Norwich bulletin., 1919-05-16
Y. N. C. A. HEARS FROM ITS
 MISSIONARY IN CHINA


 Out at Paotingf1 ii. North China, the Norwich Young Mems Christian Association has field iii which 1t has ;a particular interest Becauss it is tltere that a miss ssierary worker is located who supported by the local associa- tieH through the aid ef several liberal dehatoFs. s5
 < letter to General seretary Sd. win Hill has recently Been received from the missionary, Ea ". Claea, who writes 4s he is on the train frenl Fientsin to Shanghai and tells what he is doing in his field. In part his letter iUli5Ws.
 [ Ne get our sSadeat Bible classes all fcepefied by the middle of March and thres 'iier efies in addition, so the prospects are very encouraging. line student attendance at eur regular sunday services has alse been eli- ter attractions. Since January first we nave been issuing U monthly newspaper. Paetingfu Young Men, and it has beeli very well received. It has a circulation Of about 800 copies. :.
 The governor general Was kind eneugh to again start eur budget cam paisn with gift Of a thousand dols lars, and tie ether military officials have given quito generously, SD that,
 
 sured, but we will be able U put a little aside as an emergency fund. Uw+ ling to the United War Work Cam paisfs in the fall, it has been thought best to postpone our campaign among the civil officials for 2 few weeks long CT, bat I am quite sure that when we do start, they will respond at least as well as tliey' did last year. Cur n1ein- bership campaign, which we keep en- tirely separate from the financial (nlailing no attempts to get large latter part Of this Inoath, and is al- ready set up.
 Having finances well taken care of, we have begun to expand our activi- ties . little. Together with the two missions we have undertaken weekly ev2ngeiistic meetings ip the two city prisons and also in the federal prison located here, It is done in the, name of the association. but we divide the responsibility equally with the mis- sions. We have q band Of about forty ferent prisons every Saturday for short meetings. The ladies are also cooperating in meetings for the wo LpfisonerS We have been very well received, and great interest has been shown. though il is too early yet to be able to report definite results, except that it $ certainly deepening the spiritual lives Of the workers. We have also in the. same way made plans to reach the ricsstaw coolies. a large and very needy elas. This will give g. definite chance for Christian serEice to several dozen more Chris tians.
 The most encouraging innovation, 1 Vation, however, is our boys depart ment which started March 1st. We have gotten Mr. Liu kuo Gnu, who had shown 3 special aptitude for working with boys at the American Board Street Chapel, as secretary of the department, and he seems to ts just the man we rissd. We set limit ] of ono hundred or tie membership of the department to start with, as we !. did not wish to begin on too large q scale until we had had more experi- ence. and the limit has already been reached. The boys are practically all students from the government pri- 1 mary schools. Mr Liu has then di- vided into groups for athletics and other games, musical clubs, Bible and l English classes and they are all very much interested. We hope to soon be able to develop enough leaders among 1 them so that we can extend our limits 3 little.
 My own time since the New Year 1 has been given mostly to athletics which is, of course, our best point of 1 contact with the older students. AS | the only member Of the games com
 nittee. who has ever actually had l charge of running off 6 field meet. have had to give very close attention l to setting up our annual North China meet, which is to be held at Taiquan- 1 r,f Ius on the 14th and 18th of this month Ard finally, just yesterday I receiv- ed an urgent letter from Shanghai stating that MT. swan, our National Physical Director. had been suddenly called home to America. and asking me to take his place as honorary sec retary Of the committee for China for the Far Eastern Athletic association and chairman Of the committee oi l mana cement for the China team al l the games to be held i'll Manila May 12th to 17ti1. This, explains the head ing of my letter.. 4 year ago should have been obliged to refuse because ef my local work. but we now have 2 staff of Chinese secretaries who are deficient enough so that 1 can rest as- fsured that everything will go on in my absence practically the same as if were there, except. of course. my owr classes, which will have to be tenn porarily discontinued. However, the 1 board of directors and the rest Of the staff felt that the prestige which the appointment would bring the associa- ton would much more than offset the disadvantages from letting the classes go.
 We will then all go together to Ma nila the first part of May and attempt ! ta win the meet and then return home the latter part of the month.
 I will write you an account ot the trip, and OUT success or non success on our return. We would like, oi course. very much to be able to neat the Fiiipinos, but the really important thing is to beat the Japs. You have probably been reading in the papers about tho present feeling between the Chinese and Japanese, so can perhap> realize how in the minds of the Chi nese students beating the Japs is the only thing that really counts.
 1 Let us all pray. however, that geee wholesome athletic cntests may be one Of the ways in which the rising gen. eration of both countries may learn tt
 put aside racial prejIdices and witl
 mutual respect work together for tft salvation Of the whole human race. Yours sincerely.