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Ellen G. White: The Australian Years: 1891-1900 (vol. 4)

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The Business Meetings

Important advances were made in the business meetings of the Australian Conference and also in the business meetings of the new Australasian Union Conference in its first biennial session, all held during the extended camp meeting. One action called for an outreach in Australia in medical missionary lines, a project in which Ellen White would become rather deeply involved. Early in the meeting, the six churches in New South Wales were organized into a separate conference, with a church membership of 321. Their petition to the union conference read: 4BIO 233.3

Dear Brethren,

A conference having been organized for the colony of New South Wales, we respectfully request that it be received into the union conference, to be under its care and to be represented in its councils.—9 WCW, p. 6. 4BIO 233.4

The request was granted. This was the first local conference in the history of Seventh-day Adventists to be admitted into a union conference instead of the General Conference. The work in Australia was taking shape. 4BIO 233.5

Another important action had to do with the development of the educational work and the new school at Cooranbong. Among the resolutions adopted was one calling for the name of the educational institution to be the Avondale School of Christian Workers. 4BIO 233.6

After the close of the camp meeting proper, Ellen White remained in Melbourne writing and occasionally speaking. Maggie Hare and Sara McEnterfer were both with her. Sunday, November 24, with Sara's help they got off the American mail. She opened her heart in her letter to Edson: “Since coming to this meeting I have felt that unless the Lord shall help me, I shall utterly fail. I have been brought into great trial and perplexity and distress of soul through others.”—Letter 82, 1895. One of her helpers, Miss Fannie Bolton, sent with her to Australia to assist in the preparation of Ellen White's materials for publication in the journals of the church, had insisted on coming to Melbourne and was not acting as a faithful, trusted helper. More will be said about this in the next chapter. 4BIO 234.1