W. H. THURSTON by W. H. Thurston

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 23, 1911

W. H. THURSTON

By W. H. Thurston

Wisconsin

It is an old proverb that “a good report maketh the bones fat.” There-fore we have deferred reporting to the REVIEW until we had a good report to give. At the close of the annual session of the conference last September, the officers and workers began to study very carefully the different departments of our work, with the view to improvement.

We gave attention to the spiritual condition of the conference, and, realizing that we have a great work to do to elevate men and women and win them to Christ, we resolved to give more time to study, counsel, and earnest prayer. Workers are ordained that they should go and bring forth fruit, and we are now seeing some good results, and hoping and praying for greater results. We investigated our finances and determined our obligations, then addressed ourselves to the task of supplying the needs. We first resolved that we would avoid further indebtedness, and endeavor to live within our means. A monthly financial statement of the conference was planned, and a copy furnished to each member of the conference committee. At the beginning of last quarter we had an overdraft at the bank of about eight hundred dollars’ tithe, and the beginning of the present quarter it was changed to a credit of about two hundred dollars. This is a crumb of encouragement. All trust funds have been forwarded to the union conference at the end of each month since camp-meeting, and our gradual increase in tithes will eventually pay up the overdraft on trust funds, which had been used in the conference work. Our laborers arranged, by mutual agreement, to appropriate one day’s salary a month to the debt on the new school building at Bethel, and in this way, with donations from our churches from time to time, we are meeting this obligation. Our schools have good enrolments this year, and the work is going on well. The teachers seem to be doing faithful work, and the students are obtaining knowledge. The sanitarium is enjoying a good patronage this winter, and the results are quite satisfactory. During the winter the patronage is the lightest of the year, and the expenses are heavy. However, by careful management and hard work on the part of those in the sanitarium, and the co-operation of our people, with the blessing of God, the work has gone forward thus far through the winter with a slight gain each month. We are rendering a monthly financial statement of receipts and disbursements, and this is appreciated. Our people desire to know whether we are gaining or losing, and they have a right to know.

The “Ministry of Healing” campaign is well organized, and our churches are having a part in this good work. Books are going out each month, and money is coming in, and this is applied on the indebtedness. At our camp-meeting we voted to sell ten thousand copies in addition to the six for each member for three years. Our conference laborers agreed to help sell this book; and while some have lagged a little, others have sold a goodly number. We expect all to rally to this work during the year. There is no place to ask to be excused in this all-round gospel work.

We have recently held a profitable workers’ and church elders’ meeting, and all departments of work were given careful consideration. At this meeting it was recommended that we appropriate five per cent of our conference tithe to the Sustentation Fund and ten per cent to the General Conference for the support of laborers in foreign fields. These appropriations, with the ten per cent to the union conference, make twenty-five per cent of our conference tithe to be used outside of our conference. We believe that all will concur in this, and that the tithe will increase sufficiently to retain our present force of laborers, and erelong place more in the field.

I am endeavoring to visit all the churches in the conference as soon as possible in connection with my other work, and thus become personally acquainted with all, and study with them our conditions, obligations, and privileges, individually as well as collectively. I have thus far visited twenty-six churches, and have had good meetings in every place. Our people are loyal and willing; and when they are counseled with, and made conversant with the conference work, they will co-operate to a member. As officers and workers, we desire that all shall have full information relative to our conference work in all departments. The conference is the people, the institutions in the State under conference control belong to the people, and their failure or success depends upon the people. In union there is strength, and in concentrated and consecrated effort there is success. We are abundantly able, under God, to lift the burden of debt and go out free.

The tithes and offerings are gradually increasing, and this increase will undoubtedly continue. We are doing our best to respond to all the calls for help in the field. As we realize that we are laborers together with God, we are constrained to move carefully and prayerfully, but keep moving. We are messengers with a message, and we are debtors to the world. We believe that the Wisconsin Conference will fill her place in the work of God.