Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 18, Number 7, DeMotte, Jasper County, 9 January 1948 — MISSIONARY FROM INDIA, TO SPEAK AT THE DEMOTTE, KNIMAN METHODIST CHURCHES [ARTICLE]

MISSIONARY FROM INDIA, TO SPEAK AT THE DEMOTTE, KNIMAN METHODIST CHURCHES

Recently returned to the United States on furlough after twenty years of service in the heart of the “jungle conference” of Central Provinces, India, the Rev. Orval H. Auner, missionary of the Methodist church, will be the guest speaker at the DeMotte Methodist Church on Sunday evening. January 11, and at the Kniman Church on Thursday evening, January 15. A covered dish supper will, be served at the DeMotte Church at 6:00 o’clock and at the Kniman church at 6:30. After a brief stay in America, Mr. Auner expects tot return for further missionary work in India. The region in which Mr. Auner carries on evangelistic and educational work is one of the areas of central India that has not as yet been reclaimed from the jungle. As superintendent of work in Bastar State District, he travels over a field that is 160 miles from north to south and 130 mile from east to west. Yet in this area there are only scattered small native village, and in these there arc about 5,000 people who have been baptized as Christian and have become affiliated with the Methodist Church. “During the war years, semifamine conditions existed, and fear was in the minds of the village people” says Mr. Auner. “Many went hungry, and because of their hardships some reverted to devil-worship. Yet through the years, new families «were added to the Christian church.” Mr. Auner first went to India in 1913, after ordination as a Methodist minister, and after two years as a schoolteacher in Kansasa. He has served a pastor and superintendent at Jubbuipore and Khandwa, as well as at Jagdalpur, Bastar State, his present station. Born in Denver, Col., Mr. Auner spent much of his American life in Kansas and ■was educated at Southwestern College, >V infield, Kansas.