Plan for Securing Foreign Missionary Recruits by J. L. SHAW

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 18, 1910

Plan for Securing Foreign Missionary Recruits

By J. L. SHAW

WE have now been carrying on mission work in foreign lands for thirty-six years. From a very small beginning the work has developed until we have entered every continent, and many of the islands of the sea. Fields that once had not more than one or two workers, and those from America, have grown into organized conferences, are now supporting their own work, and with their surplus funds are placing laborers of their own training in other mission fields. These, in turn, are raising up converts, establishing missions, and organizing churches.

These years have not only been years of progress, but they have also been years of experience. Thirty-six years ago we knew comparatively little about foreign mission work. We knew very little of the peoples, the climate, and the conditions which obtain in other lands. Yet our pioneers labored on. As the work advanced, new plans developed, and old plans were laid aside. More experience has increased our knowledge of foreign mission work, and better plans have been devised, and greater prosperity has followed.

The Mission Board has now changed its plan of selecting workers for our various mission fields. Instead of picking up workers wherever they may be found, without very full knowledge of them, or of their ability and fitness for the work, the present plan, as outlined by Elder A. G. Daniells in a previous number of the REVIEW AND HERALD, is to call workers for the mission field to the Foreign Mission Seminary for the purpose of becoming better acquainted with them, and giving them necessary training for work in other lands.

Very much depends upon the character and capabilities of the missionaries sent to the mission field. We must send of our best to the great heathen lands of Africa, India, and China, if we wish to give a high character to our work in these lands, and develop strong native laborers, who will be able to build up the work among their own people.

According to the new plan of selecting recruits for mission fields, workers will be given a salary sufficient to support them while in attendance at the Seminary. Instead of being sent on to the mission field drawing full pay, they will take a preliminary course of training on less pay. The General Conference is annually spending large sums of money in paying the transportation of many workers to distant fields. If by wiser plans more intimate knowledge of outgoing missionaries can be had before making definite appointments, very much money may be saved in missionary operations, while at the same time those receiving appointments will have the advantage of coming to the Foreign Mission Seminary for further preparation before going to their chosen places of labor.

In order that the work in mission fields may become strongly organized, it is necessary that our missionaries should be carefully instructed in gospel organization. All that pertains to the church, the conference, and the union and General conferences, with their various departments, their relation to one another, and the respective officers and duties of the same from the standpoint of the Bible and the Testimonies, should be taught.

Because of this need, and for the benefit of those attending the Seminary the coming year, the heads of the different departments of the General Conference will conduct courses of instruction in their respective lines of work. This instruction we feel certain will be very helpful to all classes of gospel workers.

Prospective missionaries are now asked to fill out application blanks. These blanks call for quite full information regarding age, health, education, field experience, and line of work and field of labor desired. A letter of recommendation from a well-known minister is also required. The application blanks may be had by sending either to the General Conference or the Foreign Mission Seminary.

The present call from our various mission fields, as presented in a recent issue of the REVIEW AND HERALD, is for 120 workers,—fifty-six of these to be evangelists, twenty-six canvassers, twenty-one nurses, four physicians, nine teachers, and four Bible workers.

We have reached a time in our foreign mission undertaking when large calls are made for laborers to open up work in new places and strengthen the work already started. The coming year more missionaries should be placed in the field than in any previous year.

If this is done, it means a heavier lift for every one interested in the cause of truth in heathen lands. To have more workers means a larger consecration of both means and talents to the Lord. The work before us in the continents of Asia and Africa is beyond the limit of our conception. Our young men and women should take these fields into account in setting their place of labor. Those who do not respond to calls from these fields should have a clear reason for not doing so. To present Christ and his soon coming to a billion of people in heathenism, within the limits of this generation, besides the work we are attempting in other lands, is a tremendous undertaking. We shall accomplish it only as a deep spirit of consecration comes upon this people as a whole; and as our young people, devoted to the service of the Master, trained for the work, and filled with the Spirit of God, answer the calls that come to them from the neglected fields of darkness.

J. L. SHAW.