Hands Reaching Toward Us by William Ambrose Spicer

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 5, 1916

Hands Reaching Toward Us

By William Ambrose Spicer

Two letters just in from the fringes of civilization, in widely separated regions of the earth, have a few sentences that we must pass on at this Harvest Ingathering season.

If in every report they send for publication our missionaries repeated the call in words, “Send us help—more men, more means,” the words would become monotonous. But the appeal is there, in the facts of the situation, in every report. And our readers always hear the calls for help between the lines, we know.

Recently Brother F. A. Stahl, of the Peruvian Mission, by Lake Titicaca, wrote of their cry for workers, “Please do not become tired or impatient with us.” No, we say: not for an instant. What else can the workers do as they face the needs, than cry to the Lord of the harvest and to their brethren?

Here are the paragraphs from the two letters just in, picturing the hands stretched toward us. The first is from Elder C. V. Achenbach, with the Lake Titicaca Mission. He says:—

“The calls for more schools and missions are coming all the time. At present we have fifteen calls for schools, and no one to answer them. It is a pity to tell these people that we cannot send them a teacher. Last week a delegation came in for a teacher. They said they would build a schoolhouse and a house for the teacher. We went over to the place, and found three hundred families pledging themselves to stand by the school. What could we do? We finally decided to place a native teacher there until some one can come from abroad. As I write, a delegation of Indians from a place forty miles away are in to see Brother Stahl, and are asking for a teacher and a mission.”

From across the Pacific, in the East Indies, Elder F. A. Detamore writes of another trip into Battakland, which has long called to us for a foreign teacher. We are thankful that the August sailing of recruits included a teacher and his wife for Battakland. Brethren Detamore and Judge, who recently passed through that most inaccessible part of Sumatra, say:—

“Hundreds of natives surrounded us everywhere we went and begged us to open schools, and promised to attend. If we had the teachers, we could open schools in half a dozen places.”

It is no mere figure of speech to say that many, many hands are stretching toward us for help. We have what these people want. God has given it to us first that we may take it to them.

W. A. S.