The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1933, Page 67

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

A

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER 67

each out of which every member’s copy of the
PIoNEER or the Missionstaube is paid. Societies
should not find it a difficult matter to pay the sub-
scription of each of their members to one of our
missionary monthlies. Probably in most instances
a few words of encouragement on the part of the
pastor would be the only thing necessary. Why not
try it? F.J.L.

ooo

“Ts It 1?”

So we would wish every reader to ask in all
sincerity after reading what follows. We give our
money for Foreign Missions, and we should give
even more than we do. We are interested in the
work carried on in our far-flung Home Mission field
throughout the length and breadth of our fair land,
and we should be even more interested than we are.
But while casting our eyes into the distance, we
neglect missionary opportunities at our very door.
Of such a neglected missionary opportunity, which
offers itself to most of us every Sunday, I was
forcibly reminded when I read these paragraphs
from a letter which a cadet nurse wrote to her
parents. Referring to the church she is attending,
she has this to say: “But, Mother, they aren’t at all
like I thought the people in our church at home are.
Not one of them has spoken to me unless I opened
the conversation. Also no one has told me that she
was glad I came and that she hoped I’d come again.
After this experience of mine here I can well under-
stand that we should by all means have a committee
to welcome strangers to our services and make them
feel at home. I just feel that, if I weren’t strong in
my faith, I’?d never gone back after the first visit;
and I am afraid that many people who have not had
the training that I have had probably never did go
back. Don’t you think so, too?”

What a terrible accusation in these few words for
many of us! Do you not think that the Lord Jesus
will apply the words “I was a stranger, and ye took
Me not in” just to such cases of disinterestedness to-
wards the strangers that enter our doors? And do
you not think that every church that has till now
done nothing to make strangers welcome should see
to it that a special committee be set to work at once
and that at the same time every member should
regard himself a committee of one to assist this
special committee in its work?

There is another sentence in the letter of this

thoughtful young lady that I must take occasion to

quote: “We are all trying to save as much as pos-

sible, and for various reasons I think that, once this
depression (there’s that word again!) is over, we
shall all have benefited greatly. I think we shall
have learned to have a far deeper appreciation of the
simple things of life, which in the past through
our unthoughtfulness we have simply taken for
granted.” F. J. L.

rd

The New Camden Chapel-School.

In the Central District of the Missouri Synod
we have a ladies’ missionary organization which
bears the name Women’s Missionary Endeavor.
This society was brought into existence by the
zealous Home Mission Board of the District. By
means of mite boxes distributed among its members

Old Chapel-School at Camden, Alabama.

this organization in the few years of its existence
has collected thousands of dollars. The money col-
lected is used to provide chapels and schools for
needy mission congregations. Up to now this so-
ciety has with its pennies built a chapel in our
Foreign Mission field in India, four portable chapels
and a portable school in the Central District, and
a chapel-school for our Colored Mission field in
Alabama.

The Women’s Missionary Endeavor of the Cen-
tral District last summer appropriated the sum of
$2,000 for a chapel-school to be erected at Camden,
Alabama, and on August 14, 1932, it was possible
to dedicate the building to its sacred purpose. The
officiating pastors at the dedication services were
Revs. B. R. Skinner, Charles Peay, and L. R. Gau-
threaux. The weather was ideal, and as a result the
ceremonies were witnessed by a large number of in-
terested people.