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Show five dollars, about a dollars and seventy-five cents U.S. money, for the class that carries thru to graduation twenty students. This five dollars Chinese currency may not seem much but it is often the difference between a class being able to carry thru and falling by the wayside. These are all evening classes and must have kerosene for light and need some little something in the way of heat. The classes run for four months during the winter when the men are not busy on the farm and make it possible for a man to learn to read and write letters, keep his accounts and read his Bible and are our best hope for an intelligent growing church. , After the first few days the morning-watch service was led by the local Christians, old and young, men and women all taking their turn. This was a smaller and more intimate group, only about twenty-five instead of the hundred or more each evening and much easier to lead. Most of them had never tried to lead before but there was no ridicule when anyone forgot what he had planned to say but only the kindliest encouragement to go ahead and try. Most of them could not read and write but they knew the songs from memory, some Bible verses and could give some bit of experience and testimony and lead in prayer. The first Christian in the town was a fine quiet much respected man. Since then, there have been some very wonderful instances of radically changed lives, for instance, the man who takes most of the responsibility for the primary school, formerly sold opium, gambled, cheated and was generally bad, now he is one of the most respected and trusted men in the community. This term we had with us our new school nurse who is also a graduate midwife. In addition to the hygiene teaching she did at night and in the primary school, she held a daily clinic to which patients came from thirty-seven villages for dressings, simple medicines and eye treatments. She also officiated at several births when she demonstrated how the mother and child should be cared for that they might not get tetanus, the disease that means the death of at least a third of the babies in this region before they are two weeks old. She saved much suffering and I believe made quite a dent on the superstition that is the accepted thing in all the vill ges. It was such a relief to be able to do something for the suffering that you see all the time. Our living conditions have been much the same as last year, not so convenient as in Shih Tang, where I had a room to myself and a chance to do a little cooking for myself, but much more convenient than in Lou Chuang where we had not only to eat and sleep and cook and entertain callers in one little room but also hold our classes and church services there. We have had the same dirt floor, paper windows, practically no heat and much the same diet, only it has been easier to get some vegetables, for there are many vegetable gardens around the town, thanks to the wells dug during the famine as a famine relief measure. It was during the same famine, four or five years ago that they built their church. Building materials were cheap then and they did the work themselves. The roof is low for the men just did not have the strength to throw the mud any higher. It is already outgrown and is filled to capacity every night and every Sunday morning. It is a simple mud building and the doors and windows are small but they built it all themselves without any help from the mission. The work there has been entirely self-supporting from the beginning except for the part time help of one of our preachers and his wife. We had lots of fun at Christmas. We taught them Christmas songs and planned special music for the worship services. With the help of several of the young men we got up several plays. They borrowed the big city gate |