Syrian-Egyptian Mission by W. C. Ising

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 8, 1909

Syrian-Egyptian Mission

By W. C. Ising

AFTER being in Syria five months, it was our privilege to receive the brethren attending the first large council in the Levant Mission field in our home at Beirut. We were much encouraged to have one of the vice-presidents of the General Conference, Elder L. R. Conradi, with us, accompanied by four new workers for Syria and Egypt. The counsel and Bible studies during these six days proved to be a source of great encouragement and blessing to us all.

As the Egyptian field needed attention, its director still being in England, the brethren requested the writer to make a short visit to Egypt in order to get acquainted with the situation, and to look after the interests of our work for the time being. I immediately left Beirut with Elder Conradi on September 29, the closing day of our meetings here, and accompanied him as far as Port Said, where we separated, he going on to East Africa, while I proceeded to Cairo with Elder Awada Abd-Elshaheed, and Brother George Keough, who had arrived from the British field to enter upon work in Egypt. Owing to the situation then prevailing, we could not definitely settle the question of the location of our missionary there, but hope to be able to do so soon. While Brother Keough will locate at Cairo, Elder Elshaheed will make a new effort at Luxor. These brethren and Sister Ida Schlegel, a nurse, who are the three workers for the approximate fifteen million people in the Egyptian Mission.

Brother P. N. Lindegren, who had come from Abyssinia to attend our meetings, having suddenly been taken ill with lung-typhus at Beirut, so that he could not meet the workers in Port Said to proceed with them to his field of labor, I was informed by cable from Beirut that I was to assist them at Port Said to make the necessary arrangements to continue their voyage.

Returning home, I visited our brethren at Jaffa and Jerusalem, and found them of good courage. At Jaffa I met Sister L. Brifin, and assisted her in getting a good location for her work as a nurse and Bible worker.

Having returned to Beirut, I met with circumstances demanding immediate attention. I am sorry to state that the attitude assumed by our former native worker compelled us to drop him from the list of laborers, as he continued secretly to connect with a sensational movement having as a prominent feature the speaking in “tongues.” The people here seem rather disgusted with these strange manifestations and excitements reaching the climax in shouting, crying, and unscriptural demonstrations.

We are grateful for the additional help here in Syria in Brother W. Scholz, from the German field. While we are left without native help, we trust that God will provide these helpers as needed in the near future. Remember us in your prayers that God’s truth shall triumph in this field.

W. C. ISING.