In 1912, Sister Kline boarded a train in Los Angeles, California, bound for Murphysboro, Illinois. She came to bring the message of the Gospel, and to share the news of the latter rain outpouring of the Holy Ghost. With a simple pump organ she held street meetings in Murphysboro. The Lord blessed her efforts, and shortly she had a faithful congregation established. During this time she made contact and became affiliated with the Apostolic Faith Mission in Portland, Oregon. Shortly, though, Sister Kline returned to Los Angeles. Little is known of her background or what became of her, but her legacy lives.

Portland sent a replacement pastor to the Murphysboro congregation, and he felt it was important to move the entire congregation to St. Louis, Missouri, where there was a greater opportunity for evangelism. This was the first in a series of moves the St. Louis congregation has made through the years. Market Street, across from City Hall, cottage meetings at Sister Camden 's home during WWII, Lafayette, Marmaduke, and Grand Boulevard have all been their places of worship. It is reported that one of our earliest pastors, Reverend Allen Crabtree, moved the mission from storefront to storefront, aiming to evangelize the city one neighborhood at a time. Our most comfortable location by far is our current building on Kerth Road where we recently celebrated our ten-year anniversary.

During the last two years, we have seen the amazing moving of the hand of the Lord. He has directed us into an outreach program with a bus and van that go into the inner city to pick up children for Sunday school and church. With just a handful of workers, we are scrambling to keep up with the work the Lord is doing here. Almost invariably there will be new children whom we have never seen before. During the last two years we have seen well over two hundred children come through our doors. Many of these youngsters live in very transient situations, and we will not see them more than once or twice. It gives us the extraordinary challenge to present the Gospel in its clearest and plainest truth every Sunday—we never know if we will have another opportunity.

The best part is that God is saving souls! The Van Buren, Arkansas, congregation invited us to join them for Youth Camp this year. We were only able to take seven children with us, but all seven of them were saved the last night of camp! Shortly after, we had eleven of our new congregants baptized in water at Midwest Camp.

Pray for us in St. Louis! “The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest” (Luke 10:2).