Chapter 29—Pioneering in a Faraway Land

“Workers must be sent to distant lands,” said S. N. Haskell to the people at the General Conference in 1891. “We must have schools to train our young people in their own land. They must be trained as teachers, colporteurs, and preachers.” He had just come back to America from a visit to Australia, and he pleaded especially for a school for that continent.HMes 160.1

“Can we not send teachers there and establish a school where the young people may be taught?” he asked. In answer, the people voted to send teachers to Australia to start such a school to train the young men and women of that country to work for their own people.HMes 160.2

“Would it not be well for Mrs. Ellen G. White and her son to spend some time in this new field of labor and help establish this new work?” he continued.HMes 160.3

“Indeed it would,” agreed the other workers. They all thought of the wonderful counsel which she, through God’s guidance, had given them, and of the encouragement it had brought to the European field to have her spend two years there.HMes 160.4

At once the mission board voted to invite Mrs. Ellen G. White and her son, William C. White, to go with the teachers to Australia and help with the work there. When the steamer Alameda sailed out of the Golden Gate in November, 1891, Mrs. White, four of her helpers, and her son were among the passengers. At Honolulu they were joined by Mr. and Mrs. G. B. Starr, who were also being sent to Australia.HMes 160.5

“As I contemplate the past year, I am filled with gratitude to God for His preserving care and loving-kindness,” wrote Mrs. White on the boat the day before they reached Samoa. It was her sixty-fourth birthday, and she felt thankful to God for the years of service He had allowed her to give.HMes 161.1

“We owe everything to Jesus,” she continued. “I consecrate myself to His service, to lift Him up before the people, to proclaim His matchless love.”HMes 161.2

When the party reached Melbourne, they were met and welcomed by G. C. Tenney, the manager of the publishing house. He even vacated his new home and insisted that Mrs. White and her helpers move right in.HMes 161.3

How happy Mrs. White was to be welcomed by these new friends in a strange land. She at once began speaking in meetings and visiting the Seventh-day Adventists in that city. When she visited the publishing house she again saw printing presses at work that had been shown to her in vision at the time she was healed in Battle Creek many years before. After a few months it was planned that she and her son should visit New Zealand. But shortly before they were to go, she became ill with rheumatism, and since she could not travel, the trip had to be postponed.HMes 161.4

“Now that I cannot travel, I will do what I can to complete the long-promised book on the life of Christ,” she said. For ten long months she suffered from this disease. Sometimes she could not even walk a step, or leave her bed. Propped up in bed, she wrote much for The Desire of Ages.HMes 161.5

“I could not have done all this writing if the Lord had not strengthened and blessed me in large measure,” she wrote to the workers in Battle Creek. “Never once has that right hand failed me. My arm and shoulder have been full of suffering, hard to bear, but the hand has been able to hold the pen and trace the words that have come to me from the Spirit of the Lord.HMes 161.6

“I have had a most precious experience, and I testify to my fellow laborers in the cause of God, ‘The Lord is good, and greatly to be praised.’”HMes 162.1

Although she suffered greatly she was glad for this opportunity to write. All through the years it had been her great desire to write the full story of the life of Christ, of His ministry, His teachings, and of His sacrifice for us. “What a wonderful privilege it is,” she thought to herself, “to write of Him and His work.”HMes 162.2

“I walk with trembling before God,” she wrote to O. A. Olsen, the president of the General Conference. “I know not how to speak or trace with pen the large subjects of the atoning sacrifice. I know not how to present subjects in the living power with which they stand before me.HMes 162.3

“I tremble for fear lest I shall belittle the great plan of salvation by cheap words. I bow my soul in awe and reverence before God and say, ‘Who is sufficient for these things?’”HMes 162.4

At another time she wrote, “I cannot endure the intensity of feeling that comes over me as I think of what Christ has suffered in our world.... He was bruised for our iniquities, ... and with His stripes we are healed, if we receive Him by faith as our personal Saviour.”HMes 162.5

Many times as she awoke in the night and prayed, she felt the near presence of Jesus. “The very room was filled with the light of His divine presence. I have felt that I could welcome suffering if this precious grace was to accompany it,” she wrote. When summer came to Australia, Mrs. White began to feel stronger, and she was finally able to go to New Zealand to visit the churches and attend a general meeting that was being planned.HMes 162.6

“Let us make it a camp meeting,” someone suggested.HMes 163.1

“Oh, no,” said others. “We could never have a camp meeting and live in tents here. It has not been done. Road builders and logging men live in tent houses.”HMes 163.2

They shook their heads. “No, living in tents would not be attractive to the better class of people.”HMes 163.3

But the workers who wanted a camp meeting were not discouraged. As Mrs, White went from church to church, she invited the people to come to the conference to be held at Napier. She hoped that this conference would be a camp meeting, just like the ones that were held back in America.HMes 163.4

By her great enthusiasm Mrs. White persuaded the people to try having a camp meeting in New Zealand. Up to the beginning of the meeting there was little promise that more than about thirty people would camp on the grounds. Tents were erected for that many. But when the meeting opened, people came in until there were about sixty wanting tents.HMes 163.5

The people were enthusiastic about camp meeting now! “Yes, indeed! It can be done!” the ministers agreed. And plans were laid at once that the next annual conference should be a camp meeting!HMes 163.6

“Australia will have a camp meeting,” the papers announced the next year. It was to be the first camp meeting to be held in that great continent! The workers made every preparation for this camp. They made thirty-five family tents this time, for they wanted to be sure to have enough, but the orders kept pouring in until they needed more than one hundred tents!HMes 163.7

How carefully the workers laid out the camp! Everything must be just right, for this camp would be seen by many and would represent the gospel as much as the sermons that would be preached.HMes 163.8

“We feel that the eye of God is upon all our arrangements,” said Mrs. White. “And in the order of our camp we must seek to show forth the praises of His marvelous light.”HMes 164.1

When camp meeting began, there were five hundred and eleven people camping on the grounds. This little tent city was a marvel of wonders to the people of Melbourne, Australia. Thousands visited it and were astonished and delighted as they saw the clean white tents standing in straight rows, with the furniture neatly arranged within each one.HMes 164.2

Physicians, ministers, businessmen, and society women came to see the camp, and many stayed to hear the good sermons. “If we did not live so near, we would hire tents and camp right with you,” some of them said. “Have you seen the tent city?” “Have you been to camp meeting?” was heard everywhere as people stopped to talk on the streets of Melbourne.HMes 164.3

The Adventists enjoyed it too. After meetings had been held for one week, everyone voted to stay another week. “It pays to have camp meetings,” they all agreed.HMes 165.1

During the closing days of the camp meeting it was decided to establish the school out in the country. The teachers from America had been holding a small school in a rented building in town, but now Mrs. White told them that the school should be established out in the country where the young men and women could work out of doors and where the school could have its own farm and gardens.HMes 165.2

“The school must be located far out in the country, where we are away from the city,” she told the men. At once they began to look for a place. After hunting for several weeks they found a large piece of wild land, far from the city. Mrs. White felt that this was the place for the school. “But the people around here are so poor, and the land is poor,” some of the church members said. “See, some of the land is a great swamp. We do not want to live in such a wild, out-of-the-way place.”HMes 165.3

“I have been shown that the people here need not be poor if they would try to make their land yield food,” she told them. “This land will bear good fruit and grain if it is cared for. There are fine springs and streams of water. The swamp can be drained.”HMes 166.1

To show that she had faith in this new place, she herself bought a part of the land and moved her family into tents while a house was built. Her home she named Sunnyside. The school was named Avondale. This was an appropriate name, because many streams of water flowed through the property.HMes 166.2

With the encouragement Mrs. White gave them, the brethren arranged for buildings to be put up, and school was opened on time. What a blessing this new school was to the young people of Australia. More and more young people came, and some older ones too. They were eager to bear their share of the burdens and help clear the land, set out fruit trees and berry vines, and build houses.HMes 166.3

Sometimes all the money would be spent, and still so much more needed to be done. Then when others were becoming discouraged, Mrs. White would turn to her Master and He would supply their needs. Once when they were greatly needing a meetinghouse, she urged them to build a church big enough to hold the people who would be coming as the school grew.HMes 166.4

“No, let us build just a small building, and build a bigger one when we need it,” said some. “Wait until we have the money, and then build a big church,” said others. In the night the Lord spoke to Mrs. White and said, “Arise, and build without delay.”HMes 166.5

When she told the people the next day that the Lord wanted them to build at once a building big enough to hold those who would come to the school later on, they were willing to obey. “We will take hold of the work and by faith make a beginning,” said the leader of the church.HMes 167.1

The next night there came from South Africa a letter, and in it was two hundred pounds (nearly $1,000) to help build a meetinghouse. How happy the people were! They had obeyed, and God had blessed them. Before they had even decided to build a church, the money was on a boat being brought to them.HMes 167.2

For nine years Mrs. White and her family lived in Australia. Through her, God guided this new school, making it a blessing to the field. Soon missionaries were being sent from it to the islands of the South Seas and were working for their Master throughout the whole continent of Australia. In that wild, out-of-the-way place grew up a large school with fine orchards and gardens. This school, built according to God’s plan, has become a model for other schools where workers for God are to be trained.HMes 167.3