A Call for One Hundred Twenty Missionaries by A. G. Daniells

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 28, 1910

A Call for One Hundred Twenty Missionaries

By A. G. Daniells

Those who are watching the progress of our work are aware that a rather steady stream of workers is flowing toward the mission fields. But we scarcely realize the magnitude of this movement.

Recently the General Conference Committee appointed a committee to look over the calls that have not yet been filled, and submit an estimate of the number of workers we should plan to send out during the next two years.

This committee presented a carefully prepared, conservative estimate, based on the calls already on the files in our office. Their report is as follows: The Workers for China, 27; India, 18; South Africa, 6; Japan, 6; West Indies, 11; South America, 34; Philippine Islands, 3; West Africa, 7; Straits Settlements, 1; Great Britain, 6; Bermuda, 2. Total, 120. To this number must be added at least 80 persons,—the wives and children of these workers,—making 200 who must be sent out.

Of these workers, 56 are to be evangelists, 21 nurses, 26 canvassers, 4 physicians, 9 teachers, and 4 Bible workers.

This report has been adopted, and the task of selecting these workers will now begin. But the officers of the General Conference are fully aware that during the two years these missionaries are being found and sent, calls for at least as many more will be sent in, and, if the funds will make it possible, the additional number will be sent.

The task of making just the right selection of so many persons, for such varied lines of work in different countries, is a heavy one. Those upon whom it rests need, and earnestly crave, the prayers of God's people.

As stated in last week's Review, we have found it absolutely necessary to establish a more careful and systematic arrangement for supplying the mission fields with the workers they require. We must get in the lead of this great movement by selecting our workers far enough in advance to become personally acquainted with them, and to give them the special help they ought, by all means, to have before they start to their fields.

This we shall endeavor to do by placing them in the Foreign Mission Seminary for a time. We are now requesting the secretaries of our departments, the presidents of union and local conferences, and the men at the head of our schools and sanitariums, to assist us in the selection of these workers. And we earnestly request our people to join us in our endeavors to send to the hundreds of millions of the lost in all lands the young men and women who will prove to be just the help needed.

A. G. DANIELLS.