Family Specials News Magazine!
FSM 230
(FN 339)
Nov., 1992
By Family Services,
Zurich, Switzerland
DO
ARTICLES WRITTEN & CONTRIBUTED
DIRECTLY BY MISSIONARIES ON THE FIELD!
This is the greatest job we have to do, the greatest
Work in the World to feed His sheep, to witness the Words of God,
to preach the Gospel, to tell people about God's Love, to show them
the Love of Jesus. The number one job we have to do is to preach the
Word, & number two, to try to win those to whom we preach it. In a
way, winning souls is really God's job, but you have to be the channel
& the instrument, & if you neglect those two & put them in a lower
place than any of your other activities, then God won't bless it.
(ML#2313:2,3)
CONTENTS:
It's a Follow-Up Revolution!
And It Works!   1
Questions & Answers on DFing!    8
How DFing Has Changed Our Home!  12
DFing & Follow-Up Testimonies!   13
It's a Follow-Up Revolution! --And It Works!

By Michael J.P. & Crystal, North America

         (Editor's note: This article is from a field Home with eight adults & over 20 children, who in spite of the many pressing details of day-to-day Home life, have managed to win many friends through DFing, ground them in the Word, & help them progress spiritually. As a result they have long-lasting fruit in the form of good solid friends who love the Lord, the Word, & the Family, plus their follow-up ministry brings in 75% of their Home's support! Read on to see how they do it!

         (We're publishing these testimonies from Michael & Crystal's Home to show just how fruitful & rewarding a good follow-up program can be. Now that we are getting out the meat" of the Word through personal witnessing & the meaty Posters, many more people are being saved & they need to be fed & taught what they can do for the Lord. So it's now more important than ever to take care of these precious babes, feeding & strengthening them through faithful follow-up.)

Getting Started

The DFing ministry in our North American city actually got started a couple of years ago. At the time this article is being written, we have about 163 DFers, & a good number of them give us fairly substantial support & are really in love with the Word, TYJ! We spend as much time as we possibly can on DFing & it certainly has borne good fruit.

Previous to the time when we actually got somewhat organised to start our DFing, there had been a couple of Homes here a year before who had done a fair amount of outreach & won a number of souls & done some provisioning. When the two Homes merged & we ended up with one Home here, we pooled everybody's friends & contacts & kings & potential people. We sorted through them all, made lists & categorised the various people & the potential we thought they had.

Immediately after that, we sent out some test mailings to see who was interested in the DFs. Some of those people had received a couple of DFs before, & after the first mailing & quite a number of phone calls & some follow-up--which took about a month or so of wading through all of those lists & getting organised--our DF ministry was pretty much off the ground! We had about 25 to 30 DFers initially just from that first push. So, TYJ, it was a real miracle!

My guess is that every Home has the same potential, if not more contacts than those we had to start with, so TYL!

Commitment & Desperate Prayer

One of the first things that we needed to do as a Home was to get together & decide together & make a united decision together to commit ourselves to this DF ministry. I think it's something that's probably just as important as any other ministry, if not more important in certain respects. Dad has told us & the Lord has commanded us to go into all the World & preach the Gospel to every creature. The Lord really wants us to have long lasting fruit! Of course, devoting the needed time to DFing is always a battle if you're struggling financially.

I want to give credit to the Lord for what He has done with our DFing ministry, because I kind of feel, from what I've seen & heard, that most Homes are struggling one way or the other. Possibly there is a shortage of personnel or a lack of support or lots of kids with not enough people to take care of them. For sure, all the credit goes to the Lord because He's the One Who does it & He's the One Who did it here! No credit to ourselves! If anybody would see how disorganised we are . . . well, TYL, you would know that it's only the Lord Who did it!

We as a Home committed ourselves, & agreed together that we wanted long-term fruit, that we wanted to minister to people. Then once we made that commitment to change, it took time to turn the Home around.

Urgency of the Situation
TTL, our God is a God of miracles & He certainly can do anything. He can lead us & guide us in a lot of different ways, but as Dad has said, you can have all the talent, you can have all the right people, you can have everything set up just perfectly, but if you don't have support you're going to fail. It occurred to us that our support was based completely on getting out the tools, & if that avenue of support was ever to be cut off for any reason, that we would probably have to get System jobs to support ourselves. If this were to ever occur, then we'd have to spend so much of our time serving the System that we would fall short in preaching the Gospel, the training of our kids & doing the other things that we really need to be doing.
We realised that we are actually living in the Endtime, & that our days could be numbered as far as door-to-door outreach or witnessing! We asked ourselves what would happen if we could no longer distribute the tools as we do today? Where would we be? If that door were to close, how would we support ourselves? So we saw the need to build up a base of support other than through only the distribution of tools.
Then, I think the next question we had to ask ourselves was: How far do we go with our involvement in DFing? As a Home, we had to make a decision that no matter what happens, no matter how many emergencies are going on, no matter if we have time or not, one way or the other, somehow by faith & desperate prayer & really committing ourselves--we're going to be getting out that monthly mailing of DFs. So we committed ourselves to sending the DFs out faithfully at least monthly.
Setting a Priority & Selecting a Team
I think another key was that we decided on a good follow-up team to start with. In the first six months or so, a lot of work was required in follow-up, phone calls & so on, although often the time we could put in is quite minimal, due to our Home having few adults. Therefore since we had that one team, they could zero in on the follow-up & they were able to go out & reach a lot of people. Once we made that commitment & decided on our teams, who was going to be doing what, through much desperate prayer & following the Lord step by step, the DF revolution started!
Actually I believe it was in May & June of that year when we began with that initial push, & for the next six months we continued our DF ministry with a mailing at least once a month & sometimes twice a month. Right now we're actually sending mailings twice a month.
One of the biggest problems we found was that in our busy schedules, with the new DTR, all of our business & so on, it was very hard to keep the mailings & the DF ministry as a priority. It was something that wasn't necessarily a deadline or a necessity. No one was going to get on our case if we didn't do it, & with so many other priorities & emergencies & deadlines & reports & so on that we have in our lives, you sort of wonder How & when are we going to have time to do DFing?" Well, as you will see, the following events helped us reorganise!
Persecution Forced Us to Follow-Up!
Just after the initial first few months of our DFing Ministry, we received a few months of persecution when we had to move to a new location, reshuffle, & re-evaluate everything. We were then forced to go underground & strictly do only follow-up! Reflecting back on this time, we realise now that the Lord really used the persecution to the fullest advantage, TYJ! It was a time of real desperation & truly having to cry out to the Lord for our every move & plan, to be sure we were making each step His step & walking by faith.
We had to sit down & list all of the people we had on the line & decide on priorities, such as who was the most receptive as well as who had the most potential. We had to desperately pray over each person & make a specific plan as to what we were going to propose to them, what we were going to feed them, what the key to their heart was, so we could really bring them in & win them.
That's when we started to get donors, pledgers, & tithers! What a miracle! It was so amazing to see how He blessed it beyond measure! This DFing push brought back the fire of personal witnessing, as we were getting into people's lives & stirring them up to do something for Jesus! GB our DFers, as we couldn't have made it without the help of these precious friends!
Breakthrough with the Christmas Banquet!
We found that by Christmas, after about six months, our DF ministry had actually multiplied & we had almost 100 or so DFers. We decided that we would try to put on a banquet for our DFers & contacts & potential kings & friends, as some of the Family has done in other fields for their contacts. That was a milestone in our ministry. It was actually right at the end of the persecution when we had our Christmas banquet, & it was the icing on the cake!
We were very short-handed; we had only about eight adults & over 20 kids & we were stretched to the maximum. So it required real unity & a real pulling together on the Home's part to get the Christmas banquet rolling.
The Lord did absolute miracles & we provisioned everything. We provisioned a really nice place; we provisioned all the food. We also had a lot of our friends get involved in helping do pickups & prepare food & do decorations; we really got them involved in the banquet, so this cut down the work load for our Home.
We sent out invitations & Christmas cards, plus their DF mailing & some of the DFO Christmas stories that we received. These were a real blessing! Christmas is a time when people are more receptive, & it's good for really pouring into the sheep as much as possible through the mail, & with little sweet personal love notes. The kids did thank you notes, invitations & post cards. Even into the New Year we continued extra mailings, until we actually ended up having four or five mailings in December & January. That was quite a bit & a major expense, but it really paid off in the long run!
After the banquet, we discovered that by the end of January all of sudden, we went from no real solid known pledged support to receiving regular support which covers a good portion of our monthly expenses! It was just a total miracle!
Keep Going by Faith until Results Come In!
I want to point out that up until this time it was all by faith. We didn't really know exactly what we had or if all our work was going anywhere! It actually gets quite discouraging at times & you feel like giving up. Maybe you're struggling financially & some people fall away & new people come, but then again there are always God's little miracles here & there that keep you going. There are always those inspiring little testimonies that happen to help you to really keep the faith for it & keep going, but it does take faith & vision & determination & endurance to be able to follow through & not give up.
I think that if we had waited until everything was set up just perfectly & totally organised & just the ideal situation, it never would have happened. We just had to start somewhere! We got together, made a united decision & went for it, TYJ!
So right after that Christmas banquet, all of a sudden we had a visible, tangible, fruitful, supportive DF ministry, TYJ!--And during the next eight months, our ministry grew to about 163 DFers & our support to virtually covering all of our monthly expenses just from our DFers & people who tithe or pledge or give occasional gifts.
Each Person Is Different, but the Word Always Works!
Of course each person is different. I would say that there's no real set pattern on how we did it, how we brought them in, how they got turned on or how they began supporting us.--Other than, of course, the fact that the Lord touched their heart. It could have happened either when we first met them & they got a Video, or they got saved, or they got a Tape & their kids memorised it--however they got turned on, in some way that magic in the Spirit was born. Then when we got back to them sooner or later, probably the sooner we contacted them the better, that magic was still there, TYL!
We found, though, that each person is a little bit different in how they progress. Some people who we have on our DFing list didn't start out by helping us on a regular basis. They may have gotten a Video or a Tape or perhaps given a donation for our Work or something, but I think one of the biggest lessons we're learning from DFing is the fact that the Words work, the DFs are working in the hearts of these people.
Even if we don't see the people for months, even if our only contact other than the mail is just a short little phone call to see how they liked the DFs (which can be a real witness, too, of course), we found that the DFs themselves can bear fruit. Some of these people didn't really start growing up in the Lord or making progress until they'd had quite a few DFs. They may have liked them, but at first we didn't get a whole lot of response out of some of them in the beginning.
In our case, though, the very same people who didn't help us regularly in the past are now starting to volunteer & come forth with a real heartfelt desire to want to help the Lord's Work. It's really encouraging! When the Word starts feeding them & starts strengthening them, they become newborn babes in Christ & they really want to do something for the Lord. So we needed to minister to each & every one of them, & every single person is a little bit different.
Some people are quite important in the World's eyes & some people are little people", so to speak. So we had to pray & discern their needs & ask the Lord for wisdom on how to handle each person, as far as how we were going to approach them or what we were going to ask of them.
Follow-Up Plus Outreach with Limited Personnel
Actually, we probably now have over 300 people whom we minister to, because besides our DFers we have kings & supporters & friends who like the Videos, but maybe they're just not reading the DFs. We also have people who are really turned on to our Work, but they're just not very hungry spiritually yet. They still want to help & some of them really do help in a big way. They like the sample of the kids, they love the Videos, they see their kids are changing, but they just haven't quite gotten a hunger for the Word yet.
Every time a new Video comes out or a new Tape comes out or whatever, we always try to get it to all these people as soon as possible. We have the best products in the World & when our friends & our sheep see the results & the fruits of our tools, it's really beautiful how they spread the word to other families & their relatives & friends & business associates & so on. In this way, our DFing ministry & follow-up ministry is where most of our distribution of tools is done.
We get a lot of our support right through the mail. It's still a battle to get our sheep to put their financial help in an envelope & send it, so we also usually do personal visitation, feeding them the Word & inspiring them. You've got to show people from the Word the joy & the blessings they will receive from the Lord when they give to His Work. If they don't have the Word on it, they don't really understand how God will bless it. They have to have the Word on it. Once they get the Word on it, then it's easier for them to start giving.
The Lord Prepared Our Hearts!
We found that to really get into this ministry we did have to have a broken heart for the sheep. We had to be Don Quixotes--willing to go out by faith, & just keep plodding & plodding until we reached the goal.
So one of the first things that happened with us here in the beginning is that there was a real purging & heartwashing, TYJ! When you're really getting desperate & you really want to start something new & you're pioneering, it seems a lot of personal NWOs start to surface. It was a remoulding of our lives which caused a reshaping of our Home! We finally got our boots on & things started to really get rolling after about six months, but the Lord knew that we needed that remoulding.
Shepherding these DFers & kings & contacts & supporters is a big responsibility. It takes a lot of prayer & time to tune into the Lord to get your directions for each individual person as you follow-up on them! Whether you're phoning them or whether you're writing them, it does take time, prayer, & a broken heart for them.
Regular Mailings
With our mailings, usually it happens that all of a sudden it's the end of the month & we haven't had a chance to do it yet. We've only got three hours or we've only got one day to do our Mail Ministry & newsletter & to get it all written up & photocopied & in the envelopes, addressed & sealed & finished. And if we miss it...well, we just can't miss it!
We felt that it was really important to get that mail out regularly, even if sometimes we couldn't even put a note on it. Of course, we would rather put a little personal note on it which usually includes a couple of paragraphs of some thank you's" & little captions about what's happening, just very basic & very simple.
Of course we would like to get it together a little bit more, but we're a busy Home, with lots of small children. It really keeps us hopping & we barely have enough people to even send a team out. So TYL! It's just a total miracle that this is all happening.
But we felt that it is really important to keep that personal link the best that we can in our monthly mailings, with notes or personal news of our activities. But we also realised that the other side of the coin says that we should not get frustrated if maybe we miss adding those personal notes one time. If all we could do was stick the DF in the envelope & send it, if one month we couldn't do anything else, well, we could just let the Word do it!--Our sheep would still get their DF & we wouldn't be losing that connection.
Even some of the people who aren't DFers, who don't read the Word, we still send them our newsletter every month. We don't send them DFs, but we send them our newsletter & they may reach a point after six months or nine months, or maybe even after a year, where--boom!--the kids go & sing for them, or they get saved, or they come to our Home--something happens & they get turned on! All of a sudden they have a hunger for the Word! So we keep people like this on the line with our newsletters & every once in a while we send out a test mailing to see who's worthy & who's going to respond & who wants to receive the Word.
The Personnel Squeeze--Keeping the Inspiration Up
On the Home front, we found that the DFing activities, at least in our Home, presented a bit of a battle because of the shortage of personnel. When the follow-up people were doing phone calls or working on the mail, I think some of the brethren went through certain battles, because of the need for personnel for JJT & help in the Home, since what it meant was that some people had to carry a little bit of an extra load.
So although we had made that commitment together to our DFing in the beginning, it was good to renew the commitment & renew the vision. We found it very important to share those testimonies of what the Lord's doing & what's happening with all the Home.--To really keep everyone abreast of what's going on so that they can share in the inspiration.
Organising the Work Load
So actually it was difficult, it was very sensitive to know where to draw the line in our involvement in DFing & how much time to give people on doing follow-up. Even now it still is a sensitive thing, because there's so much to do on it. There's just never enough that can be done on it, so we had to find a balance.
The way it has worked with us is like this: We have tried to give our follow-up people & mail people more flexible slots in the Home work schedule as much as possible. I don't mean that they were just completely independent doing their own thing, but perhaps they have a different time slot to do their jobs than when everyone else is doing them. For example, perhaps they wouldn't have to do morning JJT because they needed to make some phone calls between 9 & 10 a.m., as it is real prime time. Or they would do their JJT earlier.
Perhaps they are given a whole day free from other jobs to work on the Mail Ministry. That's what usually happened on the Mail Ministry day, when they had to put together a newsletter & write all those letters & do all those things, they just got up & had devotions & were then cut free from the activities of the Home to burn free in working on the mail.
Another method we used, of course, is having the Teens & the JETTs do ministry training by helping with the mail. They help with addressing envelopes & putting DFs in & keeping up with who's who & going through the files trying to figure out who's going to be getting what. They write a lot of the thank you's in our Home; they really like that sort of thing & actually do very well at it & really get inspired!
In fact, we even have the whole Home working on getting our mailing out! Sometimes at night, we'll have an hour when we all get together just to finish up a mailing--addressing & putting each mailing together, photocopying, folding, & stapling & everything. It's a real total Home effort, a total united vision. Working together is what has made it work for us, TYJ!
Your Follow-up Team
All Homes are different, all things change & we certainly have to be as adaptable as we can be. We did find, though, that when we did find a good follow-up team, it's good if they can stick together.--A team who can work together & exercise those witnessing & follow-up muscles together & tune into the Work as a whole together, one that can really stay united & have a good working relationship in the Lord, who can go forth with a vision & stick to it, not giving up or fainting in their minds. This type of team we've found really has the best results! TYL!
We also found that the one team who is going to be your faithful follow-up team, or your faithful mail team, they're kind of like deep sea divers in a way: We had to give them some line. We had to let them operate according to their own faith.--Not to say that we didn't train them or make suggestions. Of course, as Shepherds, we're very responsible to take care of them, but they needed to be able to burn free, too, & I think that it's really important. It's a blessing, of course, if you have people who can really get the job done, who are diligent in business, faithful, & real plodders.
On the other hand, although it's nice if you have a good follow-up team, we also want to encourage you that in some ways we found it doesn't matter whether you have a strong follow-up team or not! The fact is that the DFs are actually winning these people. It's the Daily Food that won their hearts, after we poured into them faithfully, usually through the mail.
Shepherds Need to Have a Long-Term Vision!
When we first pioneered DFing in another country, our Shepherds were very patient & loving & encouraging as they had the vision for what we were doing. We went for a long time just collecting name cards, just meeting people daily, but without bringing home hardly any real fruits to speak of.--I mean, to the point where at times I was discouraged & feeling condemned!
Sometimes when we were struggling financially I felt like, This is just a waste of time! Why can't we just grab our Videos & go hit the little people, rather than having some of our best people spending so much time on follow-up! It doesn't seem like they're doing anything!" But I think another key is that the Shepherds involved had a long-term vision, & they were able to help us through our discouragement trials & keep us inspired with that vision.
Of course, we didn't want an unfruitful Work. We had to keep weighing it in the balances & checking it out in prayer & counsel to see if what we were doing was the Lord & if it was fruitful. But as it turned out, we bore fruit just by going to see our contacts & pouring out our hearts!--We were bound to meet at least one person a day with potential! TYJ!
Ministering to the Top
In doing our follow-up we became more aware of just what special people we are. When we were faced with talking to top people we saw that we didn't need to feel inferior or intimidated in any way.
One interesting point is the fact that many of us are middle-aged right now! We're in our 30's & 40's, & we're the same age as many of those people out there who are at the top! We are the same generation as they are! So we can really meet them on their level, plus we're actually very presentable; we have a tangible Work, we have something to show them! We have the best training in the World & the Lord is our Boss & we're God's ambassadors & His representatives. TYJ! It's amazing!
We've had so much training over so many years in all these foreign fields, being missionaries, learning different languages, witnessing in different countries. People notice how different we are & we're just amazing to most people! They can hardly believe some of the things that we share with them. We've found that real 100% heartfelt pouring-out on-fire personal witnessing has been the key to reaching a lot of these people.--That we couldn't be afraid of their faces!
At the same time, we really need to trust the Lord for the future fruit. When working with these top people, we needed to realise that some of them are sensitive, it's delicate ministering to them & we needed to be led of the Spirit. Of course, we didn't want to spend too much time on someone who was really not interested after all, so we had to really pray for the balance & discernment & wisdom as to who was worth spending time on.
In closing, I'd like to end with a prayer from The FFing/DFing Revolution," ML#2313:42,43: Thank You, Lord, You've given us such a wonderful Ministry, such a wonderful charge, Lord, such a marvellous, wonderful Work.--To simply tell others of Thy Love & to love them & show them Thy Love & to feed them Thy Truth.--Such a wonderful, wonderful job. Help us, in Jesus' name to reach them, Lord, with Thy precious Love & the good news of happiness & love that lasts forever. Break our hearts, Lord, ache our hearts, melt us, break us & make us compassionate & help us be faithful to feed Thy sheep, in Jesus' name! Amen!"
Q uestions & A nswers on DFing!
From Michael J.P. & Crystal, North America
Organising Our Home for DFing!
Q: How do you organise your Home & your time to be able to minister to DFers & do follow-up?
A: Due to the fact that we have eight adults & 24 children, of whom most are younger children, we are able to get only one team out per day. Also, because we have quite a large number of DFers, kings, contacts, etc., the majority of our witnessing is ministering to them, doing follow-up. However, on Saturdays we try to get out two teams with children who do both follow-up & regular outreach. If we had more adults available we'd probably get out one outreach team & one follow-up team each day.
Sunday is weekly Family Day. Monday is W&R day (we rotate half the adults one week & the other half the following week). No witnessing team goes out on Mondays. Tuesday is provisioning & business day, a real key day when we try to get as much of the pick-ups, business, etc., done as possible, which enables the follow-up team to burn free on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, & Saturday! TYJ!
First thing in the morning, one of the follow-up team members makes calls to set up appointments, as well as do some provisioning & follow-up on the phone. This helps to map out the day. The follow-up team is usually out all day, until sometimes ten or eleven o'clock at night. (Of course in a large Home with more people involved, we wouldn't have to stay out so late.)
Being on the Shepherding Teamwork & also being involved in DFing & follow-up ourselves has many advantages, in that a good portion of our Teamwork meetings consists of tuning in to what's happening on the DF & follow-up front. This way, everything is done in prayer & counsel.
Q: How many hours per day or week do you minister to DFers?
A: Based on a five-day witnessing week (Tuesday through Saturday), we average between 25 to 30 hours per week, usually four to six hours per day spent on follow-up, as these days also include any business outside of the Home, such as mail, banking, extra shopping, doctor & dentist appointments, etc., as explained above. It's very encouraging to see how much the Lord does, when it seems like very little time, but we can testify that the Lord blesses the time we do have!
Q: How many different brethren are involved in follow-up?
A: At the moment there are three of us who are pretty much fulltime & one part-time. One sister is completely fulltime & one brother is as fulltime as possible, but he has other responsibilities also. I'm also involved pretty much fulltime, although I'm on the Teamwork with many different responsibilities. I alternate with the other brother going out, but go out sometimes three or four times a week, depending on my other responsibilities etc. My mate, Crystal (formerly Abigail), is also usually quite involved in follow-up & reaching the top, but she is now almost eight months pregnant with #15, GB her!!! She is also the Shepherding Teamworker of the Home with a big responsibility.
The remaining four members in the Home are not usually directly involved in DFing, due to their important responsibilities with the kids, Home, etc. However, they do go out on Saturdays sometimes & they are also able to follow-up on some of the DFers, usually those whom they originally met themselves.
Feeding the Sheep!
Q: How often do you visit those who receive the DFs via mail?
A: We actually have different concentric circles of DFers according to their potential. We try to concentrate on the ones who are very receptive to the Word &/or help our Work.
We like to see our closest friends (DFers) even once a week, if possible, or at least twice a month. We also have a fair number of people who we see maybe once every two or three months. Maybe they don't have a lot of potential, but they are sweet sheep who love the DFs & our tools. All of these DFers receive one main mailing with their DFs, & sometimes one sub-mailing which also includes our monthly newsletter & other little tidbits according to their personal needs.
Q: Do you have regular group Bible studies, or concentrate more on visitation & sharing the Word personally? How do you feed your sheep other than through the mail?
A: We have our Home set up so that we only bring over very very special people who are close, or have lots of potential. We also have a very nice sample apartment downtown, though, where we can bring our friends over without as great a security risk.
We were having a weekly Bible study there at the apartment at one time, but it was a battle to get people to come. For some reason, people here are really busy & it's just super difficult to try to get people all together in one place at the same time. We certainly don't want to discourage anyone from doing weekly Bible studies, though; they are the ideal because you can minister to a good-sized group. But it was rather discouraging for us when hardly anyone would show up, or only one guy, considering all the time & planning that we were putting into it, so instead we try to accommodate them if they are hungry & worthy, by visiting them or phoning them where they are.
We go to people's offices & their homes, we also receive specific individual invitations to go out & eat lunch or dinner or get together to go to the beach or to do something together, & at that time we are really able to feed them. Every time we drop off a DF or drop off a Tape or a Video to them on a regular visitation type of a schedule, whether it's weekly or bi-weekly or monthly or bi-monthly or whatever, at that time we make it a point to really feed them.
We may read part of a DF or the GP DM on these visits. We have found that reading the GP DM with them is really good--reading the day that you're there, as well as maybe their birthday or something like that. Many people really like it & they get inspired by that DM! We use those as gifts, as well as, of course, the Treasures Book for those who've completed the DF course.
We've got about 20-some people on the Treasures now & quite a number of them on the Treasure Hunts. Soon we're going to have a lot of people finishing the DFs & going over to the Treasures. So they're really growing. TYL! It amazes us how the Word really feeds people, just like our WS mailings do for us!--We've had testimony after testimony about how the Word feeds them the things that they need for what they're going through at the time.
As a result of inviting people individually over for special attention, classes, Videos, dinner, fellowship, etc., we've had some very encouraging results from that personal touch, as we were able to zero in on their lives & what they personally need. Having so few people & so little time ourselves, with so much to do, we wanted to make each appointment very special, & this has been quite fruitful for us.
Over the past year, we have even begun inviting a few select people to our main Home, though at the beginning we didn't do this, mainly for security reasons having just come out of a persecution situation. But we had some of our closest & most potential people over for our special Family Christmas party, & they were so very inspired & flipped out to see a real sample of His Love in His Family! PTL! It bore wonderful fruit!
Q: What type of classes do you teach, & what teaching tools do you use?
A: We've found that the ones who grow the most are the ones you can spend that personal time with, so we try to contact people at least monthly to give them an opportunity to get together somehow, somewhere. If it's hard for them to find the time, we try to minister to them a little over the phone & tune in to their needs & send something a little special in the mail that pertains to their need. They get their regular mailing which includes a newsletter, a couple of DFs, & perhaps something a little special, like a little love & encouragement note or special card from the kids or maybe an article from a DFO pub which applies to something they are going through.
By ministering to individual people & families, we are actually starting to form groups of whole families who really love us. The groups are gradually enlarging through their giving Tapes & literature to their own relatives, friends, etc. They are really getting turned on & this way we get out a lot of our tools by encouraging them to spread the word about the KVs, Tapes, etc.
We teach quite a variety of different classes as we minister to our friends. It's good & very important to get the Word in when we contact or visit them, even if it's just a verse or two or a quote or two. Of course, ideally it's best to get right into the Word & have a good class on whatever is needed. Some people take time for classes, while others you just have to feed on the run, the best you can. It is a battle sometimes & you have to be quite desperate to find the key to their heart that day, even if you've only got a few minutes!
But even if they don't allow much time for feeding during the visits, the good news is that they like the DFs & are reading them in their spare time, TYJ! We use the DFs, Treasures, Bible, Word Basics (a lot), GP DM, Teen Videos, KVs with children, as well as flannelgraphs. The JETTs or OCs can give dynamite classes on Daniel 2, & other Chapters! Sometimes we may copy certain things that are GP or DFO & share them. The Raise 'em Right" & Marvellous Marriage" books are great too!
Another useful tool is our PR book, which is an album about 8 x 11 inches (21.5 cm x 28 cm), with maybe 10 or 20 clear folders with some pictures of our Work.--Pictures of the kids singing, pictures of witnessing, or of our schoolroom or other things to show that we really do have a Work going. We can show our kids singing at orphanages or old folks' homes or hospitals or whatever, & that really turns them on. It shows them that we're not a fly-by-night outfit.
Battle plans are quite fluid & things don't always go the way we expect as far as the classes we may want to give when visiting our friends. We have to be ready to give answers to their sincere questions from the Word, & He blesses it, as His Word never returns void! Endtime classes are always good. However, you do have to know your meat" or risk losing them. Prayerfulness is a real key to knowing what to feed to whom!
Sometimes we give people the GP DM & let them choose a topic of their choice to read under. That's fun & exciting because they chose it. If they only read their birthday & nothing else, though, that often whets their appetite & then they want to read more. There are all kinds of ways to feed them the Word, we just have to decide how in each case, PTL!
Sometimes the kids will sing a couple of songs & that really gets them going & helps their receptivity. The kids can really punch through to their hearts & then it's easier to determine what they need. TYL!
Battles & Victories In Teaching People to Give!
Q: What helped you to have the faith to ask people to help your Work? How do you teach people to give, without being too high-pressured?
A: We found that many sheep are quite ignorant of the fact that they should support the Lord's Work. It takes a lot of prayer, patience & work to help them not only read the Word, but to absorb it & understand it, to get the real Heavenly vision & heartfelt conviction to give to God. If they don't have the Word on giving, it's very hard for them to understand. We are teaching people how to give & eventually they should & do start giving monthly, over & above what they may give for Videos & Tapes.
Presenting the DF #15 on tithing was a battle initially, but the Lord gave us the victory! At first, it was a battle to even ask people to tithe. Actually, we just hadn't really been in the habit of challenging people to tithe, although we had been getting people to pledge. The Enemy really fought us & our realisation that we should get absolutely serious about convincing people to tithe!
After much prayer, counsel, brain-storming & Word studies on the subject of giving & tithing, we finally decided to send out DF #15 on giving to almost everyone we knew, along with our newsletter which contained some encouraging thoughts about the blessings of giving. We were a little bit like the guy crawling across the ice & then along came the horses with the load of pig-iron! Our faith was weak & wavering & we had little conviction, LHUs! But as soon as we sent out this mailing, we had such a peace as well as a lot of excited anticipation about the results. TYJ!
The Lord really blessed this mailing & it showed us a lot about where people were at, TYL! We found that just sending the mailing wasn't enough, & we then had to really go out & claim the land! Sharing the vision on giving helped to show us who really had some substance & depth. We did get a few people to tithe from it & quite a number of new pledgers, TYJ!
In teaching our people to give, we found that they all grow at different rates & we need to prayerfully discern where each person or family is at, especially with such a large variety of people, including many different nationalities. Timing has been an important factor also. But we found that when we were in tune with what was going on in people's lives & fed them properly, that person grew up a bit faster! They become on fire & sold out, according to our faithfulness with them.
On the other hand, we have people going through the DF course whom we are not able to always monitor very closely, however, the Word convicts them to give. It's amazing how people get certain DFs that reach out & touch them with exactly what they need for the moment. TYJ! The sincere milk (DFs) of the Wonder Working Words is doing marvellous miracles in people's lives, PTL!
We had one couple who got turned on to the idea of tithing & asked their pastor who they should tithe to. He said, To the ones who feed you the most spiritually!" TYJ! What a miracle! They started tithing to us over a year ago & their business has doubled! Others marvel how our friends' business has grown & they just answer that it's Jesus' blessing because they are tithing, PTL!
Many people don't know the difference in the blessing that they will receive for just giving an occasional gift, compared to pledging or tithing. Sometimes we suggest to people that they give regular giving or pledging a try, if not 10%, then perhaps 2% or 4% to start with. We suggest that they can then raise their pledge according to their faith until they are receiving His biggest blessing by tithing a full 10%.
People normally have no real in-depth concept of why they should give anything, but from having the Word on giving they begin to slowly understand why it's important to give to the Lord's Work. We have quite a number of faithful givers now who are excited & turned on to help & truly count it a privilege! We really do rob people of a big blessing by not challenging them to tithe!
How DFing Has Changed Our Home!
Increased fruitfulness
We never really started having any solid fruit until we began following up, & then our witnessing went from nothing but outreach, to almost solid, fulltime follow-up, with long-lasting fruit.
Easier to implement DTR
Having a fulltime DF Ministry which brings in the majority of our support has been a tremendous help & blessing to make it easier on us to implement the DTR & all the changes it brought along with it. Because of the fact that we have so many friends & contacts, we are able to do a lot of phone work & Mail Ministry, & make special arrangements for people to either send in their funds or make appointments for us to meet them, so that our financial needs were being met when we couldn't get a team out for one reason or another.
This was a real blessing compared to the pressure of being solely dependent on outreach for support, which often held us back from progressing in many different areas when there was such a great need financially. We had to believe that DFing & follow-up pays, & now we know that it does, TYL!
The excitement & lessons of pioneering
Just stepping out by faith, pioneering, & believing that we were obeying the Lord in launching our DF Attack--this challenge raised the inspirational level of our Home! It's not always an easy road, but the Lord promised that He would bless pioneering & He did! TYJ! Even to this day, now that we have some actual fruit & relatively good support, it is a wonderful life-changing experience for our whole Home, because as we continue on, we are learning so many beautiful lessons on being a faithful witness, as our DFing Ministry just gets deeper & deeper, & more & more exciting day by day! TYL! The blessings of the DF Ministry have been a big factor in the spiritual growth & unity of our Home, TYJ!
Learning to go for souls, not just sales
One thing that this DFing witnessing revolution has done for many of us here is that it has changed us from being just salesmen" into learning how to be deeper with people in our witness. Because DFing & follow-up is so closely linked with personal witnessing, it has caused a major witnessing explosion in accordance with what was written in Mama's Letters emphasising personal witnessing as an essential part of the DTR. It keeps all of us stirred up, including the JETTs & kids, GBT!
Good effect on our children!
Everyone has sacrificed & pitched in together to bear fruit in this ministry & the Lord has blessed all of us, including our precious children, who are able to see long-term fruit being cultivated & nurtured in Him. They've been able to closely follow the progress of many of our close DFers & see the resultant fruits as these friends are growing & doing more for Jesus! Seeing this has really influenced our kids' lives, to encourage & help them get totally involved in personal witnessing. PTL!
We're so thankful for the recent admonition from the Lord about getting out the meat of the Word," & the reminder that the time is short & we need to once again forsake all, take up our cross, & follow Jesus all the way! PTL! His Promises are so precious & encouraging, TYJ! DFing & follow-up work wonders! WLY! Hallelujah!
DFING & FOLLOW-UP TESTIMONIES!--FROM MICHAEL J.P., & DAWN V., NORTH AMERICA
Kids' Faith Reaches Heart of Top Judge!
We spent Christmas Day singing at old folks' homes & hospitals, & we had just finished a show for the homeless, when all of a sudden we got a burst of inspiration! We decided to try to sing for a billionaire who has been receiving a lot of static for buying so much land & property here!
Well, he wasn't home, so we couldn't see him. However, his home is in a very ritzy part of town right on the ocean, & next door was another fancy house where they were having a big formal Christmas party. As we were turning to leave, the JETTs & OCs, GB'em, said, Hey, let's crash the party & see if we can sing there!" Lord help us adults, as the day was getting on & tiredness was setting in! But the kids had the faith!
We were all dressed up in our Christmas outfits & the kids were on fire! So, in through the gate we went!--Down the sidewalk & around to the back door by the pool. As we came around the corner, everyone in the house could see us through the big plate glass windows, & we just didn't know what to expect, as it was a real high-class setting!
The hostess then came to the door & said, You must be Angels from Heaven who have come to sing for us!" Wow! Little did she know! We were in!
There were perhaps 75 people there--mostly older & very distinguished looking ladies & gents: Americans, Europeans, & Asians.--A real cross section of top people! TYL! We immediately set up in their huge living room overlooking the ocean, & did our Christmas show, which has a very beautiful & powerful message! The kids just belted it out, no holds barred, & those folks really got the whole message! We got tremendous applause & we could see that a number of the people had tears in their eyes, some actually crying. The Truth through song had everyone totally captivated & spellbound! PTL!
Immediately after the show, the hostess whisked us through the crowd to the back porch where all the food was & said, Please, make yourselves at home & enjoy our hospitality!" As we started serving ourselves, we were swarmed by all the people, who really liked us, & soon we had won 10 souls! TYJ!
One elderly Irish gent, P., age 60, was overwhelmed with emotion! The Lord's musical key" through the children's singing had changed his life, & he just totally fell in love with us. He said that he had never seen or heard anything like it & later told us that this occasion is what made his Christmas so special, & that he cherishes the memory of it greatly. TYL! He said that he is a lawyer & wanted to stay in close touch with us.
We talked with P. on the phone two or three times a week for about five weeks before we were actually able to see him, as he is a very busy man. But each time we talked with him, he was just so sincere & sweet, assuring us that he wanted to get together with us as soon as he had a free slot of time! When we were finally able to get together with him in his office, things clicked in the Spirit & we were able to really minister to him!
It was the day before P.'s birthday & he was quite sentimental & very lonely, having recently been divorced. Being very sincere, & searching in his own way, the Lord had been able to use the children to strike a chord in his heart that stuck with him. He kept saying, That Christmas day was so special for me, one which I will never forget!"
He has a four-year-old grandson whom he was going to spend his birthday with, which he was so happy about. We gave him a Wear a Great Big Smile" Video which he was very, very impressed with. He later told us his grandson couldn't stop watching it.
We really poured into P. & shared the Word with him, as well as telling him about our Work. We let him know we love him & that we needed him to get behind us & our Work! He offered us complete free legal services & also wants to support & back us in any way he can. TYJ! We found out shortly after that, that P. is one of the very top judges in this big city & is famous.--A very powerful man!
He was so love-starved & commented how it was so refreshing to talk with us, as we share things in a way which he has never known before. He is now a DFer & good friend! Please do keep him in your prayers! PTL! Thank the Lord for our dear JETTs & OCs who had Don Quixote faith to pioneer! GBT!
DFer Follows Our Sample of 2Tim.2:2 & Luk.14:33!
We met A. & A. almost three years ago, & they have always loved our Tapes, Videos, & literature. They were our first Treasure Hunters. Mr. A. used our DFs for Bible classes at his job during breaks! He's a real sweet, big, lovable teddy-bear-type man whom most anyone would find hard to resist.
We knew they really loved us, but recently after not seeing them for a few months, Mr. A. really let us know just how much! He told us how he admires us & our Work & that we have been a sample to him of real servants for the Lord! He excitedly told us that he had quit his job to devote more of his time to the Word, teaching others & training his own children, & how he is learning so much now because of it! He said we put the churches to shame as we really live as we preach!
He said he knows we have good fruit because he's seen the effect our materials have had on his own personal family. He also said, I have never found any children's materials as good as yours! They are just wonderful & the kids just love them too!" They gave us a donation & told us they really don't have any extra to give, but know that God wants them to help our Work as much as they possibly can. They, too, were learning about living more by faith! He told us he has a real burden to encourage other people to support our Work as well.
He commented that the Treasures book is his main teaching tool in his Bible classes! GBH! We actually have a number of other DFers who also use the Treasures for Sunday School, witnessing, etc. They all testify, There's nothing to compare to it!" PTL! TYJ!
Healing Miracle Wins Many!
One day we had the inspiration to call a couple who own a restaurant where the children sometimes sing. They are very precious, however, we hadn't had a chance to follow-up on them for quite some time. The husband told us to please come right away as his wife was in the hospital.
When we arrived & the kids sang for the people in the restaurant, the owner, our friend, was so touched & moved! He started crying & holding onto us & asked us to pray for his wife, who was in very critical condition in the hospital. We gathered together in a circle right in the middle of the restaurant & the kids prayed for his wife, as he wept! He cried out, Jesus, please help my wife!"
The next day, we went to visit her in the hospital to sing for her & we then desperately prayed for her again. We found out that the night before, right at the same time we had prayed for her, she had started to improve, & the next day after we had sung & prayed for her, she was totally healed. It was a total miracle to everyone at the hospital, as they really didn't think she was going to make it, TYJ!
Both of these precious friends were won & brought in closer through this healing! It was such a testimony to him, in particular, as he had been quite sceptical in the past, while she had been the real sheep. Hallelujah! Now they both really want to get behind us & the Lord's Work like never before! The restaurant workers had never seen their boss break & cry like that before. They were all amazed & they, too, were changed by the power of His Love! PTL!
Bread Contact Radically Changed by the Bread of Life!
We have a very inspiring testimony & lesson on having the faith & patience for the Word, via the DFs, to change hearts! Our bread contact, R., is the owner of a large wholesale bakery, & has been helping the Family now for over three years. He is a quiet type of personality & we found it difficult to get deep with him, at least for the first year & a half we knew him. Then around that time, we started to put many of our provisioning contacts on the DFs, by faith--to try to whet their appetite!
Well, thank the Lord for the tremendous change that the DFs caused in R.'s life! He's gone from being a rather distant contact" to a real sheep, who now loves & respects our Work so much that he even tells his workers & friends, These people are doing what we all should be doing! We're all chasing the mighty buck & neglecting our kids! These people have got it! We're the ones who are off centre!" He goes on & on, raving about our important Work, the beautiful sample of our children, etc. TTL!
It's been amazing to witness the changes in R.'s life with every DF mailing he receives. The lesson we learned from him is that the Word is powerful & there are plenty of sheep out there, who, when they hear the Truth that comes from the mouth of God's Prophet, are going to know the difference & come to life!
Top Lawyer Responds as We Sock It to Him with the Word!
We have a young friend, a top Jewish lawyer, who we have known for a couple of years. He was a bit of a rascal at first, but now really loves us & is completely sold on our Videos & Tapes. He helps us promote them in his office, where there are 170 other lawyers, & a staff of over 250, in one of the nicest office buildings in the downtown area.
He was into New Age" for awhile & it was hard to pin him down on anything; he was quite aloof! But about 10 months ago we had him over to our downtown apartment & watched 20 Minutes to Go" with him. We ended up having quite a sword fight in the Spirit with him over several different issues. We really delivered our souls to him & thought that we could have possibly lost him for sure!
A couple of weeks later, my mate & I bumped into him downtown, & he was so glad to see us. We started talking & I said, We thought you didn't love us any more!" I was kind of half-joking & half-serious, hoping to get a reaction. He laughed & then sincerely thanked us for telling him the truth like we did! He said he was really thankful, that no one had ever talked to him like that before about absolute Truths & that it really changed his life from that day on, TYL!
About a week later he started helping us quite substantially & on a fairly regular basis, whereas before he would only perhaps buy a Video or Tape, with nothing extra for the Lord's Work. Now for the second straight Christmas, he has had the kids' show group sing on all five floors of his office building, promoting our Videos & Tapes. TYL! His Word never returns void!
Many other souls have also been won as a result of faithful follow-up with this man, both personally & through the mail. He's really starting to change, becoming very sweet! He has also offered to help us legally any way that he can. GBH! Patience takes faith! PG!
The Lord Answers Prayer for Our Friends
One elderly couple have been DFers for almost the entire two years that we've known them. They're real sweet & faithful & are very diligent in their monthly pledges. They help pretty much whenever we ask them, & even though it's not a large amount, they've been faithful to give what they could, which we appreciate & know God will bless them for! They really love us & are turned on to the Word.
The husband had been working on getting a multi-million dollar loan of some sort. As it turned out, while the kids were singing to him one day, he received the phone call saying that the loan had come through & that he would be receiving the funds shortly. For the past two years he had been waiting for these funds! He had always told us that he wanted to really support our Work & be a greater blessing to us, & then after the phone call, he told the kids that they were God's children & that he knew that it was God's Will for him to support our Work more fully! GBH!
Our Friends Blessed by Giving!
One of our DFing families testified to us & others that the Lord does truly bless tithing. In the past year since they started tithing, their income from their business actually doubled. Their particular type of business had slowed down significantly since the Gulf War, except in their case, as their private business doubled in income!--A real testimony that the Lord blesses putting Him first by tithing!
Another of our DFers, who is also a faithful supporter, says, I find that when I miss my time with you, things don't always go very smoothly at work." However, when he does spend time with us--even though he may be quite busy--the Lord starts blessing him & his business, almost from the moment he says, Yes!" He now realises the importance of taking time for the Lord & the Word.
This has happened quite a number of times with him & he has been actually amazed at the Lord's blessing! For example, once while we were feeding him in his office, he received a phone call telling him that his shipment of essential car parts, which had been over a month late, had arrived & was at the docks!
Another time he had been hoping to offer us a donation, but as he had received virtually nothing all day, he had nothing to give. But while we were there ministering to him, a number of people came in who either owed or had owed him money for quite some time, & they paid him!
There was also the time when his sister, who was a Buddhist, was at the shop with us, & we ended up leading her to the Lord. He was just so happy & amazed!--He had been trying to witness to her for a couple of years, but she wouldn't listen. This man really loves the Lord & is a very cheerful giver, & he really believes that all these little miracles" are a result of his putting Jesus first!
We have another faithful DFer who is a faithful supporter, & testifies that his business is booming. He was in the used carpet business when we first met him, but is now dealing in both new & old carpets, floor tiles, drapes, etc!--And very successfully so! He has been substantially expanding, & is about to open up another branch! He knows it's a result of faithfully supporting the Lord's Work!
Please remember these precious friends in your prayers! And don't forget to follow-up on yours! TYJ! n
From Ahlai (of James), North America:
It's amazing how simple DFing really is & how any Home that loves to witness can do it. I wonder if the formidable term DF Home" gets in the way of our Family Members relating to the simplicity of DFing, as it seems some get this nebulous idea that you need special" PR people & a fancy Home or presentation which isn't the case at all. You just visit your provisioning contacts, or if you don't have any, visit your Tape & Video recipients.--Love them up, read the Word, & watch God work! He really comes into their lives, & week by week you watch them changing & growing. It's very exciting & anyone can do it--and we all should now before the night cometh when no man can work"! Often we can be reluctant to try, & we just need to cross the bridge from our fears to the reality of the blessing.
(Note from Mama: Yes, we do want all our Homes to DF, so why not stop singling out only certain Homes as DF Homes"? Every Home should be using the DFs & ministering to their friends & contacts. Let's call those who are majoring on follow-up Spearhead* Homes, OK?--Because they have been leading the way in follow-up, & setting an example for the rest of the Family in their witnessing! TYL!
(*spearhead: person or group that leads, or strongly influences an action.)

Copyright 1996 The Family