nineteen hundred and forty-six - Amazon Web Services

336 SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION
SECTION XI
WORK AMONG THE INDIANS, FOREIGNERS AND
LANGUAGE GROUPS
COURTS REDFORD. Assistant Executive Secretary
It is with thanksgiving to our Heavenly Father and with sincere appreciat
of the fine cooperation given by my fellow workers that I give this report
to Southern Baptists.
The Lord blessed the work of our missionaries in 1945. Three hundred
thirty-seven missionaries in this department and 206 summer workers sent
their reports to this Board. They reported 41,221 sermons and addresses,
8,711 conversions and 3,340 additions to the churches. The summer students,
who reported 2,335 conversions, were not asked to report additions to the
churches. Doubtless many of these who professed faith in the Lord did join
the churches in their respective communities.
These reports show an increase of 2,609 conversions over the previous year,
which is a gain of 42%. They reported 582 more additions to the churches
than were reported the previous year.
These reports as well as the testimonies of our workers indicate that this
is a fruitful time in which to baptize disciples here in the homeland.
The increased income of our Baptist people in the South, the willingness
of many young people to give themselves to mission service, the increased
interest of the foreigners, the Indians, and the under-privileged in their own
spiritual welfare and the realization of a need of a great spiritual revival
all combine to make this the greatest day of opportunity for evangelizing these
mission fields that Southern Baptists have ever known. *
SPANISH-MEXICAN WORK
REV. LOYD CORDER, Superintendent
As in the days of old God chose a location in the center of the civilized
world for His people, Israel, so now He has blessed Southern Baptists with a
remarkably strategic position for world-wide missions. This is especially true
with reference to the Latin American peoples.
In practically every realm of human activity here in the United States in
recent years Latin America has received more attention than usual. This is
due in part to the effort to achieve a hemispheric solidarity during the war. A
stronger reason for post-war days is that these nations are awakening to their
own possibilities and we are seeing in them opportunities for great achievement
in practically every realm.
The demand for United States capital, manufactured goods and technical
knowledge is steadily increasing in almost all of the Latin American countries.
They want these things because their own traditional way of life has offered
them very little for the future; but they have seen that our way in the business
and industrial realm offers them a great deal. Likewise their traditional religion
has failed to satisfy their souls. They would be glad to have the true
religion of Jesus if they could see it demonstrated here.
Much of their demand for North American things is due to the influence
of their own people who live here and communicate to them what they observe
and experience. There are 1,750,000 of these Spanish-speaking people
living within the territory of the Southern Baptist Convention. Most likely
these people living in our midst will have more influence for the success or
failure of the cause of Christ in those countries than all the missionaries we
can send to them. And the side on which that influence is to be cast will be
determined by what we do here in our lives, attitudes and efforts to win them
to Christ. To the Latin American nations the things we do here in the States
as a people are speaking much louder than all that our missionaries in thenown
countries can say.
Let Southern Baptists awake to the opportunity, the responsibility and the
challenge of the position in which God has placed us. He has put in our