In America on Furlough by H. H. VOTAW

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 16, 1909

In America on Furlough

By H. H. VOTAW

At the invitation of Elder E. T. Russell, the General Conference Committee recommended that I should attend the camp-meetings of the Central Union Conference. The privilege of so doing was greatly appreciated. To travel through the rich agricultural districts of these States of the Middle West was to appreciate anew the vast resources of the United States. But this was not the best part. To attend our meetings, to meet those who love this message more dearly than anything else on earth, to hear their interest expressed in words and to see it manifested by their gifts, was to have my courage renewed. We shall feel, more than ever before, as we stand face to face with the blackness of darkness of heathenism in Burma, that we are not alone in the work, but that the people of God in the home lands are one with us in our labors.

Following the camp-meetings, I went to Oklahoma, near Woodward, where my brother and sister reside. My mother had come from Ohio, in order that we might all visit together. We had expected to spend a month or so in doing nothing but visiting, but God led us to hold some meetings in response to very urgent invitations.

I preached for about three weeks every night. During the day Mrs. Votaw and I visited a great deal with those who became interested. We distributed over twenty-six hundred pages of literature free, took orders for thirteen books, and placed the REVIEW in the homes of all the new believers. Sixteen were baptized. Three others were received into the church, to be baptized at a later time, and two backsliders renewed their consecration to the Lord.

Since we were not laborers of the Oklahoma Conference, we were glad to have present when the candidates were accepted for baptism and church-membership, Elders D. F. Sturgeon and J. Ebel.

Brother Ballenger, who is elder of the Woodward church, allowed his farm work to suffer in order to furnish us with horses, so that we might do the visiting that was necessary.

Sister Ballenger, having had experience as a Bible worker, is holding public Bible readings in the same schoolhouse in which our services were held, and we expect others will take their stand for the truth.

We were urged very strongly to go into the adjoining school district and hold another series of meetings, but felt that we could not now. The call of Burma, the land we love so well, is in our ears, and we hope to sail by the first of the new year. We are visiting now in Ohio. H. H. VOTAW.