The documents in this collection include correspondence, reports, photographs, minutes of meetings, films, slide sets, book manuscripts, deeds, directories, newsletters, brochures, personnel files, and surveys. They are mainly records of the United States branch of the Overseas Missionary Fellowship (China Inland Mission) and were received from that branch. They are listed alphabetically in the Container List and Location Records within this guide and, as far as possible, are arranged alphabetically within the boxes. However, because of differing sizes in documents, it has been necessary in some cases to store some folders of material first according to size, then alphabetically.

The folder titles have, wherever possible, been those originally supplied by the mission. In many cases, the Archives' staff has expanded on the title to provide a clear heading. The prefix "U. S. Council," which precedes many folder titles, was devised by the Archives' staff and was added to the titles of materials originating solely from the mission's United States staff in order that all these files would be together in the alphabetical arrangement. The files of the U. S. branch naturally contain information about the activities of other branches and about the work in China.

Among the subjects covered by this collection are: the life and work of James Hudson Taylor; the origins and development of the CIM; the origins, development, activities, and personnel of the CIM branch in the United States, and, to a lesser extent, Canada; the ways mission policy was formulated; the nature of the missionary experience in China; the various ways used to preach the Gospel; CIM's medical and educational work; the reactions over time of Chinese and Western civilizations to each other; China's religious, political, and military history from the late 19th century to 1950; the changing patterns of society in different parts of China; Communism in China; World War I and II; changes going on in China's neighbors, such as Tibet, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Formosa (Taiwan), Malaysia, and Japan; the education of missionary children; the recruitment and training of missionaries; the expulsion of missionaries from China after the Communist takeover; and CIM's changeover from its work in China to that in other Asian countries.

The documents fall into eight series:

I. Papers of James Hudson Taylor

There are several letters of Taylor's in Folder 5-10 (copies in Folder 5-11), some of which he wrote all or in part, some of which were taken in dictation by his wife. This correspondence, which is to CIM supporters Frost and Stevens in the United States, touches some on his travels on behalf of the mission but mostly deals with the details of setting up a base for CIM in the United States and the sending of Americans to China. Folder 5-12 contains many important documents of CIM history, including the 1890 revised constitution of the mission, which set up departments of the CIM countries other than Great Britain; the 1894 bylaws; and letters dealing with Taylor's retirement in 1903 and arrangements for the succession. Folder 5-13 (with copy in Folder 5-14) contains a very interesting notebook of recollections of Taylor's mother Amelia, describing his first departure as a missionary for China in 1853. It is unclear whether the notebook was written by her at the time or later or whether it is a copy made by someone else. Folder 18-2 contains photocopies of correspondence, clippings, certificates, and Taylor’s engagement calendar from his 1888-1889 visit to the North America to establish a branch of the China Inland Mission. These copies were given to the Archives by David Mitchell, then Canadian director of OMF. The originals were in England.

Folders 4-17, 4-43, and 4-49 all contain information about the publication and distribution of a biography of Taylor by his son F. Howard Taylor as well as (in folder 4-49) a brief undated handwritten note by Howard testifying to the son's admiration for his father. . Also in Folder 4-43 is a list (ca. 1929) of United States seminaries, Bible schools, and YMCA leaders.

II. Directories

The contents of the CIM directories vary over time. However, they always have the names of missionaries serving in China and the names of stations in China. Other types of information included in later directories are: members of staff in the different home countries, CIM workers who had died in China, members of the headquarters staff, retired workers, furloughed workers, workers from other missions under CIM direction, schools and seminaries supported by CIM, the personnel at each mission station and the date of the founding of that station. Up until 1937, the directories were issued in six-month intervals; after that they were for a year. Several of the folders from the 1940s and later also include a list of the children of CIM missionaries. The directories were intended in part as an aid to prayer, so they list the concerns and activities of the mission as well as the names of workers and stations. Another aid to prayer is in folder 9-3, a birthday book that lists missionaries by their birthday, so that supporters could pray for them on that day.

III. Publications and Reports

Collection 215 contains a very rich set of the brochures, pamphlets, tracts, films, slide sets, and other materials that the mission published to explain its work to the public and to raise support. The scrapbook in Folder 7-1 contains booklets about Islam and other religions of China, aborigine tribes, illiteracy, Tibet, leprosy, work with women, speaking in tongues, the experience of a German mission in China during World War I, work among soldiers, medical activities, banditry, slavery, and the Boxer rising. There are also several tracts about the work of individual missionaries. The scrapbook also contains sets of the application forms the mission used for screening recruits, the forms used in medical examinations, lists of the items a new missionary should bring, prayer letters, book catalogs of CIM publications, and form letters to supporters. More scrapbooks are in folders 11-1 and 11-2, this time from the OMF’s Filipino press. These include tracts, calendars and other material printed in languages of the Philippines, along with photographs of the press staff. Folder 12-7 contains some reports from the Filipino press. Folders 3-12 to 3-38 and 11-4 contain loose tracts, many of them copies of the tracts in the notebook in Folder 7-1. For most of these folders, the existing system of arrangement was maintained by the Archives; that is, one set is arranged by subject (folders 3-14 to 3-25) and another set is arranged alphabetically by author. Folder 3-14 includes information of the CIM's home council in New Zealand, the work of George Hunter, the martyrdom of John and Betty Stam, and life in Chongqing during World War II. Folder 3-24 includes a very interesting history of the translation of the Bible into the Tibetan language. Folder 3-25 contains a description of the mission's work among the Nosu, Wa, Miao (also called the Hmong), Kado (also known as Katu), Kaka, Lahu, Shan, Min Chia, and Kachin tribes. Folders 3-39 to 3-47 are reports on various activities of the mission, including the reports of the work of several hospitals. The reports for the hospital in Kaifeng, Honan (new spelling, Henan) in Folder 3-43, for example, give detailed clinical notes on the diseases of patients and the kinds of treatment given. Folder 11-4 contains additional tracts added to the collection in 1997 that are in no special arrangement. Many of the tracts in this folder are post-1960. Also in the folder is a notebook with dozens of tract in English and Chinese, or just in Chinese. The notebooks is from the 1980s. Folders 19-1 through 19-3 are an additional set of booklets, brochures, tracts, and even place mats from the second half of the 20th century describing the mission’s ministries.

There are several manuscripts on CIM-OMF history in folders 9-6 through 10-6, some of which were not published. Particularly interesting is the autobiography of USA home director Henry Frost in folders 10-2 to 10-6. This manuscript was not published, but it served as the basis for Howard and Geraldine Taylor’s 1938 book, Henry W. Frost and the China Inland Mission. The typescript tells the story of his life, including memories of D.L. Moody and A.T. Pierson and his own evangelistic work. Most of the book deals in great detail with the beginning of CIM’s branch in North America and the development of the North American branch until Frost’s retirement in 1929. The manuscript was apparently started in 1932 and finished by 1936 or earlier. Folder 10-6 contains what is called an index of the book also finished by about 1936. It is actually not an index as such, but a summary of the major topics of the book, with page numbers, in the order in which they appear in the book. However, it apparently was made using a different manuscript than the one in this collection, because the page numbers in the index do not match those in the manuscript. At first the discrepancy is very slight, but by the end of the index there is a more than one hundred page difference between where the index says a subject is covered and where it can in fact be found in the manuscript.

One Vision Only in folder 10-1 is a biography of Isobel Kuhn, in essentially the same form as it was published. The Missionary of Tomorrow in folder 9-7 is a ca. 1962 compilation of opinions and predictions of missionaries from Southeast Asia and Japan about what will be the opportunities and responsibilities of missionaries in the future. Also in folder 9-7 is the manuscript of Battles for Christ in the Philippines, which is an autobiography by Filipino pastor Ramon T. Cenit. Folder 9-6 contains a compilation of Arthur Matthew’s editorials from East Asia’s Millions.

For a time, one of the mission’s most popular ways of telling supporters and potential supporters in the United States about the work of the mission was through slide/tape programs. These were usually narrated by missionaries and combined a kind of travelogue about a particular country with details of the mission’s work there and the needs of the church. Tape T2 and slides S54-S120 are a program about the OMF’s work in Indonesia, mostly the island of Java. The script for the program is in folder 12-5. Although the Archives did not keep all the slide/tape programs, it did retain a representative sample. View a chart of other complete or almost complete slide/tape programs in the collection, also available in External Documents.

There are also several other programs for which there are only scripts in folders 12-2 through 12-17 or audio tapes. The scripts for slide/tape programs are in folders 12-2 through 12-17 (where they are arranged by country) and folders 17-4 and 17-5 (which are arranged alphabetically by title). Folder 12-1 contains scripts for a filmstrip about the withdrawal from China and the beginning of work in Malaya and Thailand. Folder 12-6 has a script for a set of slides in slide box 19. For most of the scripts, however, there are no slides. Some of these scripts may in fact be lists of descriptions of the photos in the folders found marked with an asterisk (*) in the photo location record of this guide. There are no slide or tapes for most of the scripts in box 12. The scripts in box 12 are for the most part much earlier than those in box 17. Folder 17-4 includes scrips about Bill Harris’s work among the Tamil people in Malaysia and Singapore.

The collections contains hundreds of other slides, most of which appear to have been part of slide/tape sets at one time. They are described further in slide location record of this guide.

The films in the collection were, for the most part, intended to be shown to supporters of the mission to inform them about the mission’s work or a particular part of it. Often they were shown in churches by a furloughed missionary or other representative form the mission. Here is a brief description of each.

IV. Reference Material

This section consists of five folders of material. Four of the folders, in box 5, contain material about the Mongolian language including the notes and manuscripts of a CIM worker who was translating a Mongolian-Russian-German dictionary into a Mongolian-English dictionary. The fifth folder, 18-1, consists of a photocopy of the reminiscences of two of the original Cambridge Seven missionaries, Cecil and Arthur Polhill-Turner, about their years in China from the 1880s through the 1920s. Both were graduates of the Eton, the public (that is, private) school and the manuscript was apparently intended for Eton alumni who supported the mission. This photocopy was sent to the Archives by the OMF English office. The manuscript describes the early days of the Cambridge Seven, how they went to China, the Polhills’ work in Szechwan, Sining (Xining), Tatsienlu (Kangting) and other parts of China, as well as describing the Boxer Uprising and the 1911 revolution.

Also of interest in folder 19-4 are two large handmade booklets. Each page is a single large Chinese ideogram. They were used to illustrate people’s sin and their need for salvation and forgiveness through Christ. See also similar evangelism scrolls in oversized file OS32.

V. Conferences

The conference of North American Officers was a meeting of the council members of CIM's United States and Canadian branches to iron out any difficulties that had arisen out of financial, publication, or recruitment policy, to discuss needs, and to plan. Other matters of common interest, such as government policies, were also discussed at these meetings. Folder 1-7 contains an inter-esting memorandum describing a briefing given by a U.S. State Department official to representatives from Christian organizations about the internal situation in China and how it would affect missionary work.

The two conferences documented in Folders 1-10, 5-1,2 were of the greatest importance in the mission's history. Both were concerned with the future of the mission once its workers had been forced out of China. (folder 12-18 contains John Kuhn’s report on the final evacuation from China.) At the February 1951 meeting held in Kelorama, Australia (folder 1-10), directors from all the home countries came together to discuss possible changes in the mission's governance and administrative style as well as potential new fields and the level of support in the home countries. This was followed by the November 1951 meeting in Bournemouth, England (folders 5-1,2, 12-18), for which extensive preparations were made. Surveys were made of other possible fields in Thailand, Philippines, Japan, Singapore, North Borneo, Sarawak, Indonesia, Formosa, and Malaysia (folders 5-3,4). A similar survey was done in 1957 of lower Laos (folders 6-12). The officers of the headquarters staff and the home councils debated their recommendations before coming to the meeting. Folder 5-2 includes some of the suggestions made at regional conferences and memos of the discussions held in the U.S. and Canadian branches. There is also an interesting memo in Folder 1-4 which describes the problems the CIM staff thought they would be dealing with in the post war world. The Bournemouth Conference was attended by directors of home councils, members of the China council, and many others involved in the work of the mission. Folder 5-1 contains a very full set of minutes of the deliberations of the meeting, which reviewed the organization's goals and policies and determined that the work would continue. Folder 12-18 contains reports on the conference sent to missionaries after the event

By way of comparison, the reports of typical conferences of missionaries in a particular field can be seen in Folders 3-39,40, and 12-19. References to periodic gatherings of representatives of the whole mission, such as those held in 1890, 1900, and 1907, can be found in the minutes of the China Council (folders 2-36 to 2-55).

VI> Headquarters

The documents in this section consist almost entirely of minutes of meetings and correspondence from the headquarters staff to all the home councils to keep them informed about developments in China. Of the minutes, perhaps the most interesting are those of the China Council. The Council was an advisory body to the general director which met four times a year. It consisted of the General Director, the heads of the provincial districts, the deputy China director, other headquarters staff, and missionaries as appointed by the director. Representatives from other missions associated with CIM or whose personnel were under CIM supervision also served on the Council. The Council minutes for the early years consist mainly of information on the arrival, departure, movements, marriages, and deaths of missionaries; copies of minutes of home council meetings; personnel matters; the granting of furloughs; creation of new mission fields and stations; relations with other missions; applications of persons living in China for staff positions; and relations with the Chinese government. There is an interesting discussion dated 4/8/1915 about the mission's attitude toward speaking in tongues. The files also contain information on the representative meetings of the mission held in 1890, 1900, and 1907.

After World War I, the minutes contain much more information and debate on policy matters, as well as more financial reports. Thus, the material dated March 12, 1926, discusses the CIM's withdrawal from the National Christian Council of China because of its alleged modernist tendencies, or the November, 1927, discussion of the development of a self supporting self governing Chinese church growing out of CIM's stations. Folder 2-40 contains the minutes of a joint meeting of the Council with the home directors, who were visiting China at the time. Most of the meetings described in the minutes in Folders 2-51,52,53,54 took place in Chongqing, where the CIM had its headquarters during the latter part of the war between Japan and China.

The minutes, memos, and notes from staff meetings contained in Folders 2-56 to 2-66 cover the years 1942-1952, and consist mainly of the reports and activities of missionaries coping with the upheavals caused by World War II and, later, the Chinese civil war.

Also, very illustrative of the work of OMF and its activities in many countries are the newsletters and prayer bulletins in boxes 19 and 20 from the second half of the 20th century after the mission left China. These seem to have been intended for use mainly internally by OMF staff. They describe current activities and plans, significant successes, and everything related to personnel, such as new missionaries, orientation schools, furloughs, and retirements. Folder 20-4 contains the memos on the finances of the mission regularly sent out from headquarters to the regional directors.

The letters to home councils are more personal attempts by the director in China, or one of his subordinates, to provide for home council members in the various countries supporting CIM's work a running account of tAlso very illustrative of the work of OMF and its activities in many countries are the newsletters and prayer bulletins in boxes 19 and 20 from the second half of the 20th century after the mission left China. These seem to have been intended mainly internally, for OMF staff. They describe current activities and plans, significant successes, and everything related to personnel, such as new missionaries, orientation schools, furloughs, and retirements. Folder 20-4 contains the memos on the finances of the mission regularly sent out from headquarters to the regional directors.Also very illustrative of the work of OMF and its activities in many countries are the newsletters and prayer bulletins in boxes 19 and 20 from the second half of the 20th century after the mission left China. These seem to have been intended mainly internally, for OMF staff. They describe current activities and plans, significant successes, and everything related to personnel, such as new missionaries, orientation schools, furloughs, and retirements. Folder 20-4 contains the memos on the finances of the mission regularly sent out from headquarters to the regional directors.he activities of the mission and the conditions in China. Topics covered include deaths, political and military conflicts in China, food supply problems and famine, travel conditions, progress in various types of evangelism, Communist activities, work at the language school, floods, the developments in specific fields, settlement in Shanghai, the Japanese movement in Manchuria, and the opening of new headquarters in 1931. One interesting October 1930 letter describes Chiang Kai shek's baptism. Several letters discuss recent kidnappings of missionaries and the attempts to get them back safely. Every April letter contains a list of the stations to which new missionaries have been assigned. Until 1946, the letters are numbered 1 to 100. When 100 is reached, the series starts over again. Folders 13-1,2,3,4 contain, among other correspondence, examples of circular letters to home directors for 1950s and 1960.

The correspondence in Folders 2-18,19, 2-31,32,33,34, and 12-24 is mostly concerned with the problems caused for the mission by the Communist victory in China, such as whether the mission should close down its work completely, how missionaries (often accused of being foreign agents) could be evacuated smoothly and safely, and what could and should be done for the Chinese Christians. The last few letters in Folders 2-19, 2-33,34 are little more than lists of which missionaries were leaving their stations and which had arrived safely in Hong Kong. There is also some information in these files on the beginnings of what was later called the Three Self Movement. Folder 12-24 includes a variety of items related to the mission’s evacuation. Included are circular letters to home directors, letters to missionaries in the field, special reports, and other materials that tried to keep missionaries informed about events, mission policy, and the procedures for leaving China.

There are a few other documents of interest from China. Folders 2-15,16,17 contain copies of the manuals given to new incoming missionaries which described for them the CIM hierarchy, regulations, emergency procedures, and furlough policy. Some manuals also contain advice for probationary staff, junior missionaries, and senior missionaries. Folder 18-3 contains a booklet which new missionaries used to learn the Chinese langague, as as as the series of lests they took to prove their proficiency. Folders 3-1 to 3-10 contain newsletters about the work in China. These often highlight the work of a particular station or missionary. They also contain information on births, deaths, baptisms, prayer requests, financial reports, new Chinese words, marriages, and occasionally maps. Another list of marriages can be found in the register in Folder 2 35. This register contains brief entries on all CIM staff married in Shanghai from 1890-1950. Each entry includes names of bride, groom, witnesses, acting parents, and date. Late entries also include photographs. The surveys in Folders 5-3,4 have already been described above. A similar survey in Folder 5-5 describes the anticipated situation in Japan as a possible mission field after the conclusion of World War II. Folder 2-13 contains an interesting item currency printed by the CIM. These promissory notes were used by the mission in very unsettled or disturbed areas where it was difficult to get "official" money. Folder 12-25 contains clippings from Chinese, American and Norwegian papers about such topics as the Kuomintang’s 1927 north march and the 1965 centennial of the mission.

The mission has a very strong organizational identity, so it is not surprising that people who at one time belonged to it formed alumni associations. Folder 14-12 contains the newsletter for people who at one time were missionaries. Folder 14-11 contains the newsletter for former missionary kids who attended one of the mission’s Chefoo schools. These newsletters consist mostly of reports from various people on what they have been doing. Folder 14-11 also has an undated, unsigned photocopy of a typed manuscript, apparently by a teacher, about the evacuation of Chefoo from China to India during World War II.

VII. U.S. Council | A. Internal Administrative Records

The minutes of the meetings of the members of the United States Council (also known as the Philadelphia Council) begin in 1902, shortly after the group's formation in 1901 (folders 6-3,4, 4-59 to 4-81). Before a separate council for the United States was formed, the Toronto Council was responsible for all of North America until 1907, so their minutes from 1888 to 1901 would also be relevant (folder 3-48). Both councils remained subordinate to the North American Council until 1969. Folder 6-3 contains a large ledger with the minutes for 1902-1943. In the front is an index of subjects covered, but it only covers a few years. The first entries in the minute’s book are handwritten, but most are typed pages pasted in. They deal largely with evaluation of mission candidates, the arrival and departure of missionaries and their activities in China (very briefly noted), relationships with other Christian organizations, and financial reports. The minutes for the years 1943-1952 in Folder 6-4 are much the same. In 1932, the U.S. Council incorporated to form China Inland Mission, Inc. This was done to obtain for the mission the protection and advantages offered corporations under United States law. The board of trustees of the corporation largely overlapped with the membership of the Council. Minutes of the corporation trustees' meetings (folders 4-59 to 4 81), which usually occurred at the same place and on the same day as Council meetings, were concerned with election of officers, financial reports, estate settlements, and details related to the organization's legal status. Folders 3-75,76,77 and 14-8 contain some of the legal records of the corporation, including the charter, articles of incorporation, by-laws, and amendments to the articles of incorporation. The other set of minutes in Folders 4-78,79,80,81 are of the staff meetings held in the Pennsylvania office. These are mainly concerned with the distribution or redistribution of the work load, prayer requests, publications, and events in China.

Nearly forty years of internal newsletters for the U.S. home council are in box 21. They provide a month-by-month account of the work of U.S. OMF missionaries. Folder 21-4 has a project to recruit school children to pray for specific requests of individual missionaries.

Several files contain additional information on the Council's finances and assets. Folder 3-14 contains books kept by Henry Frost detailing where and how funds were spent. Financial reports, as mentioned above, are in the minutes of the Council and of the corporation. Folders 4-54, 6-1,2,8,9,10 contain legal papers to and correspondence about property of the mission, including property acquired through bequests in wills. Particularly interesting is the data about the administration of the estate of William Borden in Folders 6-1,2. Included in this material is a long undated memo describing CIM's history, purpose, and administrative structure, along with statistics about its current activities. Folder 12-28 contains correspondence with the staff at the Crowell Trust about gifts the foundation made to the mission.

Folder 6-5 is a potpourri of documents, a cross section that gives a good idea of the variety of the U.S. and Canadian staff activities. It includes reports on deputation work in the U.S. and Canada, lists of workers in various Canadian provinces, government regulations for returning to China, a memo on the proper age of missionaries, regulations for the raising of support for missionaries on furlough and for financing their return to China, description of methods for interviewing mission candidates, a list of recipients of the mission's annual reports, financial estimates of the remittances necessary to support children in Chefoo school, and a very interesting translation of a Nationalist Party document attacking the Christian church as harmful to China.

Another potpourri can be found in folder 14-7. This contains various reports from the southwest region of the United States (California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona) to the U.S. office, as well as miscellaneous other documents, such as reports sent out from the national headquarters to the various regional representatives. The different regional representatives appeared for the mission at various conferences and other events, interviewed potential missionaries, talked to donors, and did whatever miscellaneous jobs were necessary. Also of interest is an excerpt from a book by Joseph Bayly which contains his conjecture about his influence of CIM missionary Arthur Taylor on the ministry of Billy Graham.

Henry Frost's correspondence files (folders 4-15,16) contain mostly letters to him, but there are also a few from him. There are descriptions of various crises and problems, such as the refusal, in 1904-1905, of some missionaries returning to China to be vaccinated. The later letters in these files are concerned with Frost's transfer of authority to Glover and the reports made to Frost after his retirement about CIM work. Folder 10-2 through 10-6 contain Frost’s autobiography, which provides his perspective on many of these documents.

Folders 5-18,19,20,21,22 contain correspondence about the boarding school in the U.S. run for children of missionaries in China. The letters are mainly about the site of the physical plant and maintenance costs.

In 1968, the U.S. home director wrote a sympathetic and supportive editorial for the June issue East Asia Millions about Martin Luther King after King’s assassination. Folder 14-9 contains a memo from Glasser to the OMF staff justifying his action and describing reaction.

Folders 4-57 and 12-26 contains handbooks, entitled Principles and Practices distributed in North America which described the history, policies and expectations of the mission, particularly its American branch. These were intended for candidates and missionaries and perhaps also for potential donors.

Boxes 22 to 24 contain the files of the REAP project (Reach East Asia’s People) of the U.S. branch of OMF. The purpose of the project was to recruit churches and individual people to support evangelistic and support work among people groups in East Asian countries, including Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, North Korea, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, and Tibet. Files have information on the history and ethnic characteristics of the group, as well as information on who was working with particular groups and emails and letters with churches in the United States supporting particular groups.

The U.S. Council kept fairly detailed records on CIM missionaries from the United States. Folder 6-11 contains information about mission candidates giving mostly basic biographical and medical data. Up into 1922, the information is entered by hand into the register. After 1922, the entries consist of fastened in questionnaires. There is an alphabetical index of the names of applicants in the front of the book. Up until 1922, the entries also tell whether the candidate was accepted. The Council minutes in Folders 6-3,4 give brief evaluations of most candidates. Folders 16-3 through 16-7 contain forms labeled APost Council Information.@ These are brief questionnaires on each missionary filled out after the U.S. Council had interviewed and accepted them. They are similar to the forms in folder 6-11, but for a later period. Folders 16-3 and 16-4 are arranged by the order in which the candidates were accepted. Folders 16-5 to 16-7 are in alphabetical order but form two different series, since the forms in 16-5 are for people who left the mission later and their forms were removed and filed separately.

Folders 4-82 to 4-102, and 15-1 through 16-2 contain the personnel cards kept by the staff on active missionaries. These cards give name, nationality, education, marital status, church affiliation, places of service in China, furloughs, and miscellaneous information. They form three different complete sets that do not overlap, so anyone searching for a particular person needs to check all three. The cards in series in folders 15-4 through 16-2 often have pages stapled to particular cards which contain much more information than the cards themselves. The materials in Folders 3-72,73, and 4-47 are mainly concerned with the arrivals and departures of missionaries. Some of the cables in Folders 3-72,73 are unclear, some are in code.

VII. U.S. Council | B. Relations with Other Home Councils

As mentioned above, Folders 1-1 to 1-9 contain minutes of the periodic meetings of the North American Council. Also as mentioned above, there is information about the work in Canada in Folder 6-5. Other information includes correspondence with the Toronto editorial secretary about the distribution of free literature (folders 4-51,52). The minutes of the Toronto Council are described below.

Folders 4-17,18 contain correspondence between the U.S. staff and W.H. Aldis, director of the British Home Council, about the circulation of the Taylor biography, changes in personnel, the quality of available candidates, travel by Council members, etc. There is also a copy of News From the Homeland, a bulletin about events in Great Britain put out by the British Council for its missionaries in China. Folder 4-44 contains correspondence between the United States and London branches about how many of the 200 missionaries being recruited in the early 1930s should come from North America. There are numerous excerpts from letters from those who went, apparently intended for publicity purposes, about why they felt called to go.

Folder 4-103 contains a very interesting report on CIM's participation in the committee that was carrying on the work of the 1910 World Missionary Conference held in Edinburgh (and which later developed into the World Council of Churches). The mission's North American and Australasian Councils were very upset by some of the committee's actions, such as its decision not to encourage Protestant missions in South America because of the strong, long-established Roman Catholic presence there. The development of the debate over these complaints and CIM's eventual resignation from the Committee is documented by the excerpt in the folder.

VII. U.S. Council |C. Relations with the China Headquarters, later International Headquarters

The material discussed here is mainly correspondence between the U.S. and headquarters staff as opposed to the headquarters’ minutes and correspondence discussed above, which were either form letters sent by headquarters to all home councils or materials relating solely to the administration of CIM's work in China. The correspondence of secretaries such as J.O. Fraser and James Stark (folders 4-27,28), the general director D.E. Hoste (folders 4-25,26), the assistant director W.H. Warren and deputy director George Gibb (folders 4-20,21, 5-16) are all concerned with such matters as potential new candidates, the activities of North American staff members, description of China Council meetings, relevant political developments in China, activities at various mission stations, and personnel needs. Folder 4-20 includes a very interesting report, dated May 1930, by a Miss Gemmell, in which she describes her impressions of the Chinese Communists, impressions she gathered while she was a prisoner of the Fifth Communist Army in western Kiangsi (new spelling, Jiangxi). The same folder contains much discussion about the proper training of candidates and the performance of those who reached the field. Also in this folder are letters about the mission's attempt to help the Porteous family, who had been captured by the Communists and were later released. The letters in Folders 4-22,23,24 are concerned with the funds available for the support of various missionaries. There is an interesting letter from the China Inter Mission, which was set up in India during World War II to assist missionaries evacuated from China.

Folders in box 13 and 14 continue the correspondence between the two headquarters into the 1950s and 1960s. The exchange is almost exclusively between Arthur Glasser for the U.S. branch and J.O. Sanders and Arnold Lea for the international headquarters. Folders 13-1 through 13-4 contain the letters to and from Sanders. The correspondence starts when Glasser was still teaching at Columbia Bible College, about the time he had agreed to return to the mission as assistant home director for the United States. There are long typewritten and handwritten letters from both sides on the administration of the mission, the setting of policy, the work of individual missionaries, relations with different countries, etc. They provide a good picture of mission concerns and policy making procedures. The folders contains as well circular letters sent by the general director to all home directors. The correspondence in 14-1 between the Overseas director and the U.S. home director deal with various administrative matters, especially the acceptance, assignment, condition, furloughs, etc., of particular United States missionaries.

VII. U.S. Council | D. North American Missionaries in China

There are many files which contain letters, reports, and notes sent back to the U.S. staff by American missionaries. These letters are usually informal descriptions of the missionaries' recent activities, although sometimes there are letters from the U.S. asking for information and letters back and forth about mission policy. Here are brief descriptions of some of the folders' contents and of other documents, arranged alphabetically by individual or entity:

VIII. Canadian Branch

Folders 3-48 to 3-69 consist of copies of the minutes of the Toronto Council. The minutes discuss potential candidates, finances, publications, relations with the U.S. Council (sometimes called the Philadelphia Council), and the activities of Canadian missionaries in China. Folder 3-70 contains a speech by F.C.P. Dreyer on the correct way of training missionaries. Folders 17-2 and 17-3 contain the photocopies of pages from the candidate register that lists basic information about missionary candidates. Most, but not all, of these forms are for Canadian candidates. The forms themselves appear to be a kind of checklist used to make sure that missionaries had handled all necessary details before leaving for China. (Page 457 of the forms in Folder 17-2 contains the form for Sarah Alice Troyer, later Sarah Alice Troyer Young.)

IX. Field Files

Indonesia. Folders 29-10 to 29-12. Files of annual field conference reports, articles about OMF’s work in the country, and a chronology of the work there.

Laos. Boxes 30 through 32. These cover the years from 1954 through 1978, although OMF’s work had wound down by 1972, doomed by the Communist takeover of the country. These files appear to have been kept at the OMF international headquarters in Singapore by Anne Hazelton, and contain both original documents and transcripts of quotations from documents describing the development of a community of Christian believers in the country, as well as information on political, military, social, and economic developments. Letters addressed “Dear Sweetheart” are to her husband Eber. Probably letters headed “Dearest Family” are also from her.

The Swiss Brethen organization Missions Evangelique au Laos began work in the Mekong Delta in 1902. A history of their early activity is in Folder 32-10. Mission Evangelique invited OMF to cooperate in work in the country in 1954. The first OMF survey team came in 1956 and the work developed from there over the next several years. Material on some of the more significant events can be found in Folder 32-12. Besides outreach to the Laotian people and smaller tribal groups, there was also a large Chinese population in the country, in Pakse and other cities, who were also reached by OMF workers. Folders 30-7 and 31-1 contain reports and letters about a brief attempt of a Japanese mission to cooperate in the Laotian work.

Types of documents in these boxes include letters and notes from Laotian Christians; Laos field conference schedules, minutes, and reports (there are scattered minutes for Swiss Brethren field conferences, such as the one in folder 30-9); personal letters and prayer letters to supporters from individual missionaries; reports on mission stations within the country to OMF International headquarters; many transcripts of quotations from missionary letters and reports about events in the country; papers apparently read at field conferences for different strategies for transmitting the Gospel and teaching and nurturing the church. Folde32-14 contains many years of newsletters written by the Laos field director or others to send to OMF workers in the field about the activities at individual mission stations. The newsletter of an individual station, that of Pakse, is in Folder 32-15. Folder 32-11 has reports on different aspects of Laotian culture and legends. Folder 32-12 contains the story of a Laotian Christian who was martyred for his faith, and Folder 32-17 contains the story of development of one Laotian’s faith and its impact on his tribe.

Folders 31-6 through 32-9 contain magazine and newspaper clippings about events in Laos. Many of the clippings are from Christian publications about the church in Laos, but most are from secular English-language East Asian newspapers and magazines about political and military events in Laos, especially the continuing civil war. Folder 31-2 contains the Western hymn “How Great Thou Art” translated into Lao. Folder 30-3 has an outline and a shooting script for a movie about OMF’s work in Laos. Folder 31-12 has an advertisement for the film, “Vanishing Frontiers.” Folders 31-10 and 31-13 contain clippings of articles by or about medical missionary and author Tom Dooley.

Among the missionaries to Laos who wrote reports in these folders or whose activities were reported are: Eva Bennett, Alfred and Rose Bosshardt (for Alfred see especially Folder 20-6, 31-9, and 32-15), Alice Complain, Dorthy and John J. Davis, Robin East, David Fewster, Donald Fleming, Rosemary Foote, Alan and Lousie Harwood, Anne and Eber J. Hazlelton, Edna and George Heckendorf, Ernie Heimbach, David Henriksen, Ellie Hoffmeister, Geraldine Hooper, Eileen and John Kuhn, Arnold Lea,, Ursula (Schellenberg) Lowenthal, Anna Mueller, Neville Peterson, Katherine Pittman, Ron Smith, Kathy Smith, Don Wilson.