachers are very gifted and do
really good work. Some of them have had only

_ a limited training. If the Lord continues to bless

the work, we shall soon have a good number of

aa trained natives. They are now training men at the

Ambur high school. We depend upon the children

the sniffing —and nothing to use.

_ homeless.

recite the Bible stories and the Catechism. And, oh,
how our heart: rejoices w pen we hear them sing the
good old Lutheran hymns

“This being the cool season, the children come
shivering and shaking to school.’ Clothing is the
least of the natives’ worries. -. The children wear
a smile and a little loin cloth. They all sit on the
ground or on a plank. This, I think, gives them
colds, at least aggravates them. You ought to hear
They do not
know what handkerchiefs are.

“The children as well as the teachers are ill at
ease when my husband comes to visit the schools.

“And don’t forget that in addition to your
prayers we do like to hear from you once in a while.
Those are red-letter days when mail arrives from
our friends in the good United States.”

Items of Missionary Interest.
(By the Eprror.)

Director Drewes on a Tour of Inspection. — Rev.
C. F. Drewes, the Director of Colored Missions,
spent about a month on an inspection tour. He left
St. Louis on April 12 for Alabama. From there he
went to the Carolinas. We understand that he also
visited the stations in Philadelphia, Yonkers, Buf-
falo, and Cleveland. He returned to St. Louis
about the middle of May.

New Station. — Pastor Schmidt has opened an-
other mission-station, which gives promise of becom-
ing another center of Lutheranism. It is located in
Union Springs, a lively city beyond Montgomery.

“In Gratitude for Missions.”—We take this item
from the Jowa District News; it relates the expe-_
rience of City Missionary Duemling, of Milwaukee:
“Some time ago a man who had been wealthy in his
day was received as a patient in a large Milwaukee
hospital. He had lost all his earthly belongings and
entered the hospital a poor man, friendless and
He refused to give his true name because
he did not want his friends and relatives to know of
his sad plight. He considered Pastor E. Duemling,
the institutional missionary, his one friend in time
of need. He soon realized that medical knowledge
and skill were at an end and prepared for a peaceful
and blessed departure out of this world. Shortly
before his death he gave a sealed envelope to the
missionary sitting at his bedside with the request to
open the letter immediately after he had buried
him. He died and was given a Christian burial.
Two men stood at his grave, Pastor Duemling and