Progress Among the Islands by Ole Andres Olsen

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 4, 1907

Progress Among the Islands

By Ole Andres Olsen

We are much encouraged by the good reports from all parts of the field. We have certainly entered a very interesting period. The time so long looked for, when the message should go with power and reach out to nations, tongues, kindreds, and people in every part of our earth, is here; and how wonderfully the providences of God are opening the way! We are not only cheered by what we see taking place in other parts of the world, but also with what we are experiencing in our own union conference.

The Lord is greatly blessing the efforts being put forth in the island mission fields. Our greatest difficulty is to supply the needed laborers, for which such urgent calls come. The school at Tonga has more than doubled. Lately they have built an addition, thus increasing their capacity. They now have sixty day-students, and their evening school numbers twenty-six. They are in urgent need of an additional teacher, which must be sent just as soon as one can be found.

The papers printed in the Tahitian and Rarotongan languages are received with enthusiasm by the natives. In Tahiti they have already worked up a large subscription list. We hope soon to print

a paper in the Maori language for New Zealand, and one also in the Malay for Singapore. We are putting forth special efforts to circulate reading-matter pertaining to the truth in these various languages, for we believe this will be an important means for getting the truth before thousands of the natives.

We also receive encouraging reports from the workers in Java. When we decided to send our workers there, we knew of only one Sabbath-keeping family — Sister Fox and her children — in all that island; it now seems that there are a number. Our missionaries have obtained the address of several persons in various places.

We can only praise the Lord for all these tokens of encouragement, and the evidences of the work hastening on to the great and final consummation. We have every evidence to believe that the work will soon be finished, and the Lord come in glory. 0. A. O. OLSEN.