DRIVE FOR FUNDS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27058, 18 April 1949, Page 6

DRIVE FOR FUNDS

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH WORK IN MISSION FIELD Special to the Daily Times INVERCARGILL, Apl. 17. In order to further the campaign of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand to raise £500.000 for the rehabilitation of mission work in China, the New Hebrides, and among the Maoris, and also for the extension of the work of the church in the newer suburbs of the cities, the Rev Eric Owen, minister of St. Andrew's Church at Gardiner, a suburb of Melbourne, is to visit New Zealand this year and next year. This information was given by the Rev. J. A. Thomson, minister of First Church, Invercargill, who has just returned from Australia. Mr Thomson said that the position in the foreign mission fields and the question of the extension of the work of the church to the newer suburbs was discussed at the General Assembly of the church in November. It was estimated that at least £500,000 would be required in the next 10 years for these two branches of church work and it had been decided to launch what had come to be known as the “Half Million Campaign.” Mr Owen was coming to New Zealand in June and he would first attend a conference of workers for the campaign in Wellington. He would then have just about a fortnight to make a hurried tour of the Dominion with the object of becoming conversant with the situation here. It was hoped that next year Mr Owen would come to New Zealand for three months. “ The extension of the work of the church in the newer suburbs of the cities is perhaps even more important than rehabilitation in the foreign mission field,” Mr Thomson added. “ There are large numbers of our people in these suburbs and no churches for them. For example, at Naenae, in Hutt Valley, we have a fully ordained minister and deaconess at work. They are’ paid from the central funds of the church. Services are held in a hired hall. We hope that as the result of their work among the people a properly established congregation will result.”