The Home Foreign Field by Ole Andres Olsen

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 15, 1912

The Home Foreign Field

By Ole Andres Olsen

SOME time has passed since we had a report from the home foreign field. It is not because nothing has been done; for really it has been a very busy time with us, and the task is so overwhelmingly large that what is done appears so exceedingly small that one hardly feels like referring to it.

We are glad to be able to report some advance. The foreign seminaries, now in the midst of their second year, are much blessed in their work. The attendance in all is larger than last year. The German seminary has an attendance of 120; the Danish-Norwegian, 95; and the Swedish, 30. At the Harvey (N. Dak.) academy our Russian department has 17 students. This is remarkably good in view of the loss of crops for two years.

We are glad to report the beginning of a revival in the French department. Two years ago we did not have an active worker in the French in the United States or Canada. In the middle of 1910 we secured Elder G. G. Roth from the Latin Union Conference in Europe. With his coming we could begin a more active campaign, but one laborer for the several millions of French-speaking people in all the United States and Canada could never meet the needs; so a call was made for at least one also for Canada, and again the Latin Union Conference in Europe responded by sending Elder Jean Vuilleumier, who is now located at Montreal, Canada.

Last October the International Publishing Association issued a five-thousand edition of a French magazine La Sentinelle, much as an experiment. We are glad to say that this has proved a great success, and at the present writing only fifteen hundred remain unsold. The outlook is encouraging, and gives promise that in the near future we shall be able to start a quarterly magazine in the French language.

We have yet another interesting, and in some respects the most important, advance move in the French department; namely, that of opening a French department in the South Lancaster Academy. We look on that move with special interest. In past years we have had young people of French parentage who would gladly have improved the opportunity of attending such a school where they could secure an education in their mother tongue to prepare them for labor among the French-speaking people; but having no such school, not one from among our French young people has entered the work among the French; instead, some of them have been educated and trained for work in the English language; therefore the great importance of this French department at South Lancaster Academy to this branch of our work.

We are glad to say that the department has secured a very able French teacher in Miss Roth, from Europe. We are also glad to learn that already a goodly number of our French young people are in attendance, and we hope that our French-speaking people will fully appreciate this opportunity, and that we may have a full attendance in this department, and thus give a decided impetus to the work among the millions of French people in the United States and Canada.

Some advance moves have also been made in other lines. In the Greater New York Conference Brother Immonen has been set to work among the Finnish people, and he is meeting with good success in selling literature and holding Bible readings. Recently Brother Calderone, one of our Italian laborers in New York, has come to Chicago to work among the hundreds of Italians in this great center. But while we are thankful for what is being done, there are still many nationalities with hundreds of thousands of people in this country for whom as yet we are doing nothing. Let us pray that the way may open for these to hear the message. O. A. OLSEN.