Orphaned Missions

Christian crosses spring from Buddhist lotus-flower bases at Dr. Karl Ludwig Reichelt's red-roofed Tao Fong Shan mission high above lovely Shatin Valley near Hong Kong. That fusion of symbols suits the earnest, persuasive Norwegian missionary. His object is to teach Buddhist monks Christianity in a familiar setting, make them converts to take Christianity to millions of other Buddhists. The Nazi Blitzkrieg last spring cut off funds from Norway and Denmark which have long financed Missionary Reichelt. But his work will go on. U. S. Lutherans have rallied to his support, as they have to 37 other orphaned Norwegian, German, Finnish and Danish missions.

Similarly fixed is Dr. Vedanayakam Samuel Azariah, Anglican Bishop of Dornakal. His diocese is the fastest-growing in the world for he touches India's untouchables. Finding their lot hopeless under the Brahmans, these outcasts have professed Christianity at the rate of 10,000 a year, as fast as the clergy could instruct them. Most of the money for this and other missionary work in India comes from the great British missionary boards--one of which, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, sent out such famed 18th-Century missionaries to the U. S. as Methodist John Wesley, Episcopalian John Talbot. Now that Britain has had to cut her missionary giving, U. S. Episcopalians are rallying to help Bishop Azariah and other Anglican missionaries carry on.

This Sunday U. S. Protestants will start a coast-to-coast drive for Europe's orphaned missions. Some 3,700 European missionaries and over 5,300,000 native Christians are concerned, for now they are cut off from almost all the $5,000,000 they normally receive from the Continent, from 20% to 50% of the $10,500,000 they normally get from England. U. S. leaders hope to raise at least $1,500,000 towards this deficit, over and above the $17,000,000 U. S. Protestants annually give to foreign missions. With this $1,500,000 they hope to keep Europe's missions open for a year, although budgets must be slashed to the bone.

The Lutherans got a start on other U. S. churches last spring when they raised $238,000 for purse-pinched Finnish and German missions. With their $238,000 almost spent, Lutherans this week sought another $500,000, a sum that must be upped to $775,000 if Sweden's Lutherans suffer the fate of their fellow Scandinavians. Episcopalians are after a preliminary $117,000. Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists and many a smaller denomination are this month launching world relief appeals, part of which is for orphaned missions. None of this is to affect ordinary U. S. mission budgets.

Typical request is that of the 15 Germans in the Rhenish Mission (Reformed) near Canton: "We naturally only ask for our daily bread. So $20 would be enough for one person a month." Danish missionaries in Nigeria, where living is still cheaper, said they could keep going on $10 a month for married couples, $7.50 for single workers.

Hardest hit of all were the French Protestant missions. More than half of their missionaries were mobilized at the outbreak of the war, leaving many stations dependent solely on women workers. To the support of these missions in Madagascar, Basutoland, Barotseland, the Cameroons and Gabon, and certain Pacific islands, have come the U. S. members of the International Missionary Council. Hundreds of German missionaries in British territory were interned, though many have since been released on parole to continue their work.

In World War I only German missions were cut off completely from home bases. Other Protestants then raised more than $2,000,000 to keep the missions going, returned them to the German societies after the war. Today's problem is far larger. Beyond the need for immediate aid, U. S. churchmen face the prospect that an Axis victory would halt missionary work in colonies Germany may then dominate. Hitler believes in short shrift for missionaries. Said he in Mein Kampf: "Mission education in Africa is based on the absurd notion of making lawyers out of half apes."

The Foreign Missions Conference of North America represents 129 Protestant church boards in the U. S. and Canada. Last week into the newly created job of F. M. C. general secretary stepped the Rev. Emory Ross. For 28 years he has been a missionary in Africa, a balding genial mission executive in the U. S.

Dr. Ross has rubbed shoulders with many a leper. But lightning, not leprosy, set him off on his mission career. In 1901 a bolt struck a toy telephone he had strung in school, narrowly missed killing a Negro student named Jacob Kenoly. Student Ross never forgot. Later Kenoly founded a mission school in Liberia and was drowned while fishing for his scholars' supper. On the day that Emory Ross got a letter telling him of Kenoly's death and asking him to take his place, he was offered a good job in a bank. For once lightning struck twice in the same place. Emory Ross went to Liberia.

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