p. 675 | WORK IN THE .SOUTH by I. E. Kimball

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 15, 1901

WORK IN THE .SOUTH.

By I. E. Kimball

Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Berkley, cities of Virginia, are joined as one; and Newport News is not far away. I have labored in these cities for more than four months, and am expecting to remain for months, and possibly years. My family is settled at 612 Sixth St., Portsmouth, Va.

My wife remained to give Bible readings in Wilmington, N. C., for about six weeks after I left that city. She joined me here about June 24. I have now preached in all the Baptist, Methodist, Christian, and Presbyterian churches of the colored people, distributing many hundred books. We have sold as many as one hundred in a week.

I have been preaching from six to eight times a week, and the word has been thankfully received. Many come to us with earnest testimonials of gratitude. We have much reason to thank God, and take courage. We are also using a stereopticon for night lectures on the prophecies. Our lantern works well, and we are able to throw nearly all the prophetic symbols onto the screen. Thus we are preaching the prophecies straight in all these churches, and their reception of the message is more than we expected. Preachers and people listen with rapt attention. I feel assured that this work is according to the mind of God. Sabbath-keepers and believers in the immediate second advent are springing up, and I expect to see them in the future springing as “the grass, as willows by the water courses.”

We have labored not a little in the Seventh-day Adventist churches of Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Newport News. Each of these has had severe trials. Troubles have been fermenting for years. But the Lord is giving victory, and will work out a complete salvation for them. These churches are helping us in our work all they can, and their interest in the work makes this place to me an oasis in the wild desert. I shall be excused for mentioning the Portsmouth church particularly. I have experienced nothing like their sympathy and the substantial help they have given since I began to labor especially for the colored people.

We have, the season through, been planning for colored school work at Portsmouth, and I hope we may open a night Bible school there in the near future. We hope to hold sessions nights, Sabbaths, and Sundays. The navy yard there furnishes work for many, who may thus support themselves while attending the school. Many whom I have met this season have desired to attend—some from South Carolina, some from North Carolina, and many from this place. Such a work will bring additional care and burden upon us, but I hope to see it carried through successfully. I shall divide my time in working for the school and in the churches.

I am now forty years old, and have engaged as an active laborer in the message for twenty years. I can truly say that my health is better than when I began, and my joy in the truth increases continually. I have the most perfect confidence in the ultimate triumph of the Third Angel’s Message.

I. E. KIMBALL.