Lutheran MIssionary Work

Quotes from a longer post about Lutheran missionary work. Take a look at the link if you want to read more.

http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/NORWAY/2003-11/1069093109

"My experience has been precisely this, that always having to consult oneself, always being alone in every undertaking, constitutes the most depressing feature of mission life. For surely external hard times, when they prevail year after year have an unnerving effect; anyway, we cannot deny that it is so in our case. Certainly one is sorely tempted by many disheartening thoughts when one looks over his work--realizes how insignificant it is, how little fruit appears; yes, often there are times during which I consider myself the most superfluous person in the whole world and my heart weakens, my knees shake, and my arms fall powerless to my side. But worst of all is the fact that one has no ministerial brother whom one can consult and from whom one can receive assistance in moments of weakness."

"I think most people...will believe that there are both freethinkers and blasphemers and many who show no interest in the church...But now consider that the Norwegians in Portland...are more indifferent in a churchly sense than they are elsewhere in America. Is there no excuse for the fact that this situation has come about? I maintain that there is. I think it a wonder that such church interest as actually prevails still exists among the people...and no one can fairly blame the people for leaving the Lutheran church and 'going over to the sects," as the expression goes, when the work of the church has been carried on as it has been done here."