Covenanter Witness Vol. 53 - Rparchives.org

trol of material wealth needed to enable His churchto carry forward the Task which He has assigned us.I cannot imagine Jesus and the apostles becomJudas'ing panic stricken lest the fixed amount inlittle leather bag be insufficient for the trip intoGalilee.It is difficult to imagine the New TestamentChurch described in the Book of Acts refusing toallow Paul and Silas to start out on a missionaryjourney "to confirm the churches in Syria andCilicia"because there was no financial power in theJerusalem mother church after a recent famine hadstruck the district. We seem to have gotten off thetrack of New Testament finance some place alongthe line.How often we read and hear quoted Malachi3:10! And that promise still holds! Let us never beas was the lord on whose hand the King of Israelleaned, when Elisha predicted food on the morrow:"Behold, if the Lord would make windows in heaven,might this thing be?" Rather, let us remember thewidow with her mite and the poor Macedonians whoso courageously gave out of deep poverty and affliction, knowing that "God is able to make all graceabound toward you : That ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound in every goodwork."We have a top-heavy foreign mission task forso small a church, but we have an Infinite Father inHeaven to whom belongs all the gold and the silverand the cattle on a thousand hills. Our problem isspiritual, not material. If our church will do God'swork in God's way relying only on God's ability andreadiness to provide, we can find the money neededto enable us to do all that the Lord of the harvestasks us to do.I wonder what the Covenanter congregationsreally could go for Jesus this Christmas if we tookHis birth seriously?The Return From FurloughBy Eunice McClurkin(Excerpts from her form letter to the W.M.S.)As planned, I came byair from New York'sIdlewild Airport to Beirut. Elapsed time from theNew York take-off until landing at my destinationwas just 26yi hours. Intermediate stops were at theairports of Shannon, Ireland (\y2 hours) ; Paris(3^ hours); and Rome (1 hour). The interestinghistorical novel which the Women's Synodical gaveme as a "happylandings"present helped to relievethe tedium of the flight and the waiting in airports;After a night in a Beirut hotel, I found transportation on to Latakia, 150 miles to the north. So here Iwas at home on the 3rd floor of the Girls' School onFriday evening, after having left home at Coldenham Manse Wednesday morning. How near we aretogether by modern means of transportation; howmuch nearer still by the ageless means of fellowshipat the Throne of grace !Shafeeqa Yoonis, whose picture manyof youhave seen, had come a couple of days ahead of me,as promised. She had the house opened and cleaned,and has continued to take responsibility in the housematholdmatters, while I have plunged into school342ters. A year's absence from the job makes me keephumping now to catch up.There are other teachers here on the job, andwe've been cooperating in the business of gettingstudents enrolled and classes started. There are about320 students enrolled in the Girls' School to date.The Kindergartens and five elementary classes started October 7, and the intermediate classes, includingour high school classes, began October 13. The government bookstore has still not released textbooksfor sale to us, so many of our classes are short ofbooks or altogether without. We are short of classroom space and of school desks. The room whichwas the Sanderson's living room, here on the thirdfloor, has been converted into a classroom with oldbenches and makeshift tables. The carpenter hasmade a new blackboard for the wall, a piece of plywood, coated with slating paint, and framed withheavier wood. He has also made five new desks tosupply our most urgent needs.Miss Nooha Awad, a cousin of Adeebeh's whograduated last spring from the American Universityof Beirut is teaching high school classes five periodseach morning. She seems to enjoy the teaching andto be doing well in it. When no new teacher camefrom America to help in the high school, we triedto arrange for another from Lebanon, but learnedat the last minute that he would not come after all.Mr. and Mrs. Hutcheson and Rev. and Mrs. Haysand I are all teaching some classes, and so the busydays go by.Rev. and Mrs. Bassam Madany have a youngson. I believe his name is to be Michael, after thegrandfather, Muallim Michel, who is Mr. Hutcheson'ssecretary at the Boys' School. Bassam is teachingfive or six periods a day in the two schools two ofthem Bible classes, and two English language classesand he is to go to the nearby village of Gendereahthree or four Sabbaths a month to preach and carryon visitation evangelism. I haven't yet met Shirleyor their small son, but hope to soon.Mrs. Hutcheson and Rev. Khaleel Awad arrivedhere twelve days after I did, although they had leftNew York twelve days before I did. Their shin didn'tget away far enough ahead of Hurricane Edna, andhad a rough time of it for the first couple of days.They left ship in Beirut and came up by car to Latakia, though most of their baggage was unloaded inLatakia harbor three days later. My freight arrivedon the next American Export ship which stoppedhere last Saturday, but it hasn't yet been clearedthrough Customs. That's the disadvantage of notcoming with one's baggage, but I'm still glad I cameby air.The people in the villages will miss the Bibleconferences with Miss McElroy and her Bible WomanSameeah Zeyady, just as we miss her fellowshiphere in the third floor apartment. So much of mytime is taken up with school routine, that I don'tsee much of the village evangelists and others whenthey are in town. We had Muallim Suqr Yusef herefor supper, though, last week, and rejoiced to hearof some of the testimony he has been permitted togive for his Saviour. During the summer months hehas ministered to the people of Shafeequa's nativevillage, Bab Janneh.It was Election Day in Syria when I arrived,and a new Parliament has been elected to for- carryCOVENANTER WITNESS