This appeared in the South African Pioneer, March, 1898.
Dear Friend,
It has been very encouraging to hear, from so many, how the suggestion to spend half-an-hour of definite prayer on a given date, has been fallen in with, and we cannot fail to see what a difference all this prayer has made and is making in the work of the Mission, both in the field and at home. Those of us who are closely watching the work are able to see how wonderfully God has been working during the last five or six months.
Our Home Helpers help forward the work in three ways—by Prayer, by Effort, and by Giving. For the first month of this year we have set apart a day for having special Prayer. This month being the second month of the year, we propose to set apart a certain day for special Effort. We leave it to each one to decide how they think they can help forward the work most under this heading. But there is one thing we would suggest apart from whatever else friends like to do, and it is this—that each friend who has not yet joined the Home Helpers’ Union should consider seriously as to whether they might not join—(always remembering that if the Union is joined, it must not be allowed to interfere with present interest in any other Mission; we don’t believe in one Mission being given up to take interest in another, but it must be over and beyond what we are doing at present). Surely if we were each to make a real forward movement in this direction this year, in the light of Christ’s speedy return, we might see our way clear to doing this!
As we are referring to Christ’s return—have you read “Someone is coming,” referred to on page 3 of our cover?—if not, we would commend this book to your notice, and if ordered from 14a, Lingfield Road, the profits are devoted to the S.A.G.M.
We would propose to those who have joined the Union that each should endeavour to get a fresh member to join, one who will really enter into the spirit of the Union, and send the form to us duly filled in on Wednesday, Feb. 23rd, so that between this and then, this fresh member might be looked out for, and the form posted to us on tbe 22nd.
If each one of us were really to endeavour to put this into practice, how much it might mean for South Africa! From personal letters we gather how wonderfully God is working at the present time. We feel led to give an extract from a personal letter received from Miss Bessie Porter, who our friends will remember sailed in the autumn for South Africa as an accepted worker in the S.A.G.M. While at home she was much used to deepen the spiritual life of many in Swansea and elsewhere as Secretary of the Y.W.C.A. there. She sailed for South Africa in November last, accompanied by Miss Jackson and two Oxford undergraduates, Mr. Walter Mather and Mr. Douglas Wood, B.A. The two latter have been writing home in much the same strain.
The following is the extract, dated Johannesburg:
“I trust the Lord may send you out here again before long to see for yourself much of the needs, and of the way in which the S.A G.M. meets (under God) these needs as perhaps no other organization in the country could do. The people at home do not half know the work that is being done so quietly, that there is no “fuss” about it, but the work done in the Spirit’s power in this Mission must stand for Eternity because the whole foundation and building is on God’s lines, not man’s. The spirit of unity too in head-quarters is very real.”
What is now needed from us on this side is that we should make a move forward as never before, and if by each one doing their part, we could double the membership of the Home Helpers’ Union in this month of February, we suppose there is nothing that would effect the whole work so much as this suggestion accomplished. Will you help us?
Yours sincerely,
Andrew Murray