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J. T. BOETTCHER

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Michigan · Apr 8, 1902

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 79, No. 14.

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J. T. BOETTCHER

By J. T. Boettcher

Switzerland

We left America last June for our new field of labor in Switzerland. At the Switzerland camp meeting, held at Moudon in July, the German and French fields were separated, in order that better work might be done. The writer was chosen as president of the German part. However, immediately after this meeting I left Switzerland to attend the Union Conference held at Friedensau, Germany, and during the fall accompanied Elder Conradi to Russia, attending their general meetings, and visiting many of their churches. The Lord greatly blessed our work in that country.
In the meantime, Brother and Sister Voth had arrived in Switzerland from America, and upon my return we began a series of meetings in Basel. God has blessed the work; fifteen have been baptized, and seventeen have united with the church. In December we held our first general meeting. Elder Conradi was with us to give all possible assistance.
Our conference has about two hundred members, paying a tithe of nearly sixteen hundred dollars a year. We have five organized churches, two ordained ministers, one licentiate, two Bible workers, and eight canvassers. All the work has to be carried on with the sixteen hundred dollars,—surely not a very large sum,—but we are all of good courage, knowing that it is the Lord's work. We must have a new tent for our summer's work, and hope that our people in America will remember us with donations. Doors for work are open everywhere, and as far as freedom in preaching is concerned, we are just as free as we are in the States. How long this will last, we do not know. There is a constant drawing toward Rome. The Swiss Bundesrath recently sent an official congratulation to Pope Leo XIII upon his anniversary. Some of the people are indignant over it, but others look upon it as the right thing.
We are glad that the Lord can use us in his cause. Surely his message to us is true, which says: “I have sore heartache as I think of the work in Switzerland, Germany, Norway, and Sweden. Where there are one or two men struggling to carry forward the different branches of the cause, there should be hundreds at work.”
May God put it into the hearts of his people to say, “Here am I, send me.”

J. T. BOETTCHER

Rudolf Str. 48, Basel, Switzerland.