Your ShelfYour Projects

The Canvassing Work in South America

14%

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Dec 25, 1913

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 90, No. 52.

Read the full edition

The Canvassing Work in South America

By MAX TRUMMER

The book work in the South American Union Conference is making encouraging progress. Four of our eight fields have their missionary agents, and the institutes for the canvassers are held as regularly as in the States. Aside from our regular canvassers we plan on having from one to two agents on our periodicals, and these have done very encouraging work in taking subscriptions. Our trouble is in getting the papers through the mail. We are trying to overcome this difficulty by certifying the rolls to the postmasters.
Our main efforts during the last year have been on “Patriarchs and Prophets” and “Coming King,” and the Lord has blessed us in a marked degree. One brother sold and delivered $1,000 (gold) worth of these in eighty-eight days, and this notwithstanding the fact that most of the Spanish which he could speak was the canvass that he had committed to memory. One of our native canvassers in Peru took forty-eight orders for “Coming King” in seven hours recently.
Our brethren are courageous in their work. Two of them are making a trip in Bolivia, which will take them from five to six months, mostly on muleback. They have taken 3,000 bolivars’ ($1,200 gold) worth of literature with them on this trip. For the first six months of this year we had a gain in orders of $5,000 gold over the corresponding period of 1912, and we trust that the remainder of the year may show even better results.
The outlook for the future is a most encouraging one. This is due, in part, to the generosity of the brethren in North America in giving us new leaders for Uruguay, Ecuador, and Patagonia. During this vacation we expect to have about ten canvassers from the academy in Argentina, among whom are two professors.
Beginning with November, we shall begin regular work with “Daniel and the Revelation” in Spanish. Some good work has been done with this new book already, one worker selling and delivering sixty-eight copies in eight days. Though some of the people are opposed to religion and others are incredulous, still we find many who appreciate our books, and we continue to place them in the homes of men who are leaders in commercial enterprises, in the schools, and in the government. We ask you to remember us in your petitions to the throne of grace to the end that we may exalt the message of Jehovah in our work. To him be all the praise for his increasing blessings.
MAX TRUMMER.