As the first rays of the Third Angel's Message penetrated to the West Indies through the pages of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES, it seems fitting to make an appeal through those same pages for assistance in launching our industrial school enterprise.
It was nearly nineteen years ago that that first bundle of SIGNS was thrown on a Demerara dock by a sea captain, from the reading of which the first West Indian Sabbath-keepers were raised up. In the years that have slipped so rapidly by, great progress has been seen, until to-day more than three thousand believers are found in the West Indian field. Two conferences have been organized; a small but complete publishing plant is now in operation, turning out thousands of pages of printed matter on "present truth;" the sanitarium work has been successfully begun; and now an industrial school is about to be started. Surely the Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad.
Among these three thousand believers are hundreds of bright, earnest young people, and hundreds of happy faced little children not numbered among the communicant members. The brethren and sisters feel that the time has come for definite steps to be taken toward caring for these young people and the lambs of the flock.
The writer is now on a trip throughout the field in behalf of the publishing and educational work, just having concluded a five weeks' tour of Jamaica. Fifteen churches in Jamaica were visited, to which centers came delegates from more than forty churches and companies. The meetings were all enthusiastic and Spirit-filled, and not a dissenting voice was heard. Over £300 ($1,500) was raised in cash and pledges. When it is considered that the day's wage in the West Indies ranges from twenty to fifty cents, it will be seen that this is an excellent donation. No one was able to give a large amount, but everybody gave something.
S. D. A. Church Building at Port Antonio, Jamaica.
Central America and the East Caribbean Conference are yet to be visited. But when all the believers in the West Indies have done all they can, we will still lack $5,000 of having sufficient money to launch the school enterprise.
What we want is enough money to buy reasonably good land, as level as possible, and so near to some good market that we can turn produce into cash. Jamaica is one of the most rugged islands in the West Indies. It is almost all up one side of the hill and down the other. There is but little good land unoccupied that can be tilled according to modern methods.
At the present time two small properties only twenty-two miles from Kingston, the metropolis and chief market, are offered us for $2,700. The smaller property of forty-one acres is fertile land, on the main road, and the other of sixty-six acres, adjoining it on the back, with quite a good house worth about $600, with splendid elevations, high and dry, for building sites. We have searched the entire island, and these are the only available properties suitable for our purpose. But they are on the market, and may be sold at any time if we do not secure them.
It is impossible for us to express on paper our feelings as we face a situation of this kind. For the want of a few dollars shall we see this opportunity slip away from us?
It seems to us that in the light of such a calamity as has recently overtaken San Francisco, our people ought to be able to view the things of this world with a better perspective. We know that such things shall increase, and in the last day, fast hastening on, will become general; then of what value will be our real estate? or what benefit to us will be the dollars invested in brick and mortar? I do not doubt that there were Adventists in San Francisco who, having lost their property, will be able to appreciate the force of this argument.
Consider a moment for what we are asking. Only for money enough to buy good land, and to furnish material for buildings and tools. The students will then work out their own education. On account of the general poverty prevailing in the West Indies, very few of our young people will be able to give a cash equivalent for their education. But just give them a chance, and they will work it out.
It is proposed that this school shall be an industrial school in the strictest sense of the word. Book knowledge alone is not sufficient. But the practical things of every-day life will also find a place in its curriculum.
From it we hope to send students very soon to tropical Africa and the Southern States, fully equipped to do their part in the finishing of the work. Already more than a score of native West Indian young people are on our conference pay roll, doing acceptable work in responsible positions. With a training school, many more can be trained to go out into the harvest field and bear their burden in the closing up of this work.
We are doing all we can, but we are still short, and so we appeal to the believers in the home land to help us make up the lack, in order that the finishing of this work may be hastened, and Jesus come to take us all home to glory.
