LABORS IN THE CRIMEA

On Friday evening, July 16, I arrived with Bro. Perk in Japontschi, where our brethren held their Sabbath meetings. I found a dozen Sabbath-keepers here, and learned of as many more scattered within a circuit of fifty miles. Being harvest time, and the mails being slow, it was several weeks before we could get them all notified and bring them together. In the meantime, as the people of Japontschi seemed anxious to hear, I held meetings during the week, the attendance steadily increasing. Several were convinced, and in order that they might be fully decided I spoke Friday evening on the Sabbath question. This at once excited opposition. The next evening, during the sermon the windows were smashed in with such force that pieces of glass flew all about the room.HSFM 256.2

On Sunday I spoke in a Lutheran school-house in Westheim, and the day following in a neighboring village. On Tuesday we went thirty miles south to Avell, where several more Sabbath-keepers are living. During our travels in the Crimea we passed through a number of Tartar villages, in one of which we saw a school where their priests are educated. The appearance of these villages was by no means inviting. The many ruins and extensive graveyards showed that in the past the country had supported large numbers of people. But since the Turkish crescent lost its sway in the Crimea, many of the Mohammedans have gone to other parts. At Avell we made the acquaintance of a man and his wife who are keeping the Sabbath. He is a Russian and she is a Greek.HSFM 256.3

After holding two meetings in this place, we drove forty miles north to Berdebulat, where our brethren and sisters from different places had appointed to meet because there was sufficient water here for baptism. After we had fully set before them the rules and regulations of the church, as found in God’s word, nineteen covenanted together to keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, thereby laying the foundation for the first Seventh-day Adventist church in Russia. Sabbath morning an elder and deacon were chosen and ordained. There were five who desired baptism; but as it was thought advisable that three, including the Russian and his wife, should wait until they had further considered the matter, only two sisters went forward in the solemn rite. The place of baptism was a part of the so-called Sawasch, backwater from the Black Sea, which only comes here when the wind is from the right direction. As we were near a Russian village, many of the people climbed upon the houses to witness the scene.HSFM 256.4