The Work in the European Fields by J. R. CONRADI

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 1, 1908

The Work in the European Fields

By J. R. CONRADI

J. R. CONRADI

(Concluded)

In the Russian Union Conference there are three conferences and three mission fields. Several new missions are being developed in Siberia and Central Asia. Elder Boettcher is at present visiting some of these fields, expecting that advance moves will be made there as fast as our men and means will allow it. During the past three months, four hundred twenty-five members were added in the Russian Union Conference, and its membership is nearing three thousand.

In the British Union Conference there are two conferences and three mission fields, and the prospects are that before this year is past, two new conferences will be organized there.

While the work in the Latin Union Conference is moving slowly, yet we are thankful that the cause of God is onward in France, and that plans are being laid to increase our growth in that field, so that a mission in northern France may be organized erelong. Souls are also being added in Spain, Portugal, and Italy.

We are glad that we have succeeded in getting some more laborers into the Levant. Our forces in Turkey have been strengthened. We have begun labor among the Greeks in Greece and in Smyrna. Elder W. Ising has taken hold of the work in Syria, and additional help is being provided for that field. Elder J. J. Nethery is in charge of the work in Egypt, and we hope that additional help may be also supplied to him.

At our last German Union Conference meeting, four workers were provided for German East Africa, two to go to Palestine, and one to the Dutch East Indies, while two sisters are to join the Abyssinian mission. Thus a company of nine young workers will go from Europe into the “regions beyond” this fall.

While the financial depression continues in our field, we are thankful to God, who is at the helm, that his blessing makes up for any deficiency. In general, our European institutions have enjoyed a more prosperous year than ever before. Our Hamburg House increased its output by about one third last year, printing over sixty-two million pages of literature. Our missionary paper, Herold der Wahrheit, has now an average semimonthly edition of over fifty-five thousand, and we plan to get out one hundred fifty thousand copies of our extra number this fall. The other papers are likewise increasing in circulation. We are publishing in more than thirty languages in Europe; and over four hundred canvassers are at work distributing this literature.

Our sanitariums are enjoying the special blessing of God. The Friedensau School is increasing its facilities, by the erection of a new building to supply new classrooms, and living rooms for the teachers, and in the course of time, room for fifty more students. The Scandinavian Union Conference has decided to erect a suitable school building in connection with the sanitarium at Skodsborg, supplying the necessary strength to that growing sanitarium, with its one hundred sixty patients, as well as enabling the sanitarium workers to give proper instruction in medical missionary lines to the students of the school. England is also at present contemplating the erection of a college building at Watford, and plans for the building are under consideration. The Latin Union Conference has provided suitable classrooms; and the Russian Union Conference is gathering money for the erection of a union school there in a few years. Thus, whether we look at the publishing, the sanitarium, or the educational departments, the work is onward.

We also have a number of promising young men in the European universities who are preparing for the medical missionary work. We are especially thankful that these young people are inspired with the true missionary spirit, ready to work shoulder to shoulder with the workers already in the field, for that which is greatest of all—the salvation of souls.

The European field is also preparing to take another new step. In the past, the expenses of the men who were sent to the General Conference in America were paid by the appropriations; but now, seeing that there are about seventeen thousand members in Europe, and twenty-one conferences, which are self-supporting, and most of which are paying a second tithe to missions, these conferences themselves will send their delegates. As we presented this matter in the Scandinavian and German union conferences, the brethren all saw the need of sending a full delegation at their own expense, so that young, growing men, as well as older ones, may get the benefit of such a general gathering, and be still more filled with the true missionary spirit.

We are grateful to God that we can hear “the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry-trees” on every side of us, as well as from the other side of the Atlantic; for we are happy to state that the third angel’s message is going faster and faster in Europe.

By the middle of September, I hope to have a meeting of the General Conference Committee in Europe; and then, with a number of faithful laborers, I plan to leave for Africa, first having a general meeting with the workers in the Levant field, where we expect also to meet one of

the brethren from the Abyssinian mission. Then we trust we shall be able to go on to British and German East Africa and Uganda, and, later, to attend the South African Union Conference.

These trips will call for the opening of new fields, for the sending out of more consecrated laborers, and for a larger investment of means. But as we are assured that the coming of the Lord is drawing nigh, we know that if God’s people will everywhere awake and consecrate themselves and their means to his cause, it will not be very long now until this threefold message will have finished its onward march around the world; therefore, let us pray for the laborers who go forth into these fields, and let us be faithful before God in supplying the necessary means. An eternal reward awaits the giver.

The Hague.