The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1933, Page 68

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68

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER

Our readers will agree with us when we say that
the building was greatly needed and will well under-
stand why the new building is said to be “filling
a long-cherished hope” when they take a look at the
picture of the old shack which served the Camden
flock as a place of worship till the generous mem-
bers of the Women’s Missionary Endeavor of the
Central District gave them the new chapel-school.

At first the work of our Church at Camden met
with many difficulties. Not only were our workers
handicapped by the lack of a suitable plant, but
also in other ways they met with not a few obstacles.
Through the machinations of enemies the day-
school, which opened with twenty-two children in
attendance, was reduced to eight on the day after
the opening! But by hard work much of the oppo-
sition was overcome, and the attendance in two
months’ time had increased to thirty-six. The open-

New Chapel-School at Camden, Alabama.

ing of a free school near our plant again caused the
enrolment to go down to twenty-six, but in spite
of all the enemies did our work prospered and grew
in church and school. New members have been
added from time to time. Camden at present has
a baptized membership of ninety-nine and a com-
municant membership of forty-two. The day-school
has an enrolment of forty-one and the Sunday-school
of fifty-six. The pastor is the Rev. B. R. Skinner.
Now that Camden has this adequate church and
school plant, it may look forward to a healthy
growth; for the prospects are in every way better
than they ever were before in the history of the
station. F.J.L.

oo

“For most of the followers of Christ the only
way of obedience to the command of Christ ‘Go ye
into all the world’ is to send representatives and
maintain them in the work. May all be grateful
for this opportunity !””

Good and Bad News.

The paragraphs which follow are taken from
a recent letter of the indefatigable and zealous mis-
sionary, Superintendent Geo. A. Schmidt, to the
Board for Colored Missions. As our readers know,
Pastor Schmidt is devoting most of his time to the
school of Mr. Jones at Piney Woods, Mississippi,
about twenty miles south of Jackson, Mississippi.

“Tirst let me say a few words about my activity.
This year I am teaching the following classes: two
college classes, four high-school classes, and also the
seventh and eighth grades, a total of five hours of
classroom work. These classes I teach each Tues-
day, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

“Because it has been impossible for me to get the
thirty-six members of the class I am instructing for
confirmation together at one time, I have found it
necessary to spend very much time with these
catechumens. The largest group of these cate-
chumens meets me twice weekly from 5 to 6 o’clock.
Two other members of the confirmation class have
been meeting me twice weekly for thirty-five min-
utes. Another group of six persons I have met each
day (these also had to be instructed for baptism)
for forty-five minutes. Three others I had to meet
at a different hour at night for forty-five minutes
twice a week. One man and his wife who live on the
campus I have instructed at their home whenever
I could find an opening. This,has been a vexing
problem, but finally, after months of effort, which
has been very unsatisfactory because of the many

’ divisions in the class, I have gotten the entire class

so far that I am going to confirm them, God willing,
on the fourth Sunday of March. I am not going to
wait longer, since the quartets, the baseball team,
and others may soon start traveling for the summer.

“Tf the Lord holds these thirty-six persons who
make up this class, and if they all step forward to
join the Church, we shall in the last two and a half
years have taken into the church at Piney Woods
very nearly a hundred persons, about eighty of them
by confirmation.

“JT had a long conversation with Mr. Jones the
other day, and we both thought it a very unusual
thing that with the constant coming and going of
persons at Piney Woods, old faces leaving and new
ones coming, only one of those received into the Lu-

‘theran Church is temporarily absent from the

campus. We lost two by death. The way things are
now, about 45 per cent. of those at Piney Woods are
Lutheran (including the catechumens now being
instructed).