Missionary Work Among the Ojebway IndiansWilson, Edward Francis
History
Missionary Work Among the Ojebway Indians
Wilson, Edward Francis
Indians of North America -- Missions; Ojibwa Indians
It was rather uphill work bringing into operation the Wawanosh Home,
but difficulties during the progress of a work often have the effect of
making it more solid and strong in the end. To induce Sunday Schools
and friends to aid us, I divided the estimated cost of the building
with its fittings and furniture, into forty-four lots, and a
considerable number of these lots were "taken up." Still we were short
of money. When the Spring of 1878 came, all our money for building was
gone, and the fund to meet current expenses, even with only ten girls
to provide for, was found to be insufficient. It was very discouraging.
Sorrowfully I told our lady Superintendent that we must close the
Institution for the present,--and sorrowfully I dismissed the girls for
their holidays and told them that they must not come back until they
heard from me that we were able to receive them.
But God heard our prayers and opened the way for us.
On Sunday Sept. 7th, I had just returned from Garden River where I had
been to hold service with the Indians, and on my arrival found a sail-
boat lying at our dock. An Indian had come over a hundred miles and had
brought five little girls for the Wawanosh Home. Two of them had been
with us the winter before and had misunderstood me about coming back,
and the other three were new ones,--they all looked so happy and
pleased. But their faces fell when I explained to the man our
circumstances, that we had closed for want of funds, and could not see
our way towards re-opening for the present. The Indian said it seemed
very hard to have come such a long distance and then to have to go all
the way back again. "Can you not manage to take them," he said; "I will
help you all I can,--I will bring you some barrels of fish in the Fall"
I told the man they could all remain with us that night, and I would
let him know what could be done after I had thought it over. I went to
see Mrs. Fauquier, and the other ladies came together, and we talked it
over and had much earnest prayer. It seemed to us all that it was the
hand of God pointing out the way, and that we ought to have faith to go
on. The end of it was that we kept those five children; the lady who
had had charge of the Home the previous winter most generously agreed
to remain for another year at a reduced salary and to do without the
services of a matron. And so the Wawanosh Home was open again.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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