p. 21 | A Missionary Meeting in the Philippines

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

A Missionary Meeting in the Philippines

A LETTER from Brother C. E. Weaks, publishing and home missionary secretary of the Asiatic Division, contains the following interesting account of a missionary meeting in the Philippines:—

“On Wednesday evening of the first week of my stay in Manila, we had a union missionary meeting for the companies in the city of Manila, and a more enthusiastic meeting I never attended. A moving picture hall was rented for the occasion, as we had no place of our own large enough. Three hundred and seven by actual count were present, and nearly all of them were our own people. A well-arranged program had been prepared, and it was well carried out. The chairman was one of our native boys, and the secretary was one of the Filipino girls. I inclose a program. You will notice my name is on it. I endeavored to tell them briefly what our Home Missionary Department means to this cause, and told them some experiences from various parts of the field.

“Nos. 7 and 10 on the program were the most interesting parts. No. 7 was the report of the secretary. While it was given in the Tagalog language, I sat by one of the brethren, who told me what the sister was saying. She was a wide-awake worker, and gave a good, clear-cut report. It showed that she was secretary in more than name.

“No. 10 was very interesting, as it was given in the form of personal testimonies from the members. More ringing testimonies I never heard. I will just give you the gist of a few of the testimonies, so that you may get some idea of the way the believers in the Philippines are working:—

“One brother stated that he had set apart definite times each week for missionary work. A Bible worker told how she had been working with tracts, and that several were rejoicing in the truth as a result of this work. One of the workers in the printing office had handed out literature, and as a result, one man had been baptized and is now attending the institute preparatory to entering the colporteur work. One of the young evangelists stated that he kept two of our leading books to lend to interested people, as he is unable to visit and study with them all. Three are now in the truth through this reading. Another evangelist told how he had presented the home missionary work to a new company, and they had taken five hundred copies of the missionary paper for their church work. Another sent literature into the hill country, where we had no work started. Now an interest has sprung up, and people are pleading that some one be sent to them. Another young evangelist had gone to a town to open up work, where he found three families keeping the Sabbath through reading.

“I might refer to other testimonies, but these will suffice to show you that it was a real missionary meeting. I am more and more convinced that our hope in these great Eastern lands lies in setting the people to work. The work in the Philippines is progressing, nearly three hundred having been baptized thus far this year; and I believe these good results are mainly due to the fact that the brethren there have made a large use of our literature.”