Hawaii by Mrs. C. D. M. Williams

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 18, 1908

Hawaii

By Mrs. C. D. M. Williams

HONOLULU.—We thank God and a society of our young people in the State of Washington for a large club of the Signs, which we are distributing each week. We try to place these where they will be read, and we discontinue them after a few weeks, if the people give no evidence of interest. We pray that God will save some precious souls through these printed pages.

We feel the necessity of a great work being done here. This is considered a strong strategic point by most denominations. It should be a place of ingathering, and again of distributing workers to nearly all parts of the world. Laborers for the Orient may be prepared for usefulness here better, in some respects, than in the United States; for while learning all parts of the message, they may gain an experience by presenting these truths to their own people, thus keeping in close touch with their own nationality. Then also they do not become so thoroughly Americanized that they seem like foreigners when they go to work in their own country.

There are several who are preparing to carry the message to other parts of the world, especially in China. We all realize the need of many being speedily prepared for that large field; and where will they come from if not from this little island, with its thousands of Chinese inhabitants,—people who do not have to spend years in acquiring a language which has no connection with their own in any way, either spoken or written? Those who have not studied the Chinese language have no conception of the stupendous task assigned to our missionaries in learning to speak and read it. The Chinese say that it is easier to learn to speak and read English than it is for them to learn to read their own language.

God will surely raise up a large number of workers to finish this work quickly, and we believe that many of them are right here. Pray that they may be gathered out, and fitted to carry the message to the ends of the world.

I am studying with a Chinese woman who has been a worker with her husband in China, he having been a minister there for several years. She has been a Bible worker here for the past ten years, and is a devout Christian. She has a large and well-educated family, two of her daughters being in colleges in the States, sent by her church to be prepared to be missionaries. One son is a minister. She studies with me; then reads the texts in her Chinese Bible, that she may understand them better; then teaches them to her children at home. She teaches these same truths to her Bible readers, and sends them to her daughters. We need the prayers of faith of the Lord’s people that she and others may go forward, accepting the truth in its fulness. Such workers as this woman and her family can be, are needed right here, and beyond for the Orient.

We thank God for what he is doing here, but we are anxious to see the message go forward faster.

MRS. C. D. M. WILLIAMS.