Brazil by F. W. SPIES

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 14, 1915

Brazil

By F. W. SPIES

F. W. SPIES

AFTER having concluded the work at Juiz de Fora, as related in my last report, I went to Rio de Janeiro, and on the eighteenth of May embarked for Bahia. At this city, the fortress of Catholicism in Brazil, I arrived May 21, and it was my privilege to spend Sabbath and Sunday here with the brethren. Elder Manoel Kuempel, who has for some time been stationed at this place, has been sick during a large part of the past year, having contracted, while visiting the interior, a stubborn malaria which for months refused to leave him. I am glad, however, to report that he recovered and is now enjoying excellent health.

Although we have been working at Bahia for five years, the work has gone hard, and little is to be seen as a result of the work done. Still there is probably not another city in Brazil, except, perhaps, Rio de Janeiro, where so much of our literature has been circulated. Also much house-to-house and Bible work has been done, but with little apparent result. No doubt the tent work will be the means of reaching the people of Bahia, as it was proving to be in other cities. I was glad, however, to find at Bahia several promising young men who will accompany me on my trip back to Sao Paulo to enter the canvassing work, seeing there is no one in Bahia to instruct and direct them.

On Monday, May 24, Elder Kuempel and I embarked for Maceio, the capital of Alagoas, where we arrived the next day. I was glad to find Elder Ricardo Wilfart, from Pernambuco, already at Maceio, as he had been invited by telegram to join us there. At Maceio we labored together ten days, and at the end of this time organized a good, promising company, with a membership of twenty-seven. At a former time we had a good work started at Maceio, but several ambitious natives succeeded in drawing away a number of the brethren, and the others moved away from the city, so during about two years there was only one sister here. In August of last year Brother Zacharias M. Rodrigues, a Bible worker, was sent to Maceio, and by careful work succeeded in winning back a number of those who had been misled, and also gained about ten new souls. It was a great privilege to organize this company, four of whom had just been baptized, and to celebrate the Lord's Supper with them. This was indeed a blessed occasion. Five others who are keeping the Sabbath expect to be baptized at a future time. Elder Kuempel will move his family to Maceio to continue this promising work, as Brother Rodrigues goes to Sao Paulo to attend the course of instruction for Bible workers to be held there in October.

We are certainly encouraged to see the Lord's work again well established in Maceio. May the Lord richly bless the work at this place is our prayer.

Pernambuco.