p. 13 | The Scandinavian Field by L. R. Conradi

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 26, 1909

The Scandinavian Field

By L. R. Conradi

L. R. CONRADI

The annual meeting of the Norway Conference was held this year at Christiania, June 30 to July 4. It was preceded by a workers' meeting. Elders O. A. Olsen and J. C. Raft, Brother Nils Anderson, and myself reached Christiania June 28. There were quite a number of canvassers and workers assembled, and Brother Raft at once began giving instruction. There was also a good outside attendance at the evening services. In fact, last autumn and winter when Elder Raft held meetings in this city, there was as large an interest developed here as had ever been known during the history of our work in Christiania.

We spent some time before the meeting in carefully considering matters connected with the Christiania property. After the settlement years ago, there was still a mortgage of about twenty-five thousand dollars on the Christiania property. In fact, had we sold the property at the time, it would not have brought us enough to clear its indebtedness. As there was no possibility of selling the house, we had to plan carefully in order that the property might bring in the interest and taxes. The house needed repairs, the heating apparatus was dilapidated, and some of the printing-presses were out of order. We secured an exchange for two good presses, fixed up a new heating apparatus, and moved our treatment rooms into the old wooden building. We had previously been using rented quarters in an outside building for our treatment rooms.

The Norway Book Mission started with no capital, but now, through careful management for years, it has earned its capital. For the first four or five years after the change was made, there was a deficit of from six hundred to a thousand kroner, which the union conference had to make up, so that the Norway Conference (which was also embarrassed) and the book mission might have opportunity to recover. Although times have gradually grown better, yet we have tried in vain to dispose of the Christiania property—either as a whole or in part—for a reasonable price. Meanwhile, under the careful management of Brother A. C. Christensen, the book mission has developed a capital of thirty-one thousand kroner, more than one third of this being earned last year. The Health Home, under Brother Scott's management, has earned seven thousand kroner. The Norway Conference has not only paid its indebtedness, but, although paying two tithes to the union, it has gradually accumulated a capital of ten thousand kroner, making a total of forty-eight thousand for them all.

The steadily increasing patronage of the treatment rooms has made it possible for them to earn as much during the first six months of this year as they earned in the twelve months of last year, and so the brethren feel that there is urgent need for larger treatment rooms than can be operated in the basement of the old wooden building. It is proposed to convert the first floor of the corner brick building into treatment rooms, at a cost of about seven thousand kroner. The old wooden building stands on the front of a deep lot, but as the city will not permit us to move the wooden building to the back of the lot, we must either erect a new building at a cost of twenty-five to thirty thousand kroner, or make some changes in the corner brick building to give accommodations to the treatment rooms.

When the Norway brethren learned that their conference had, by careful management, secured half of the money necessary, and that the property now has a settled income, they felt that the time had come for the conference to take over the Christiania publishing plant, the title to which has heretofore been held by the General Conference Association. As

this was presented to the open conference, the delegates not only unanimously voted to take over the property, but they raised thirty-three hundred kroner more to put with three thousand kroner previously collected for the purpose of making the requisite changes in the building for the treatment-rooms, so that this work can be done without indebtedness.

All seemed indeed grateful to God that the time had come when they could take hold of this property anew. As they have no legal organization to hold the house, the conference selected a committee of seven (one of whom is the Scandinavian union president, and another the Norway Conference president) to create such an organization, take over said property, and pay off the second mortgage (twenty-two thousand kroner), held by the Hamburg Publishing House. It was a happy moment for all that another financial difficulty in the European field seemed to be so successfully solved.

As there had been a Swedish mission formed in the northern part of Sweden, it now seemed best that, beginning with Jan. 1, 1910, the Norwegian part of the Northland Mission be reunited with the Norway Conference, as it is more readily worked by Norway than in any other way.

Elder N. C. Bergersen and the other members of the committee were unanimously re-elected. A good spirit permeated all our deliberations. When our brethren were told of the great mission fields in Africa and elsewhere, they raised nearly two hundred kroner for Abyssinia.

The canvassing work has had wonderful prosperity of late. The canvassers' sales last year amounted to seven thousand dollars, while for the first six months of 1909 they have been more than for the twelve months of 1908. The sales of the Norway house in 1908 amounted to seventeen thousand two hundred dollars. There are now nearly one thousand Sabbath-keepers among the two million three hundred thousand people of Norway.

According to the testimony of many, this was one of the best meetings ever held in Norway, and we surely expect that the coming year will see still greater prosperity in this country than we have ever witnessed before.