p. 16 | An Ingathering Service in India by G. G. LOWRY

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 4, 1912

An Ingathering Service in India

By G. G. LOWRY

As we watch the reports which come to us from week to week through the good old REVIEW, and as we see how our brethren in the home land are rallying to the front and helping to carry on the work in these benighted lands, by giving of the means which God has given to them, our hearts rejoice, and we are encouraged to bind the armor closer and press onward with our work. It makes us feel that, though we are separated from our brethren, yet we are all engaged in the same great work, with the same interests at heart; and that while we work in these lands of heathen darkness, our hands are being held up by our brethren and sisters in the home land.

I thought that perhaps it might be of interest to the readers of the REVIEW to know how our Indian brethren and sisters look upon the idea of giving free-will offerings to help carry the message to those who know it not. So I will tell you about our first Ingathering service in South India.

After setting before our little company of Tamil Sabbath-keepers the importance of our co-operating with God in carrying on his work in the earth, by paying a faithful tithe of all that God gives us, and by giving free-will offerings according as God has prospered us, we appointed a day in which we would have an Ingathering service.

On the appointed day the people all came to the church, bringing rice, fruits of different kinds, money, and other things which they felt impressed to bring, and gave them to the Lord.

After the service was over, we counted up the value of the produce, and the money which was given; and although the people of our little company are, as a rule, poor in this world's goods, yet we found that the gifts amounted to over seventy-eight rupees, or about twenty-six dollars. This does not seem like very much to us; but when we think of the very low wage scale of the ordinary working man in India, and of how hard it is for these poor people to make “tongue and buckle meet,” as we sometimes say, we realize that this amount means a great deal to them. It means to them about what two hundred twenty-five dollars would mean to us.

This money was given in a willing and cheerful way, and I believe the people themselves feel that they have been blessed in taking this part in the work. One man said to me after the meeting, “Indeed, it is more blessed to give than to receive;” and he asked if, hereafter, we could not have two Ingathering services every year.

So we see that the people in these fields, although extremely poor, are also ready and willing to give of their means to advance the cause of truth. If they in their poverty are willing to sacrifice and give as they have to see the work go, what should not we who are more favored, do? Let us all do what we can to push the work on “while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.”

G. G. LOWRY

Nazareth, South India.