OVERSEAS WORK

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 50, 28 February 1942, Page 8

OVERSEAS WORK

METHODIST MISSIONS

A report on the overseas work of the Methodist Church was presented to the Methodist conference in Wellington.

The Rev. J. F. Goldie, chairman of the Solomon Islands district, drew attention to the development of the native ministry, which, he said, was playing an important part in the development and extension of the native church, now numbering nearly 18,000 members and adherents Seventy-five students are being trained at the district institution for a ministry among their own people.

The Rev. A. H. Voyce, Bougainville, spoke.of the extension of the mission work in the Bougainville-Buka circuit, pioneered only 25 years ago. An outstanding event in recent years wat/the establishment of a new training institution at Kihihi. Schools and a college had been established. Agricultural training was a feature of the work at Kihihi and other parts of ; the district. During the last 40 years 80 economic trees and plants had been introduced with a .view to helping the native people to develop their own resources.

Gratitude and appreciation were expressed by the conference to Mr. S Gorman, Nelson, for gifts to the special medical fund totalling £5353. thus bringing the Clara Matilda and Samuel Gorman Medical Bequest to £17,786.

It was reported that a number of missionary workers had been compulsorily evacuated, but the work was being maintained by those remaining on the field and the native ministry and leaders.

The total income during the year from the home church and the Solomon Islands for the overseas work was £23.009, thus enabling a reduction of the deficit by £440.