Indian Christianity

HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA : M. M. NINAN
the first treatment rooms in 1896. The Adventists moved their headquarters to Lucknow in 1909 and
opened several Urdu schools (1910) and an English school at Mussoorie (1911).
Meanwhile, in the south, a group of Tamil merchants through personal Bible study had begun to observe
Saturday as the Sabbath. J. S. James worked among them from 1906. Suvisesha Muthu became an
Adventist through reading literature and took to selling the same literature in and around Trivandrum,
converting practically an entire community that today is renamed Adventpuram. H. G. Woodward worked
there in 1918.
A group of Telegus became Seventh-day Adventists in Rangoon and returned to Andhra. J.S. James
visited them in 1915, and in 1918 T. R. Flaiz settled at Narsapur. Georgia Burrus and her husband L. J.
Burgess retired in Meghalaya in the 1930s. W. G. Lowry pioneered the work among the Mizos around
1950. Dr S. G. Sturgess moved to Nepal in 1957. Following government approval a hospital financed by
the Scheers opened on May 18, 1960 at Banepa. Today nursing and medical training is conducted there.
Till 1909 the work in British India was operated as a detached Mission of the General Conference. The
India Union Mission was organized in 1910 with J. L. Shaw as the first superintendent. It was joined to
the Asiatic Division in 1915.
The Southern Asia Division was organized under president J. E. Fulton in 1919 with 26 churches and
978 members.
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