nineteen hundred and forty-six - Amazon Web Services

FOREIGN MISSION BOARD 253
in a home environment which should tend to preserve African culture and
the inherent religious tendencies.
Our staff has grown by the addition of several married couples, Rev. and
Mrs. (Dr.) J. W. H. Richardson, Jr., Rev. and Mrs. C. F. Eaglesfield, Dr. and
Mrs. W. J. Williams, Rev. and Mrs. Ray P. Ingram, Rev. and Mrs. R. L. West,
Rev. and Mrs. J. S. McGee, Rev. and Mrs. C. F. Roberson, and four single women,
Misses Annie Rines, Rees Watkins, Frances Hammett, and Ada Lois Newman.
Miss Ruby Daniel, one of the missionaries to Hungary, is spending a year with
us, helping to relieve the shortage of staff.
During the year, six members of our small staff were invalided home. The
burden of overwork is costly, but war conditions, over which we have no control,
have handicapped missions. The time has come when specially trained people
for special tasks should be sent to mission fields. Specialization has reached
us only a generation after making itself felt in America. The mission field is
an expensive school in which to train our recruits. Our seminaries and medical
schools in America train men and women for evangelistic and medical work;
educationists should -be found in our teachers' colleges, so that they will not
have to serve an apprenticeship here.
Our well-rounded mission program includes medical and educational work.
These are necessary adjuncts to our main program of evangelism, and it is
difficult to tell just where one ends and the other begins. Almost every
organized church has a school, and perhaps our greatest opportunity for evangelistic
work is in these schools and in our dispensaries.
EVANGELISTIC WORK
It is very difficult to measure this phase of our work in Nigeria. The African
is a traveller and trader, and he is also a great church-joiner, often being
reported as a member in two or more churches. This makes our statistics a
bit misleading. The Mission realizes that the native of the country must be
the prime factor in evangelism. The extent of his collective effort may be
determined by the report of the Nigerian Baptist Convention. A great percentage
of our Christians are winning their fellowmen to Christ. The great
difference between the Christian and the heathen is noticeable in many ways as
in his outlook on life, his dress, his home, his children, his health, and his
education. These things tfcnd to make Christianity popular, which in many
instances may not be conducive to earnest Christian living. However, the
average Christian is an evangelist.
During the year 1945, our work was hindered, so far-asi the war was concerned,
by the difficulties experienced in travel on the local field, as well as to and
A Group of
Baptist Pastors
of
Nigeria