The East Michigan Conference
By J. D. Gowell
Report of the President at the Lake Union Conference
THE Lord has bountifully blessed the labors and laborers of this conference during the months covered by this report, for which we have great reason to praise the Lord. We now have eleven ordained ministers in our conference, with an equal number of Bible workers and licentiates. Two of our ordained ministers are aged and feeble, and we can not expect pioneer labor of them. We have sixty churches, with a membership of 1,975. We also have fourteen church-schools, with a total enrolment of two hundred and two students. Of the medical work in our conference I will say that there is in Detroit a well-organized cafe and sanitarium, which are having an excellent influence in that city. We have, also, a sanitarium and treatment rooms at Jackson. These are doing good work, which is being recognized by the whole city. Since our last biennial session of this conference, we have organized five churches, and there are three companies now ready for organization. Our tithe for the past year was thirteen thousand dollars, notwithstanding the wet and unfavorable season. Our school-teachers have all been paid from a general fund raised for that purpose, a plan which we think has worked well. Since our camp-meeting at Flint last year, there has been a continuous growth in the Flint church, where a laborer has devoted a part of his time. There are sixteen additions to their number from this labor. At Otter Lake a good work has been accomplished through the blessing of God. A company of thirty is now waiting to be organized into a church. Since our State meeting at Ithaca last March, an effort has been made which has been blessed of the Lord to the addition18of eight souls to that church. We also hear good reports from Elder R. W. Munson and wife in Sumatra. We have sent over sixteen hundred dollars to the support of that work since the last union conference. We have also assisted the Superior Mission Field to the amount of $1,680. We supported Elder Wm. Ostrander in Montreal until his health failed, and he had to retire from the work. Two laborers have been supported in the North Michigan Conference for one year. Our offerings to the foreign mission fields are fully up to the average. We have had excellent success in the work with “Christ's Object Lessons,” fully eight thousand copies being sold, and the money sent in. The work of the Educational Department is in a prosperous condition. We earnestly desire that much more may be accomplished in all departments of the work in our conference before the next biennial session.