Our Work and Workers

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 25, 1897

Our Work and Workers.

Reports from Buenos Ayres state that the work is growing, and our workers receive more calls for help than they can fill.

Elder J. E. Evans reports that seven members were added to the church at New Orleans, January 10, and three were added at the last quarterly meeting.

Meetings held in Cairo, Nebraska, by Elder E. L. Stewart have resulted in the conversion of eleven adults, with others interested, at the time the report was made.

Elder Francis Hope, whose field of labor is in England, notes good meetings with additions to the churches at Plymouth, Southampton, Bath, Grimsby, Ulceby, and Hull.

Our missionary in the Tonga Islands, Elder E. Hilliard, says, “I am quite well satisfied that the best way to reach the natives is through the medical missionary work.”

Nine members were recently added to the church at Wacopa, Manitoba, where Elder D. T. Bourdeau has been laboring, and Elder W. H. Falconer reports the addition of seven members at Winnipeg. He says work is being carried on in the country, notwithstanding the frequent “blizzards,” and the fact that the snow is three feet deep in the roads.

From the Cape Town, south Africa, Sentinel, we learn that a new chapel has been erected at Rokeby Park, near Graham’s Town, and that Elder A. T. Robinson officiated at the dedication. Also that on December 12, seven converts were baptized at Cape Town by Elder H. J. Edmed. A church organization was contemplated at Mowbray early in the year.

Elder Graf, one of our missionaries in Brazil, tells how an attack of intermittent fever, which seemed to be a great hindrance to his work, was the means of bringing an educated Catholic man and his wife to a knowledge of the truth. Thus a much-needed help in the school at Curitiba was secured. “All things work together for good to them that love God.”

Elder F. H. Westphal, missionary in Uruguay, S. America, reports the organization of a church of eighteen members. All were baptized in the Rio de la Plata, and none of them ever had witnessed the rite of immersion before. The church is in a German Swiss colony, and the elder and deacon are both from the Catholic Church. A number of other colonists attend the meetings of this church.

The first baptism (immersion) ever witnessed in the State of Tarapaca, Chile, was administered early in the winter by Elder G. H. Baker. There were five candidates, three of whom had been Catholics, and they were baptized in the sea at Iquique. A church of seven members was organized as a nucleus of the work in that place. The elder of this church was formerly a Methodist preacher.

Elder L. H. Crisler, president of Florida Conference, suggests the establishment of a Cuban mission at Tampa, which he says must be the base of Cuban operations. He says “the time is ripe for it.” As a matter of fact, the “time is ripe” for work everywhere. “Speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward.” Elder Crisler also says that the way is opening in a marked manner for carrying the message to the Seminole Indians.

The Cape Times of January 13 contains an elaborate report of the opening of the new Claremont Medical and Surgical Sanitarium, near Cape Town, S. Africa. The report states that the Sanitarium “is an innovation which is likely, before a very long time has elapsed, to find appreciation as a great boon by invalids from all parts of South Africa.” The building consists of fifty-one rooms, twenty-eight of which are bedrooms, and there is accommodation for forty patients. It is built both externally and internally on the most modern American principles, on grounds about sixty acres in extent. In a separate building are an elaborate steam laundry and drying rooms, and a bakery constructed on the most approved principles.

From a letter from Elder Jean Vuilleumier we take the following extract: “I am writing you from the province of Santa Fé, colony Felicia, on a farm at a Swiss brother’s who embraced the Sabbath twelve years ago, without having ever read a single one of our tracts or a copy of our papers. He heard a conversation between a Baptist and Methodist minister. The former easily cornered the disciple of Wesley on the baptism question, but was in his turn cornered on the Sabbath question by the latter. Later, an agnostic told this brother that if he was

pretending to follow the Bible, he should keep Saturday, and not Sunday. Finally he received a Baptist paper which contained a mention of Seventh-day Adventists. This decided him, with two other farmers, to begin the observance of the Sabbath of the Lord.”

On account of having lost all their oxen by the native uprising and by the rinderpest, our brethren at the mission farm in Matabeleland, Africa, have turned their attention to gardening. From a letter published in the Review we take this extract: “We have a nice garden growing, but have to watch the locusts closely. There are over five hundred tomato plants, sweet potatoes, watermelons, cucumbers, ground cherries, and pumpkins. When you send us help, be sure to send a liberal supply of all kinds of garden seeds, and some of the best seed corn you can find. I think small fruits would do well here if we had a start.”