The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1929, Page 140

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140

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

“The Catechism celebration was a great suc-
cess. Eighty persons were in church. The pastor
preached a wonderful sermon, which called forth
many favorable remarks after the service.” One
congregation, with a communicant membership of
fifty-one, brought to the Lord an offering of $53.30.
A congregation with only eleven communicants
gathered $28.50 as a thank-offering.

Alabama Luther Conference. — The Alabama
workers will meet at Rosebud, September 4—8. This
conference will be attended also by lay delegates
from the congregations. In connection with this
conference the annual Sunday-school convention
will meet. All the contributions brought to this
convention by the Sunday-schools will go into the
Africa Mission Fund.

African Opportunities.— Writes an African mis-
sionary: “Never before was the need of reenforce-
ment as great as now. The African in the field is
a youth in his faith and needs more help and in-
struction. Efulan field (a missionary station of
the Northern Presbyterians in the Kameruns, West
Africa) alone covers 4,000 square miles. If any
man is looking for a big job, here it is.”

A Great Mission-Station. — At the Edea Station
in Kamerun, West Africa, more than 10,000 pro-
fessing Christians are cared for by 150 Bible readers
and teachers. This station was founded by the Basel
Mission Society in 1897, but it was compelled to
vacate it in 1914 as a result of the World War.

African Central Hospital.— The great Central
Hospital at Elat, Kamerun, West Africa, now has
a supplementary native staff of twenty men and ten
women. One hundred and seventy workmen are
engaged in carrying on the hospital and extending
construction. Outpost hospitals are maintained
fifty miles north and fifty miles south, and two leper
colonies are under the supervision of the hospital.
Remarkable cures of leprosy have taken place by the
use of a recent discovery, and these cures are brought
about at the ridiculously low cost of only $25 per
patient, and almost all lepers become Christians.
Last year 19,271 patients were cared for, among
them many little children.

Reasons for Supporting Home Missions. — Be-
cause s0 many people are reached; because so many
different nationalities are helped; because people
are helped in so many different ways; because the
support of Home Missions means the protection of
the home, encouragement of the school, promotion
of the Church, support of the hospital, and defense
of the State; because in doing so, we are helping to

solve so many perplexing problems of our country;
because in doing so, we promote love of the home,
love of country, and love of God; because in doing
sO, we prove ourselves to be true followers of Him
who came not to be ministered unto, but to minister ;
because the reality of the Gospel of Christ can live
in us only so long as we seck to give that Gospel to
those who have it not.

Words of a Real Missionary. — What love for
souls is expressed in these words of a man who
sought to save souls in the slums of a great city!
He said, “I love these fellows. I love to pick them
out of the gutter. It’s more fun than helping
Pharisees. And it pays.... So I hang around those
places. I’ve been criticized for doing it. They say it
is no place for a minister. But the dirt doesn’t
shock me; I’m thinking of clean souls.” Oh, that
God might pour such love for souls into many
hearts!

A Neglected People. — Thirty-five thousand Na-
vajo Indians roam about the vast unbroken solitude
of Arizona and graze their sheep on its patchy green.
Grass and water are scarce, and one family must
live apart from another to insure food for the ani-
mals. So there stretches an area of 16,000 square
miles without a single village. Isolation discourages
progress, and years of reservation life have not
helped the Navajos forward. Thousands of children
are still not in school. Not over twenty-five per cent.
of the tribe speak English. Hemmed in by walls of
unbelief, superstition, and ignorance, it seems almost
impossible to touch their hearts with the power of
the Gospel. One missionary worked among them
for fourteen years without gaining a single convert.
Even to-day not more than two per cent. of the tribe
are Christians. However, the Church should not
become discouraged in its efforts to bring these
neglected inhabitants of the desert to their Savior.

Presbyterian Work in the West Indies.— Among
the 500,000 people of Cuba, Santa Domingo, and
Porto Rico the Northern Presbyterians are carrying
on 330 missionary enterprises, with a staff of about
220 workers.

Opportunities in the Philippines. —All along the
northern coast of Mindanao, four hundred miles
long, with a population of half a million, there is
only one Protestant missionary at work.

Presbyterian Leper Colony. — The Northern
Presbyterians have been working in the Philippines
for twenty-nine years with gratifying success. The
Culion Leper Colony represents one of its most suc-
cessful missionary ventures in the Philippines. Ten