SAVANNAH, GA.
REV. B. D. CONKLING.
There has been a good deal of sickness among our people and the missionaries. We have had additions to the church at each communion. The Sunday-school work is prospering finely, the pennies outnumbering the attendance every Sunday but two from January 1st to June 1st. The average attendance at the Sunday-school for January was 112, which gradually increased until, in May, the average was 162⅘. The average collections of the Sunday-school for May were $2.12⅘ for each Sunday.
From January 1st to May 31st the congregation raised for church and missionary purposes $83.71; and the Sunday-school, during the same time, $36.73. This does not include some $25 raised to provide an excursion for the Sunday-school and its friends. Several members during the year, who are either ministers or ministers’ wives, took letters of dismission; others still are in some of the institutions of the American Missionary Association for higher learning. More or less missionary work is being done constantly by resident members of this church.
While it is not a large church, it has had, and does have, a large influence for good throughout the whole city; especially has it been the means of revolutionizing in the way of improvement the Sunday-school work here and here-abouts.
WOODVILLE, GA.
REV. J. H. H. SENGSTACKE.
This church was organized in the year 1871. In the year 1875 Mr. J. H. H. Sengstacke, teacher of the public school at Woodville, was elected pastor. At that time the membership consisted of 12 persons. They worshiped in an old building about one-third of a mile from the present edifice. The church was at first known as the Woodville Congregational church; but at the beginning of Mr. Sengstacke’s ministry the name was changed to Pilgrim church. The American Missionary Association built a new house of worship, and Mr. S. was set apart for the Gospel ministry. The church has been growing rapidly ever since, the congregation at present averaging 200. The Sabbath-school is flourishing. In the year 1877, Sengstacke Band of Hope was organized. Rev. J. M. Smith’s people, of Grand Rapids, Mich., have done much towards building up this work. In 1877 the church purchased a bell and an organ.
In 1878 the American Missionary Association built a neat little parsonage.