The South American Union Conference by E. L. Maxwell

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 23, 1914

The South American Union Conference

By E. L. Maxwell

E. L. MAXWELL

THE regular session of the South American Union Conference was held in the city of Montevideo, Uruguay, in the comfortable little chapel that has been secured by the brethren of the Uruguay Mission. This chapel will accommodate about one hundred and fifty persons, and was well filled at the night services, many of the people of the city attending. Delegates were present from all parts of the field, though on account of the great distances, some missions did not send full delegations.

The session of the conference was preceded by a workers' meeting of one week. A number of the laborers were present, and we believe that all gained advantage from the Bible studies and from the lessons on methods of work.

In his opening address to the conference, the president reviewed the work of the past two years, showing a healthy increase in all branches, and giving some encouraging statistics of the tithes and offerings, literature sales, membership, and missionary efforts. But the most important matter mentioned was the great extent of the work yet to be done. One half the population of the continent is included in our field. It has great cities with their hundreds of thousands of unwarned souls, a rapidly increasing country population, a heavy immigration from Europe, and we have just begun to touch the work with our fingers. Only in Montevideo do we have a meetinghouse that is owned by our people. There must be chapels provided in all our great capitals. And we must work these cities.

It was shown that while several new workers had come during the two years, several had returned to their homeland, and two had fallen at their posts of duty. The need of other well-qualified workers is great.

Other reports dealt with the financial condition of the various institutions of the conference, and all are doing well, especially the sanitarium and publishing house. The work among the Indians around Lake Titicaca is also growing very rapidly, seventy-one being baptized at our mission there, just after the first of the present year.

Among the features of the meeting was the receipt of a gift from a gentleman not of our faith, of fifty pesos, Uruguayan ($51.79 American), for the institutional work at Diamante. A brother who was in attendance at the meetings simply presented the need and the opportunity to give, and the gift was made. This was taken as an evidence that we could very profitably inaugurate the Harvest Ingathering work in our own field, and a committee was selected to arrange this matter for the next autumn.

Another important move was to set off the countries of Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru as a union mission under the supervision of the union conference.

A strong series of resolutions was passed looking to the arousing of all the church members in the matter of the home missionary work, and it was decided to make an earnest effort to double our membership in the next biennial term.

In addition to the laborers present from the local fields, we had the pleasure of welcoming among us Elders Spies, Lipke, and Meyer, of Brazil, and Brother H. H. Hall, of the Pacific Press. All these brethren took an active part in the work of the conference, and their efforts were much appreciated.

Elder J. W. Westphal, who has served the conference as its president since its organization, and who was superintendent of the field for several years before this, was unanimously reelected president for the incoming term.

The delegates returned to their homes filled with a more solemn sense of the work that is to be done, and praying that they may be used of God more than ever before, in the finishing of the work.

Lima, Peru.