TH E K I N G ’ S BU S I NE S S
THE WORLD
IN LOS ANGELES
By Ben Owen
A Biola Student’s View
Famous Missionary Map in The Church of the Open Door
W ITH great astonishment the Bible School student stares at the strangely garbed fig ing into the school lobby! Surely he is “seeing things.” Other students standing about show no concern. It is all very peculiar. Then comes a flash of understand ing! Of course, it is the first day of the Missionary Conference. The man in the odd dress is a missionary ■ in native costume from a foreign field. He is one of the fifty-five missionaries participating in the sixteenth annual Missionary Conference held at the Church of the Open Door each spring. Very understandable! Around the large auditorium are many colorful booths exhibiting cloth ing, community and household articles from foreign lands. Spears, tapestry, python skins, mounted elephants’ feet, flags, maps, basketry, books, present a vivid panorama in the 200 feet of booths. It is a veritable “window on the world.” Rising above the choir loft is the huge, sixty-foot, colored map of the world in the Church of the Open Door. Colored lights show the location of the fifty-seven mission aries supported by this great mission ary church. These light-lines reach to all parts of the world, where these missionaries of the Cross bring the true Light to those who sit in dark ness. Fields represented by the Conference are as far apart as a camel on the Sahara Desert is from a home-town street car. What? A street car pic tured as a mission field? Yes indeed, for in many cars are placed Best Sell er Publicity gospel posters to catch the commuter’s eye with the message of Christ.
Beginning with the Gideons, the booths form a huge horseshoe in side the auditorium. With a little im gination, the interested onlooker may take a journey around the world. Imagination is whetted by a taste of the paper-thin saltless bread of our American Indians. You find it difficult to leave the Jewish exhibit of the Biblical Research Society. The attend ants seem to be pleasantly determined to acquaint you with the progress of gospel work among God’s chosen peo ple. The Jewish Department of the Bible Institute has a fine exhibit too. What is this? Kentucky, a mission field? Here at the Kentucky Moun tain Mission booth you learn that the people are just as needy, and the work quite as rugged as in foreign lands. Travel is largely by horseback to such strange sounding places as Paw Paw and Hot Spot. Arriving at the. Africa booth, you ask about the large, black, mounted elephant’s foot, and other weird ar ticles. They are a part of the parapher nalia used by witch doctors. At the China booth peculiar noises are heard doming from the other end of the horseshoe, so the India booth is pass ed up to investigate the sounds. Hurry ing past a moving picture of some far land, you find that the sounds are from the Joy Ridderhof gospel re cordings. Songs and sermons in Cen tral and South American native dia lects are recorded by Miss Ridderhof and her corps of helpers. Thousands have been distributed to workers on the field. You hurry back to the India booth, the moving picture, the colored slides, the man talking in African tongue— oh, there is so much to see and hear. It just can’t be done in one afternoon.
Here is the Children’s Seaside Mis sion booth. The very charming young lady politely asks if you would like to see pictures of last summer’s work on the beach. You learn that there was an average daily attendance of a hundred sun-suited youngsters, and that one hundred and three children had accepted Christ at the end of the two weeks’ work. Lack of space prevents a full de scription of the dozens of societies represented. Not all Conference interest is visual. The morning hours are given over to speakers who present the call of the field, its problems and phases of mis sion work. At the symposium hour questions from the floor are answered. Such questions as, “How do you ex plain the idea of God to the heathen mind?” “What do the Mohammedans think of the incarnation of Jesus Christ when they, believe in 186,000 incarna tions?” “Should a missionary respect a heathen funeral procession by re moving his hat?” “What can be done about the practice of burning widows in some lands?” are discussed. Evenings are given to great serv ices. Missionary methods and prob lems are dramatized, followed by burning, heart-searching missionary appeals. Contact between student and mis sion field are the eight glorious days of Conference. Strange sounds of many foreign tongues fall on interested ears. The needs of the fields are shown and heeded. Here and there God touches a heart and summons someone to labor in the harvest abroad. And in whitened harvest fields some day will appear those laborers whom God has called in this Missionary Conference.
ure. What? A man in pajamas walk
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