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June 1932
ing in LATIN AMERICA r •N B y S. B. STRACHAN* San Jose.Tr’orto Rico w he beginning of things is always interesting. The Latin America Evangelization Campaign had its beginning in a sense of despair at the seeming futility of ordinary missionary methods to overtake the immense task of evan- gelizing Latin America. Dr. S. G. Inman put the situation boldly in a survey printed a few years ago: “ We must speed up our missionary work in Latin America. At this rate, it will take a millennium for the task before the evangelical churches.” A N ew M ethod N eeded After eighty years of missionary endeavor, the evan gelical forces were getting nowhere. The congregations formed were very small and of the poorest people. The great masses stayed persistently aloof and would not come into the places of worship of the Protestantes. When the people were not definitely hostile, they were crushingly indifferent to religion of any kind. It meant that the im mense majority of the people were not getting an oppor tunity to know and judge the content of evangelical reli gion. They were entirely without the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, for Romanism has no gospel for the people. How are we to reach them ? They will not come to our services. They will not read our literature. They believe the slanders of the priests and shun the evangélicos as dan gerous heretics. Brooding and praying over the seeming defeat, not ready by any means to admit failure, Mr. Strachan spent the early years of his missionary life in trying out new methods of reaching these indifferent or hostile masses. He found that they would come to a conferencia in a tent or theater, and that this form of approach broke down prejudice against the evangelicals and their salons. Then came the World War and the fall of Jerusalem, the clarion call that aroused Christians all over the world to the imminency of our Lord’s return. Now indeed, time was short, and under this mighty impulse, Mr. Strachan de cided to launch out into new methods of work, which were calculated to overcome prejudice and indifference, and to bring the gospel message to the masses of people through out the continent, who had never heard it. Thus the Latin America Evangelization Campaign came into being with the avowed object of reaching the unevangelized millions of Latin America by a forward * Wife o f Harry Strachan, Founder and Director of the Latin America Evangelisation Campaign.
T he field headquarters o f the Latin American Evangelisation Campaign is located in San Jose, Costa Rica, where a Bible Training Institute, unique in Latin America, is carried on. Here men and women are received from all evangelical denom inations, as well as from all the repub lics. A group of men students is pic tured above. Graduates from the In stitute are working in ten of the Latin American countries, while the present student body numbers forty-three men and women. In addition to the work o f the Bible Institute, the L.A.E.C. is doing evan gelistic work on a large scale in Costa Rica, and a medical work that has proved an important factor in chang ing public opinion in favor o f the gospel.
movement of a g g r e s s i v e e v a n g e li sm carried out in coop e ra ti on with mission aries of all de nom inations w ork in g on the field. The suc cess that has
crow n ed the work since its inception has been phenomenal. Campaigns have been carried out in fourteen countries of Latin Amer ica, the results of which have completely vindicated the methods employed. The time occupied in each of these campaigns was from three to six months, and leading Latin American evangelists from Argentina, Chile, and Porto Rico accompanied Mr. Strachan. r*AATIPDATTAXT ieat mass meetings have been held in the largest cen- ters of population in all these countries, and when ever possible, the principle theaters have been secured for the meetings. In some places, the municipal authorities have placed the city theater, with the public band, at the dis posal of the evangelists, free of charge. It was something absolutely new in the history of evan gelical missions in Latin America to find municipal author ities vying with each other in placing the public halls at the disposal of a preacher of the gospel. Yet this is what took place in Ecuador and Peru during Mr. Strachan’s evan gelistic campaigns last year. Not only were the large mu nicipal theaters given him free of charge, but the teachers and normal college students, the soldiers and^ policemen, and even the prisoners in the large jails were given the op portunity of hearing. In one place, the mayor of the city published announcements in the local papers inviting the public to the meetings. In another city, the rector of the very aristocratic university presided over the meetings in the beautiful university salon, while the entire faculty and student body, as well as a large and influential representa tion of the public, were present. _ Newspaper propaganda is an invaluable means of reaching the widest constituency, and it. has been prose cuted with magnificent results in connection with these campaigns. Generally speaking, the daily papers of the [Continued on page 264}
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