Report from South America by H. S. Prener

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 25, 1912

Report from South America

By H. S. Prener

Having returned from our foreign field for a year's furlough, a few words from us may be acceptable to the readers of the REVIEW. By the time this goes to press Mrs. Prener will have undergone a double surgical operation at the Springfield Hospital, Springfield, Mass. We ask the prayers of God's people that she may recover her health again and be able to stand at my side as the valuable helpmeet that she is.

We were in South America three years, the first six months in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, during what the weather department called the hottest summer in ten years. Our stay there resulted very unfavorably for Mrs. Prener. The heat and the diet to which she was unaccustomed brought on a chronic trouble which weakened her rapidly. We were advised to go to a higher altitude, to the capital of Sao Paulo, Brazil, where we spent a year. Most of my time was taken up in studying the Portuguese, selling our books and monthly paper, and also holding a series of meetings in Rio Claro.

It was evident that something would have to be done for Mrs. Prener, who was growing worse and constantly suffering. The opportunity was given to return to the United States, but we preferred to stick to South America and hoped that she would receive help at our sanitarium in Argentina. We were allowed to go to the South American Union Conference and camp-meeting as delegates.

For the first few weeks after the meetings I took up work among the German churches, and nine weeks after being in the country I held a long series of Spanish meetings in Concordia where four persons were baptized. The conference president, Elder C. E. Knight, and I took a trip together, going as far south as the Pampas country, where our little Villa Alba church is located. This company of twenty-five is farther south than any point in the African or the Australasian continent. In order that they might get the benefit of our sermons several languages had to be used in the same meeting, English, German, Russian, and Spanish in their order. We then traveled over more than two hundred fifty miles of the open country in a Russian wagon, visiting people interested in the truth. On that trip two believers were baptized.

The summer following I canvassed in Buenos Aires with success for our large Spanish books. During the last school year my work was in connection with the River Plate Academy, being the teaching of Bible, history, and language.

We arrived in the United States Oct. 5, 1911, after a trip of thirty days from Diamante, spending twenty-seven days on the ocean.

The Lord has blessed Mrs. Prener with sufficient strength so that she may undergo these operations, and her earnest desire is to go once more to the Spanish-speaking people to give them the gospel of Christ.

H. S. PRENER.