p. 12 | Growing Demands by L. R. Conradi

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 29, 1907

Growing Demands

By L. R. Conradi

L. R. CONRADI

As a people we have longed for the day when God's message would extend to the very ends of the earth; we have prayed for the time when not only the printed page, but also the living missionary would carry the glad tidings of the soon-coming Saviour to every nation and kindred and tongue and people. The Lord in his mercy has answered our prayers, and that day has dawned. Our missionaries are pushing forward into the very heart of Africa, and into Asia, and they are going to the isles of the sea: there is hardly a country in the Americas, Europe, or Australia that has not been entered.

However, as our work thus extends, its demands upon God's people are increasing. The nearer we approach the great day of God, the more will be multiplied the calls for men and for means. One of the greatest demands of the hour is well-trained missionaries, who can turn their hand to almost anything, and who, not only have a knowledge of the Bible and are able to preach the gospel, but who are also capable of helping the sick and the afflicted. The great value of thorough, consecrated medical missionaries is being continually demonstrated more and more in the mission field.

Now, in order to educate such missionaries, we must have not only the gospel school, where our youth may be instructed in the Word of God, in the grammatical structure of languages, in history and geography, and in the history of missions; we must also have schools where they can gain a good practical experience in actual nursing and caring for the sick. That a school may offer such advantages, it should be closely connected with a sanitarium, and, if possible, with a printing-office and other industrial branches.

As hundreds of missionaries are needed to-day, training centers of this sort must be created and equipped not simply in the United States, but in such other parts of the world as will supply the young people to fill them; as is to-day the case in Australasia, England, Germany, and Scandinavia. Naturally, such institutions must be in unison with the cause of God, and assume that attitude that makes them capable of receiving counsel and instruction from leading brethren who have been accustomed to work in the various mission fields. For this reason, God, in his providence, has established a school at Takoma Park, that our people might realize throughout the field that the time has come that such a school should also have associated with it a well-equipped sanitarium, offering sufficient medical instruction to the students. Further plans have now been set on foot to make this school a representative missionary training center for our people in the United States. While this has called for quite an outlay, yet we are happy that our brethren in the States are hard at work raising the necessary means on the $150,000 fund, that the school may be fully equipped.

Although the work in the United States plays an important part in the missionary work of the denomination, yet God has so blessed the cause in Australia, Germany, England, and Scandinavia that thousands here have embraced the truth, and they are coming to the front, just as the Testimonies said they should, supplying men and means for the work within their own borders, and also providing money and helpers to enter the surrounding mission fields. Our people labored hard to help establish the sanitarium in Australia, and to-day they are reaping the benefits by securing a number of workers for the isles of the Pacific.

The German Union also received some help from the sale of the German “Object Lessons” in America, for the Friedensau school; and now our membership is almost nine thousand, and our people are constantly gathering money to equip their institution in such a way as to enable it to meet the demands of those who are to go out as missionaries to the darker portions of the earth. Our young men and women are going forth from the Friedensau School to not only the hundreds of millions in the fields of the German Union proper, but to Africa, to Asia Minor, and to Palestine.

The British Union does not have so many members as yet (only about seventeen hundred), but still there is no other country in the world that exerts such a strong missionary influence as Great Britain. Naturally, as the work extends in that field, something must be done to give our young people there the very best education. Our brethren have done what they could, having a school in the crowded quarters of the city of London, where there may hardly be a bright ray of sunshine for days. Their medical work has been carried forward chiefly at Caterham, out in the country,—too small an institution to conduct a regular training-school in connection with the sanitarium work,—and so the British brethren have been looking for a suitable location to establish a school, and connect with it the printing-office and their medical work: thus they hoped to create a strong educational center for our work in this great nation, which rules four hundred millions of the world's population. They have raised two thousand dollars through the sale of “Christ Object Lessons,” and they have

decided to raise ten thousand dollars toward the school on this side of the water. God in his mercy has helped them to find a beautiful property, at Stanborough Park, Watford, about fifteen miles northwest of London. This is a very nice location, indeed; but of course property costs considerable in such a country; so that we have already paid forty-five thousand dollars for the place. We are now erecting a plant for the food factory and printing-office, at a cost of twenty-five thousand dollars more. Although the buildings already on the estate when we purchased it would afford room for a good-sized family, yet in order to provide for the school, which has about one hundred students, we must have suitable school buildings, costing not less than thirty thousand dollars.

Now, in view of the urgent demands of our brethren in Great Britain, they are exerting themselves to do what they can to raise their share for the school, but have also called upon our brethren in America to help them with another ten thousand dollars—which is to be a part of the $150,000 fund. So, let us not forget that while this money is really for buildings, yet it has a higher object in view—to educate our intelligent young people in Great Britain not alone for the English field, but also for the great “regions beyond,” in the African possessions of Great Britain, in India, etc. The fact is, already several of their workers have left Great Britain for the very heart of Africa, and others are expecting to follow.

Great Britain is not the only field that will be benefited, for two thousand dollars is also to go to the Skodsborg Sanitarium. While our people in Scandinavia were in a strait financially a few years ago, and somewhat discouraged, we are pleased to report that they have nobly rallied until that union conference has not only become self-supporting, but is now selecting several young men who are to prepare to open work for the Abyssinians. The union has decided to have a permanent union school, and the delegates at each of the recent Scandinavian meetings showed the deepest interest in securing the necessary means to provide suitable quarters for the young people who shall attend the school. Thus far, quite a number of our young brethren and sisters have been connected with the Skodsborg Sanitarium. The institution has struggled hard to get sufficient capital to enlarge. It had the largest patronage of any of our European institutions, the patrons being from the very best classes of society in Scandinavia, and yet we did not have one suitable building. We had to pay tremendous rents for cottages outside, here and there, making the work for the nurses very difficult; and even these cottages were fast being withdrawn from us, so the only alternative left was to erect a suitable building on our own grounds. In order to insure the future good of the institution, they had to secure some additional ground, so that the total recent outlay for the new buildings, the lot, the furniture, and the equipment for the laundry aggregates about fifty thousand dollars. Heretofore, we had no laundry at all. Now, as the Skodsborg Sanitarium is straining every nerve to raise the necessary means for the institution, and as a few years ago the American delegates to Europe promised the Skodsborg Sanitarium two thousand dollars provided Denmark would raise the same amount (which the Danish brethren have long ago accomplished, and they still continue to raise more), and as the buildings have been erected, it is but natural that they should desire this promise to be remembered by the friends in the States, as they are anxious to receive all the help they can to lighten their financial burden.

BATHING PLACE OF THE DAUGHTERS OF AN INCA MONARCH

One of the young men who has been trained at Skodsborg Sanitarium is going to Abyssinia. When I had a meeting with the nurses a few days since, there were three others who offered themselves for service in the hard Abyssinian field. Thus we can see the importance of this place as a training-center for workers. While some may to-day question whether we should put so much money into our institutions in brick and mortar, let us not forget to look a little into the future, and realize what these buildings stand for—that their main object is to provide suitable places where hundreds of our youth may be properly trained to go to the “regions beyond,” carrying the blessed gospel, thus being the means in God's hand of helping to finish the great, living temple, composed of “lively stones.”

As God is blessing our people in the States with prosperity and with means, and as they hear of the progress that he is granting to his work in all parts of the world, we sincerely hope they may be encouraged to liberally invest in these enterprises for hurrying forward the preparation of laborers, and laying up a treasure in the heavens which shall not perish, but bring dividends unequaled by any earthly enterprise—dividends that are eternal.