Loma Linda Interests Again

The Los Angeles camp meeting opened Thursday, August 16. Ellen White deemed this an appropriate time to set the needs of a special educational work at Loma Linda before the officers and believers of the Southern California Conference. On Sunday, August 19, before returning to St. Helena from an Oakland weekend, she penned a most earnest appeal addressed to Elder G. W. Reaser, the conference president, and the executive committee of the conference. It opened:6BIO 113.4

Dear Brethren: I am very anxious that Brethren Reaser and Burden, and their associates, shall see all things clearly.... Be very careful not to do anything that would restrict the work at Loma Linda. It is in the order of God that this property has been secured, and He has given instruction that a school should be connected with the Sanitarium.—Letter 274, 1906.6BIO 113.5

Then she specified the work that should be done in training young men and young women to be efficient medical missionary workers. “Means must be raised,” she wrote, and urged that no one should act a part in influencing the people not to give. It was a tremendous appeal that not only called for money but announced to everyone a phase of the work that was to be developed at Loma Linda—a school.6BIO 113.6

How glad she was after the camp meeting to learn that there was a response in the amount of $12,500 to the call for funds for Loma Linda (Pacific Union Recorder, September 13, 1906). Somehow the conference had been especially blessed since taking steps in 1905 to purchase the property. In addition to the gift to Loma Linda, $5,000 of surplus tithe went to establish mission stations in Uganda and India; $4,594 in offerings was sent outside the conference for special enterprises; and $4,250 was given for the San Fernando school.6BIO 114.1