Buying a Meetinghouse at Aurora, Ill.
By William Covert
DURING the past year I have not borne official responsibilities, so have been free to work where labor seemed most needed. A large share of my effort has been devoted to gathering funds to provide a meetinghouse for our believers in the city of Aurora. We purchased a church costing $4,000. The largest part of this has been paid, and also street improvement costing $313.60, and the insurance policies renewed for three years. We have put a new roof on the building, and are now preparing to repaint the church, and to furnish it with essential equipment, so that when we meet with the Lord, our sanctuary will do him honor. Not all the money is yet in hand, but we feel sure it will be paid before we have our dedicatory services, which we plan for August 7-9 of this year. In raising money for this church we have had almost unrestricted access to our people, and about four hundred persons have contributed. How encouraging it is to read the letters which come, some bringing large sums and some small. Altogether, this has been one of the most pleasant efforts of my life, and I can say assuredly that we have the best people in all the world. About $800 of the money invested in this meetinghouse was secured by the sale of our books, and about fifty persons helped sell them. Of course some had a commission for their work, but the enterprise has resulted in the sale of a thousand dollars' worth of literature, and this is no small consideration. One hundred dollars came from the sale of mottoes that were donated to us. Another blessing that has come to us as a result of the church enterprise is the organization of our sisters into a workers' band. Anxious to lend a helping hand, they organized for service, and now I see they are busy helping the needy, in addition to gathering money for the church building. In carrying forward our campaign it became necessary for many of our churches to be visited, and in doing this I preached perhaps one hundred times, and rendered such other help as the Lord seemed to call upon me to do, so that it16has been my happy privilege during this period to baptize twenty persons who have entered into membership in our churches. It seems to me that of more than forty years' work in the Lord's cause, this last year has been the sweetest of all. If things were delayed a little, as when some obstacle blocks the way, I had recourse to my beloved closet in the secret chamber, and perplexities vanished. Many times the Lord answered my prayers, and I was constrained to weep for joy because he came so divinely near. While soliciting money for our church home, the Lord opened the way to secure some larger contributions for our missionary work, and now some substantial pledges and cash contributions are helping to answer the cry from the needy fields where darkness reigns. The Lord wishes to increase our faith so that he can do still greater things for us and through us. He advises that when we ask, we open wide our hearts, that he may have room to bestow a large answer.