W. W. WHEELER by W. W. Wheeler

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 28, 1912

W. W. WHEELER

By W. W. Wheeler

Ecuador

W. W. WHEELER

Brother John Osborne and I left Quito on Oct. 16, 1911, and were on the coast nine weeks, most of the time taking subscriptions for our Spanish health journal. We took 295 subscriptions, besides selling nearly six hundred single copies. We also placed some orders for other papers and for books and Bibles.

At Machala I baptized a brother with whom I held two or three Bible studies one year ago. He came into the truth principally through reading, and has been keeping the Sabbath nearly a year. Another brother came for baptism, but did not arrive till we had left the place. He has paid tithe for two years. We have other interested ones in that section, and I must spend some time with them during the next dry season. The climate is very malarious, and it was there we both took the malaria last year. Thanks to the Lord, I have not had any fever since our special seasons of prayer the sixteenth and seventeenth of last August.

The health journal is making friends for us among the people of all beliefs and disbeliefs. Most of those we meet are either fanatics or infidels. One woman would not give her order till assured that the magazine was not filled with Protestant arguments, did not teach the Catholic religion, and was not Masonic. A Protestant missionary said that the health magazine was excellent, and that he would like to have it in his family, but that he would not subscribe for it, lest his name appearing as a subscriber to the health magazine might influence some one else to accept some of our doctrinal literature. A priest who would not look at a sample copy last year, afterward read some of last year's numbers, with the result that he signed his name this time as soon as the journal was presented to him.

One place where we worked had been visited by our canvassers three or four years ago, and many books were sold. After the people had read some of the books, and found them muy bonito (very nice), the priest ordered them collected and burned. There was a big bonfire in the public square. In one house Brother Osborne saw a “Patriarchs and Prophets” that did not meet that fate. In another place I found a “Steps to Christ” with one corner burned off.

In one town, which for its size and wealth should have given us twenty subscriptions, we secured only four. In another town Brother Osborne placed orders to the amount of $14.30 in three and one-half hours. There are very few people on the roads between towns, and seldom can such persons buy anything, because of their extreme poverty. Only about fifty per cent of the inhabitants of the whole republic can read.

There are few railroads on the coast, and practically no wagon roads; nearly all traveling being done on horseback, muleback, or donkeyback. Because of a severe drought hundreds of animals died last summer, and a military uprising in the early fall caused a still greater scarcity of horses. The cost of saddle-horses was so great that we did not hire them, but made the trips from town to town on foot, several times walking more than twenty miles, and once about thirty miles in a day. Often the whole trip was through desert, without water or inhabitant. Sometimes clouds would shut off the direct rays of the sun, but that would not cool the air in these lowlands.

The people could not understand how we could make such journeys on foot; they do not try to walk long distances.

One man said we were surely walking representatives of our magazine, Salud y Vida (Life and Health). Nearly all the food in this country is so filled and then refilled with lard that we had to carry a small kerosene-stove with us to cook our own rice. Rice, bread, and bananas compose one meal; bread, bananas, and rice the following meal; and the next time we have bread, rice, and bananas. “Variety is the spice of life.” During that trip I gained in weight.

We were expecting the arrival of Elders Spicer and Westphal before the fifteenth of January, but a fresh revolution

broke out December 28, so it will not be possible for them to come here at all, nor for me to get away to the union conference meeting to be held in Chile. We greatly need the counsel of these brethren in our work here just at present. Remember Ecuador and us at the throne of grace.

Quito.