Progress Round the Caribbean by William Ambrose Spicer

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 6, 1916

Progress Round the Caribbean

By William Ambrose Spicer

W. A. SPICER

It was for a busy week's work that the West Indian Union Committee met at Cristobal, on the Canal Zone, in February.

We do not always remember that the three conferences of this union represent more than four thousand Sabbath keepers. The visitation work planned for Elder A. J. Haysmer, the president, at the committee session, will keep him away from the headquarters in Jamaica until September. The fields are large in area, and communication in these war times is often very uncertain. But there is advancement everywhere.

Each conference president came in with a good report. Elder E. C. Boger, of Jamaica, reported 221 persons baptized in that island conference during 1915. Elder W. G. Kneeland, of the West Caribbean Conference (stretching from Nicaragua to the southern border of Colombia, in the heart of South America), reported 112 baptisms. And the Elder N. H. Pool came in from the South Caribbean Conference, which includes Venezuela and the Guianas, with a report of 378 persons baptized during the year 1915. Thus 711 new believers were baptized during the last year. The workers are expecting to pass the thousand mark during 1916.

Besides the presidents of conferences there were at this meeting, F. H. Raley, the union secretary; A. F. Haines, manager of the union printing house; Elder E. C. Widgery, of the Leeward Islands; Elder John Shultz, of Costa Rica; Elder B. E. Connerly, of Colombia; J. P. Redding, secretary of the West Caribbean Conference; and J. J. Ireland, auditor of the General Conference. It is a word of cheer that every one of these workers has to send to friends in other lands. These brethren are hard at work down here in the tropics, and with them is a little army of West Indian laborers and thousands of believers.

The day after the council closed, Elder Connerly and his family sailed for Colombia, expecting to settle about seven days' journey in the interior. They go with courage, and with our prayers that this may be a permanent establishment of our work in that republic. Now every one of the South and Central American republics is on our entered list.

The union office is removed from the Canal Zone to Jamaica, in order that the secretary may also assist in the work at the union publishing house. Four new workers are earnestly called for by this union,—an evangelist and a field agent for the South Caribbean Conference, and the same for the West Caribbean. There are open doors for work among the Indians of the Mosquito Coast of Central America; and the Indians of the upper Guiana district, where Elder O. E. Davis lost his life, are still calling for some one to come and teach them about Christ's second coming, which, because of some tribal tradition, they are looking for. They call to us for help. Some day we surely must enter these regions, marked by a missionary grave, but left without a teacher.

Canal Zone, Panama.