Dad
April 4, 2003
—What we need to know! The "VOLSTAT" LetterDFO11211/11/81
Dear Family:
GIJPN! GBY for all your wonderful work! well praise the Lord!
1. WE HAVE GREATLY CONDENSED & SIMPLIFIED THE TRFs both for the benefit of the Family as well as for our stats sake, & as you can see from copies already received we designed the TRFs & Stat Sheets both in such a way that they fit each other & should make it very simple & much easier to transfer the Stats from the TRFs to our Stats Sheets & we certainly hope that we find it so & that the November 1st stats will be the last that we'll have to dig for through the old Forms. However‚ we do want you to
2. KEEP THE DECEMBER 1ST STATS ON YOUR NEW REVISED TRFS which we designed & put in Mag 44 & which we hope we can use as is without any further trouble. However, if we're going to get the best out of this new statting system, you'd better use the new Revised TRFs or you're not going to be very much help to us.
3. WE DESIGNED OUR STATS SHEETS TO FIT YOUR TRFs so that all we have to do is put the edge of the TRF against the line of our Stat Sheet so that your lines coincide, & transfer each stat from the square or space on the TRF directly onto the equivalent space on our Stat Sheet.
4. WE'LL SIMPLY FOLD YOUR TRF ALONG THE LINE just below YOUR line of stats so we can hold your line of stats directly above OUR line of spaces for these stats & simply copy directly onto our Stat Sheet whatever is on each space above on your TRF into our equivalent space below on our Stat Sheet. This way we don't even have to read the designations or anything, it's merely a matter of copying the stats from one line to another.—So be sure they're in the right spaces! In fact we made the TRFs & the Stat Sheets identical, the one from the other, exactly the same.
5. HERE'S HOW WE PLAN TO ANALYSE & SUMMARISE YOUR VOLUNTARY STATS so we can share them with the Family as soon as possible to help you dear Families who are preparing to move South but don't know exactly where to go or where you can AFFORD to go or where there are accommodations available where you CAN go.
6. TAKE YOUR VOLUNTARY TRF & FOLLOW ME GROUP BY GROUP AS I EXPLAIN HOW WE PLAN TO TOTAL, SUMMARISE‚ ANALYSE ETC. In the top left corner of your Voluntary TRF you'll find the first group of stats is on HOUSING with merely a check mark or tick on one of the boxes below one of the specifics as to the type of housing you are presently living in such as House, Apartment, Caravan, Camper, Tent etc. Now this of course has bearing on the type of accommodation you may or may not have for OTHER Families coming into your area as well as tell us what kind of housing our entire Family has.
7. WHEN WE ARE FINISHED TRANSFERRING ALL THESE TICKS FROM YOUR TRFs TO OUR STAT SHEETS we'll be able to count them up & total them to show how many in each country live in houses‚ how many in apartments etc., so when all the stats are finally assembled by World Services we'll be able to know exactly how many of our Families live in each of these types of housing, which of course will be of considerable interest to you all as well as to tell you in each individual case what type of housing you're offering to SHARE accommodations in, if any.
8. EACH GROUP OF STATS IS SEPARATED FROM THE OTHERS BY VERY HEAVY BLACK LINES, black lines to keep them well-identified from each other & also to make sure that we don't confuse our stats if our paper slips a bit. We'll know by our heavy black lines whether we're on target or not & whether we're synced with the right item.
9. IN THE SECOND GROUP OF STATS WE WANT TO KNOW WHETHER YOUR HOUSING IS FREE OR IF IT'S OWNED OR RENTED & FOR HOW MUCH A MONTH IN $US & whether your housing is FULLY furnished or PARTLY furnished or Unfurnished. These are all just tick boxes except for the center one which asks for how much RENT you pay per month in equivalent $US or actual $US. From the ticked boxes we will be able to sum up how many of our people live in FREE housing, how many OWN your own homes, how many RENT & if you rented the house fully furnished, partly furnished or unfurnished.
10. FROM THIS WE WILL ABLE TO PRESENT YOU WITH STATISTICS ON HOW RENTS RANGE within a certain country for various types of housing from your OWN rent, in case you don't know anything about OTHER people's rent or other housing, even if you are unable to answer the later questions regarding the general average rental for various types of housing which comes in a later group of stats. At least you know your OWN & we will be able, from your group of Homes themselves in that particular country who are reporting, to at least be able to tell approximately what kind of houses are renting for how much & even more specifically from the group of stats on the various size houses asked about later in the later group of stats further down the page. So in this second group of stats we'll simply total the number of ticks, so when we get through with all of your TRFs we'll know the number of our Homes who have what housing. Then we'll total the rents paid & divide by the number of Homes paying these rents‚ & we'll get the AVERAGE rent our Homes pay in each country, & our range from the lowest to the highest.
11. THEN IN THE THIRD GROUP OF STATS WE HAVE YOU OFFERING ACCOMMODATIONS TO VISITORS or visiting Family members, what KIND of accommodations you have & how LONG you can accommodate such guests, including the NUMBER of persons you can house & for how long, whether one day, two or three days, one week, one month or longer—& each of these requires only a tick except for the number of persons space & the last space which asks for now much you would expect in remuneration per person per day for such housing.
12. SO WITH THE THIRD GROUP OF STATS WE WOULD LIKE TO KNOW first of all exactly or approximately what are the total number of persons that particular country could offer accommodations for in our FAMILY HOMES there right now even without Reception Centres‚ & for only one day or two or three days, one week, one month or longer?
13. SO AT THE BOTTOM OF YOUR COLUMN OF STATS WE'LL SIMPLY ADD UP THE TOTALS, the total number of persons in the first column, the total number of ticks in the next five or six columns, & finally in the last column all the amounts listed, & divide by the number of Homes giving those figures & we will find out what will be the AVERAGE donation that a Family can expect to give per day per person in our own Family Homes of your particular country.
14. NEXT IN THE FOURTH GROUP OF STATS IS OBVIOUSLY INFORMATION FOR CAMPERS & whether you have space for caravans or tents & how many & what type of persons you can accommodate, whether adults &/or children, & for how many days or weeks, whether free or for a small gift per day per person, whether with or without meals & how much that would cost each Family per day per person.
15. SO IN THIS FOURTH GROUP OF STATS WE WILL SIMPLY ADD THE NUMBER OF HOMES WHO HAVE SPACES FOR CARAVANS &/OR TENTS, the total number of adults &/or kids you can accommodate, & for how many days. We'll total up the number of DAYS & strike an AVERAGE by dividing the total by the number of figures given, or the number of WEEKS you can accommodate a camper & divide that total by the number of figures given to get the average length of stay that's available in your country for campers in either days or weeks. When we've averaged each of these up, we could also give you their RANGE, from what figure to what figure‚ from such-&–such a low figure to such-&-such a high figure, to give you the whole sweep of possible camping costs at our own Family Homes.
16. THE FIFTH GROUP OF STATS IS FOR THE COST OF NEAR OR FAR SYSTEM CAMPING OR CAMPGROUNDS, are you NEAR town or are you quite a ways OUT, & how much space is there by the day or by the week in dollars. Again we'll AVERAGE up these amounts in each category to give you a DAILY average or WEEKLY price, plus the RANGE of those prices from how low to how high. We don't want to have to publish whole lists of ALL of them, so we're trying to simplify & condense our report to you on the TOTALS & the AVERAGES & the RANGES.
17. THE SAME GOES FOR THE SIXTH GROUP OF STATS UNDER "ROOMS". This is of course supposed to apply to SYSTEM ROOMS since we've already asked about what accommodations you have in our won Family Homes. We'll total up from the figures you give, if any, what a room for TWO costs per day in that area, or a room for FOUR or a room for SIX, etc., followed by how much for BREAKFAST‚ how much for HALF BOARD, which is two meals a day‚ & how much for FULL BOARD, three meals a day, just like the tourist tour brochures tell us this information regarding THEIR accommodations.
18. WE'LL TOTAL THESE UP & GIVE YOU THE AVERAGES & THE RANGES IN EACH CATEGORY: The rooms according to how much they are WITHOUT meals, & then how much per person per day WITH meals. I'm sure we'll have a few kinks in these stats we'll have to iron out later when we find out we didn't make it specific enough, but we're trying. GBY! At least this will give you some idea of what the score is in each of these countries, particularly those the Family is interested is going to from the North to the South.
19. NEXT CATEGORY IS APARTMENTS, NUMBER SEVEN: We want to know how much apartments cost in that area, two or three bedroom apartments, furnished or unfurnished. We'll TOTAL these rentals, AVERAGE them & give you the RANGE from bottom to top, the low extreme first & the top extreme second. In other words in our report to you we'll say, "Two or three bedroom apartments in this country or this city AVERAGE so much & RANGE from such to such."—The lowest rent to the highest rent.
20. WE'LL DO THE SAME FOR HOUSES IN THE EIGHTH GROUP divided into two categories, two & three bedroom houses & the larger four to six bedroom houses, how much each of these costs per month either furnished or unfurnished‚ ADD UP all the rentals reported in each category, AVERAGE them & give you the RANGE.
21. IN GROUP NINE‚ PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION, YOU WILL SIMPLY CHECK THE BOXES as to whether good or poor & fill in the cost in cents per person per trip from a Home to the heart of the city, We'll ADD UP the number who have GOOD transportation & the number who have POOR, & what the AVERAGE FARE is as well as its RANGE from low to high‚ from the lowest figure to the highest figure.
22. OF COURSE IF WE COULD BREAK THESE STATS DOWN TO ACTUAL CITIES THIS WOULD BE EVEN MORE HELPFUL TO THE FAMILY in selecting your target, but this may be too complicated & require too much work for this first report, so I suggest we just go it country-by-country & that'll be sufficient for now.
23. NEXT GROUP, NUMBER 10, YOUR VEHICLE‚ meaning of course that you check what type of vehicle you have, & we've only listed three principal types which could possibly carry passengers or luggage: SEDAN, STATION WAGON or TRUCK. If you have anything similar to those you can check whatever box applies & we'll add up how many have sedans, how many have station wagons, how many have trucks etc. And then you are to place in the next column the number of PASSENGERS your vehicle can haul, & I think from that total probably the most helpful stat would be possibly to give you the AVERAGE number of passengers each Family Home's transportation can accommodate, although this actually was intended to give you a specific figure for each Home that is available for furnishing transportation for any persons wanting to go to that specific city or Home.
24. IN THE 11TH COLOUMN, WHAT WOULD BE THE AVERAGE DONATION EXPECTED TO COVER YOUR COST FOR A ROUND TRIP that you would have to make from your Home to pick us up in your port or airport & bring us home again. In other words, what this trip would cost you, what each round trip from your Home to the port or airport & back would cost in your vehicle regardless of the number of passengers or baggage carried.
25. AND IN THE FINAL TWO COLUMNS OF THIS HOME VEHICLE GROUP 10 you are to check the boxes as to whether you want ADVANCE NOTICE or whether the Family can simply PHONE YOU ON ARRIVAL to come pick them up. I had hoped to have even more specific information on some of these subjects such as HOW MUCH advance notice etc., but we just didn't have room in such a small space. So I thought it was best to get the main ideas as to whether you're requiring advance notice at all or not.
26. ACTUALLY IN SUCH CASES IF YOU REQUIRE ADVANCE NOTICE the inquiring Family should write you anyhow when they've written in for your address & selected your price range etc. They'll no doubt write that particular Family or those Families in which they're interested in either transportation or accommodation & they'll get more specific information along that line when they write.
27. FINAL GROUP IN THIS TOP ROW OF YOUR VOLUNTARY STATS IS "CAN SUPPLY GOODS". We want to know whether there are Homes or Border Bases or Reception Centres who can help our Folks obtain supplies or needs, & whether you would need to send that Home ALL the money necessary to buy those supplies or at least PART of it, or if the Home is so rich that you can offer to supply them FREE or you're doing such a good job provisioning you'll TRY to procure these supplies free. And of course in writing to you specifically then they can find out whether you will be able to merely store these supplies for the missionary to come & PICK UP, or whether you will be able to SHIP them in to them etc. Details you can get on some of these later when you write to the specific Homes in which you're interested or for these specific needs in which you're interested.
28. IN ROW TWO OF YOUR VOLUNTARY STATS notice the first column asks for the average amount of dollars per month for the COST OF LIVING for a family of four or six people, which is about average. Here we'll again AVERAGE them up, what's the average cost per Family per month in that country, & from what RANGE to what range, low to high figure.
29. THE NEXT GROUP OF STATS ARE REGARDING THE MINISTRIES & SUPPORTERS available in that particular area. First is street litnessing & you're to check the box appropriate whether it's good, poor or impossible. Busking, good‚ poor or impossible. Door–to-door: Good, poor or impossible etc. So we'll get a fairly general overall survey of how many Homes in the area think these various ministries are either good, poor or impossible.
30. AND IN OUR TOTALING FOR YOU we will simply total up the number of Homes for example who think street litnessing in your area is good, how many Homes think it's poor & how many Homes think it's impossible—& the same with each of these other ministries &/or supporters.
31. IN THE THIRD GROUP UNDER STAFFED WE WANT TO KNOW HOW WELL EACH AREA IS STAFFED or under-staffed, both in that Home's particular city or in other cities in the country. Each of these Homes will give you their opinion on the situation in their OWN CITY & what their opinion is on the situation in OTHER CITIES in the country. Again you only need to tick the boxes as to whether you're over-staffed, have enough or you need staff, or in other words need more Family in that particular city or other cities. We will total up how many Homes think YOUR CITY is OVER-STAFFED, how many think it's got ENOUGH & how many think it NEEDS MORE; & then what your opinion is of the OTHER CITIES, whether you think the other cities outside of yours are over—staffed, have enough or need more. I can imagine pretty much what your answers are going to be there. If you think your own town is either over-staffed or has enough you're going to check I'm sure for the other cities that THEY need more, ha! Anyhow, we should be able to get a fairly good picture of the Family's opinion in that country as to what the situation is regarding the staffing & what cities to avoid & what cities to aim at.
32. THE FOURTH GROUP ON FELLOWSHIP: The first section has to do with the LAFs, & each Home will report in the first column what DAY OF THE WEEK your LAF meets, & the next column what type of PLACE you meet in, then the average NUMBER who come, & next you will check that if you have a VIDEO, you will not check it if you don't of course, if you don't have a video available, & in the last column you simply insert your LAS's name or names if you can squeeze'm in. This will facilitate our writing directly to your new LAF Shepherd for we will have his name & address in our own files or we will have it in your files in case we need to correspond with him in regard to any of your needs in that area such as joining the IVY League for the videos or Circulating Video Libraries.
33. YOU WILL REPORT WHICH DAY OF THE WEEK MOST OF THE LAFS MEET, what's the NEXT largest group of Homes that meets on that OTHER day of the week, & then the THIRD largest group meets on what day. Give us the TOP THREE MOST POPULAR DAYS of the week that your LAFs meet in your country‚ & the same with the type of PLACES you meet, the top three most popular meeting places, whether Homes, cafes‚ parks etc.
34. I'M VERY CURIOUS TO KNOW ABOUT SOME OF THESE STATS so please do your best to give us the full picture as much as you can within human limitations of time, strength & space. In the next column you list HOW MANY COME on an average to each meeting & we can total up the whole total of who come to LAFs in that area in that country, how many come, the TOTAL number who attend LAFs, the AVERAGE number who attend each LAF & how you RANGE—from what low figure of attendance to what high figure of attendance. Then we can tell how many have VIDEOS from the check marks in the next column, & in the next we need you to list the Shepherds' names of your LAF. From that we can find his particulars & address & phone number etc. from our own file.
35. NEXT CATEGORY IS DAFs: What WEEKEND OF THE MONTH your Home's particular DAF meets on, because it normally will be only once a month, whether it's the first weekend‚ second weekend, third weekend‚ fourth or fifth, etc. which will probably be the usual custom‚ to set a certain weekend of the month on which to meet‚ the same weekend each month, of course with exceptions. And on the next column what type of PLACE your DAF usually meets in, & we will let you know which kind of places are most popular with the Homes in that country, at least the top three, for their DAF meetings.
36. NEXT COLUMN ASKS THE APPROXIMATE NUMBER WHO COME TO THE DAFMs, you will have listed how many come to each & we will simply total up the total number who come & average it out to give you the AVERAGE attendance of the DAFs in that country, & from the low to the high, the RANGE. Next column we'll add up the check marks to see how many DAFs have VIDEOS, & in the last column on DAFs list the Shepherd's name & city so that we can locate him in our files for further correspondence. GBY! And thanks a lot!
37. DO THE SAME WITH THE OTHER TWO AREA FELLOWSHIPS, THE GAFs & NAFs: GAFs will normally only meet once a QUARTER, & we'll need to know what weekend of the Quarter it is, so you could have any one of 12 or 13 weekends listed. Normally I would suggest to most Homes that you make it the FIRST or LAST weekend of the Quarter. The following column is for the Shepherd's name & city for our use, & we will need the Shepherd's name & city of each GAF that we have listed. It is possible that there may be SEVERAL LAFs IN THE SAME CITY for example, but very unlikely that there will be more than ONE DAF IN THAT CITY at which several LAFs meet, & of course a GAF will probably include SEVERAL CITIES & finally the NAF will include the WHOLE COUNTRY.
38. NAF MEETINGS ARE TO BE EITHER YEARLY OR SEMI-YEARLY, so you're to check either one of those boxes, whether your NAF has or plans to have either YEARLY or SEMI-YEARLY meetings‚ what type of PLACE you meet in‚ the approximate NUMBER who either attend or you hope to attend your NAF, whether or not you have a VIDEO, & whether or not you have a video CAMERA for taking videos in your country as well as at your NAF, along with the last column for the Shepherd's name & city of that NAF of that country so we can find him & correspond with him.
39. OUR HOMES, OF COURSE, ARE IN A GREAT STATE OF FLUX RIGHT NOW & just getting organised so I'm sure that virtually all of them have by this time organised your local LAFs, several Homes in a specific town or city; quite a few have already gotten your DAFs organised as well, which is probably COUNTY-WIDE, a GROUP of LAFs; or STATE-WIDE GAFs. Some have even gotten as far as a NAF in your country already, & we would like to know just how far you have gotten in that country in each case, the times you usually meet, the places, how many come, how many have videos, etc.
40. FROM THESE FELLOWSHIP STATS WE WILL FIND OUT the most popular DAYS or WEEKENDS of the Week, Month or Quarter that the Homes in that country like to meet, what most popular types of places you meet in, approximately the average number of people at each meeting, who has videos & who doesn't as well as the Shepherd's name & city from which we can find his address‚ we hope. Of course everybody's moving around so fast now that it's sometimes a little hard to keep up with them, but I think if you give us just his name & his city, we'll probably be able to find his address in our file. If not‚ we can always let you know & you can let us know exactly from your file. Well, praise the Lord, that's it!
41. THAT'S WHAT WE WANT TO KNOW FROM YOUR VOLUNTARY STATS ON EACH COUNTRY. We'll divide them according to countries & categories & each item etc. And generally speaking, having gone over all of these I would simply say as a general rule we will add up the number of ticks in each category or column for that particular item & tell you THE TOTALS OF THE TICKS UNDER EACH ITEM IN EACH COUNTRY as we've already specified.
42. WE WILL AVERAGE THE COST OF EACH ITEM specified & give you the RANGE OF THOSE COSTS from the low figure to the high figure. We'll be telling you exactly what KIND OF ACCOMMODATING those HOMES in that country have to offer, HOW MANY they can accommodate for how long & for how much, as well as the SYSTEM ACCOMMODATIONS for how much per day per person.
43. WE'LL AVERAGE THESE UP IN EACH CATEGORY & GIVE YOU THE LOW & HIGH FIGURES of the RANGE, what the both public & private TRANSPORTATION has to offer & its cost, the availability & cost of SUPPLIES, the average LIVING COST for a Family in each country & its range‚ the condition of the MINISTRIES & SUPPORTERS in each country & its STAFFING & finally its FELLOWSHIPS data. All of this will be very useful information to you as well as very helpful to our Families who are planning to move or visit other countries‚ especially those moving South.
44. WE'LL BE PARTICULARLY INTERESTED IN THESE STATISTICS FROM THE SOUTHERN SAFER AREAS which may help to guide coming Families as to whether the door is open to you or not, according to how much money you have or how much support you expect to have & what kind of accommodations you need & what is available & what is not. That's one of the ways of finding God's will, by the open & shut doors & conditions, etc. And usually all the "Seven Ways" (See No.829) have to fit together or it just doesn't work.
45. SO YOU'LL SIMPLY HAVE TO FIND OUT WHAT COUNTRIES HAVE TO OFFER WHAT, which seem to offer the best ACCOMMODATIONS & TRANSPORTATION & COSTS for you, as well as MINISTRIES suitable to your talents, plus letting you know how the FELLOWSHIPS are progressing‚ & even letting our Families know just how much fellowship there IS in that country or city.
46. WELL, I HOPE I MADE THIS CLEAR‚ I've explained it the best I know how & possibly in too great detail, but I want to make sure we get it right. I'm sorry we couldn't get the new very simplified REVISED TRFs to the Family in time for your November 1st Reports, which would've greatly helped us in this time when we need these stats the most & right away. But we'll at least be getting them from now on from DECEMBER 1ST TRFs & after, D.V., the REVISED TRFs which fit our own new Stats Sheets.
47. SO WE HOPE THIS MAKES IT MUCH EASIER FOR YOU & SIMPLER & CLEARER & QUICKER & less brain strain, & you can blame'm on MY brainstorm if you don't like'm, or thank me if you do, me & the Lord & our little staff, GB'M! And God bless yours as well as we endeavour to learn how to use these new TRFs & Stat Sheets & how to present you with the results. We'll learn a lot as we go along so don't worry about a few mistakes. We're just trying to get the general overall picture anyway, & we can't expect it to be perfect or every stat exact. Every state is really general anyhow & only God knows the specific facts, not necessarily even our Family, so don't worry too much about exactitudes. We're just trying to get a general picture of the overall situation of the usual conditions in each area.
48. SO JUST DO THE BEST YOU CAN to furnish us with as much information as you can as simplified & boiled down as possible so we can get a pretty good picture of each country's conditions along these lines, & I'm sure these will be a great help to our migrating Families to give them at least some idea of what they're about to get into, or even what NOT to get into, & I'm sure will be of very helpful assistance to them in at least helping to guide them in the right directions according to their own personal talents, ministries & financial conditions, size of our Families‚ etc., so as to know what countries you CAN go to & what countries you CAN'T go to‚ & where you can expect to get immediate accommodation for what price you can afford so you'll know the general cost of living & situation according to your own personal Family situation. Having picked out the countries to which it sounds like you might be able to go,
49. THEN YOU'LL HAVE TO PRAY TO ASK GOD FOR OTHER INDICATIONS as to which specific one of these HE wants you to go to.—And who knows? It might even be one you thought you COULDN'T go to! Because conditions & open & shut doors are not ALWAYS the FINAL criteria or answer to the will of God, because HE'S able to open doors that we didn't expect to be opened & He's able to CHANGE conditions or YOUR conditions to suit His will. If our choice according to natural expectations is incorrect as far as He's concerned, He can therefore change our minds & change our course & change our target, our goal, according to what HE knows is best, for after all, only God knows!
50. SO MAY YOU FOR GOD'S SAKE FOLLOW GOD & NOT JUST THESE NATURAL CONDITIONS ONLY! But I would say these have a very strong bearing on what may be the will of God for you particularly according to your ministries & your talents as well as your financial limitations etc. So at the very least we hope that these stats will be a help to you even if you have already selected your target country & made your preparations to go there, at least you'll know pretty much what to expect when you GET there & perhaps be better prepared for it, as well as to know possibly where you can land at least temporarily, & approximately what it's going to cost you to get situated & eventually settled in your new home.
51. SO THE SOONER YOU CAN GET US A REPORT ON THESE STATS THE BETTER & the more we'll appreciate it & the more the Family will thank you for it, because I'm sure you will be a great help to them. We'll have to take'm from the OLD New TRF this first month of November, but D.V. we had the new REVISED TRFs‚ both Required & Voluntary, in the NEXT Magazine which you should've received before DECEMBER 1ST, so that your December 1st TRFs will correspond exactly to our STAT SHEETS that we've already sent your CRO. We hope you will be able to make good use of the new TRFs & find them a great help as well & make your task easier & your load lighter & all of us even more effective, with their results even more helpful to us all.
52. SO MAY THE LORD BLESS & KEEP YOU & HELP YOU TO FIGURE THESE OUT & use them in the best way possible in the shortest possible time, & please get us back those general stats as quickly as you can, both Required & Voluntary Stats, as we have suggested to you in the general form that we have outlined for you to report them to us in.
53. BY THE TIME YOU GET THIS LENGTHY LETTER WE TRUST YOU WILL HAVE ALREADY RECEIVED THE MAGAZINE summing up some of this information for our immediate use as we begin to total & summarise & analyse these new November 1st Voluntary Stats in particular, & how we want them presented back to you in return, some even for possible publication in the following Magazine, D.V., to give the whole Family worldwide an idea of what the situations are in each country along these lines. I think it'll be of extreme interest to some of you, &
54. IT MAY BE THE TINY FINGER ON THE SCALE WHICH MAY TIP IN THE FAVOUR OF ENCOURAGING YOU TO LEAVE THE DANGEROUS NORTH & MOVE TO THE SAFER SOUTH by no longer having to leap in the dark & the unknown, for which some have a great fear & I don't much blame them! But now you will have a clearer picture of what is to be expected in each area & thereby these'll possibly help to determine which direction you will plan to go. Most of all it may encourage you that maybe it's not as bad as you expected or thought, & that it can even look possible for YOU as well as the early pioneers who struck out in blind faith toward totally unknown goals across uncharted seas!
55. GOD BLESS THEM & THANK GOD HE'S TAKING CARE OF THEM & most of them are doing beautifully already‚ those who've already gone. But NOW we want to help those who HAVEN'T left yet to know where YOU can most likely go, & thereby to encourage YOU to do the same, as well as telling those already on the field of perhaps even BETTER fields more suitable for them, who perhaps have landed in a country which is not quite as suitable for your particular ministry or financial condition.
56. SO I THINK THESE STATS ARE GOING TO BE A REALLY BIG HELP & we certainly thank you for being willing to sum them up for us. Please, you LIMs & CROs get your summaries in as quickly as possible so that World Services can give us the WORLDWIDE picture as soon as they can. We many even be able to get enough out of your NOVEMBER summaries of the Voluntary Stats to report at least a PARTIAL picture to the Family, & then from the DECEMBER 1ST stats an even MORE complete picture we hope.
57. AND ONCE A HOME HAS FILLED OUT ONE OF THESE VOLUNTARY TRFS YOU'RE EXPECTED TO FILL IT OUT AGAIN unless you change locations or conditions change drastically in your area. So we won't be getting one of these Voluntary TRFs from each Home every time. But when we do, we can check & see if it has any ADDED information or a CHANGE of information, & perhaps we can incorporate that into our next updated Summary. During this state of flux & change & many Families moving & finding out more & more information about these countries as you go,
58. WE WOULD LIKE TO HAVE YOU MAKE US OUT A VOLUNTARY TRF AT LEAST ONCE EVERY QUARTER for these first few Quarters of the major migration of this second Great Escape. So perhaps after receiving these first Voluntary TRFs from November 1st &/or December 1st of which we will receive the summaries in December or January, we can request that each Home send in a Voluntary TRF at the end of each calendar QUARTER thereafter, such as at the end of the March, June, September & December, & then we will only need to make you up a summary after the end of each Quarter. And maybe we'll do that only for the first YEAR of these new Voluntary TRFs. After that, when the Second Great Escape has pretty well taken place & simmered down, we may not need to even have them that often, maybe only once every year or half–year‚ if we are still here!—
59. LIKE WE DID THE HOME CONDITIONS STATS, WE AT LEAST PRODDED OUR HOMES TO RAISE YOUR STANDARDS OF LIVING by telling you what you needed & how you should live & what you should have‚ & as you finally became aware of your needs & your lacks, most of you greatly improved, until we had no further need to have such specifics as often, & we only ask for those now once a year.
60. SO WE'RE PUTTING THE VOLUNTARY TRF IN WITH THE MAGAZINES BOTH IN OCTOBER & NOVEMBER—the OLD-style was in MAG 42 before NOVEMBER 1ST, & you'll get the NEW REVISED TRFs in your November Magazine before (D.V.) DECEMBER 1, so that you can use that in your December 1st Reports, both Required & Voluntary TRFs. In case you missed the first one you can get the second one, & depending on how your stats go & how well they come in & how fully we summaries them with a clearer picture of each country, this will guide us as to whether we need to put another Voluntary TRF in the NEXT month's Issue or not.
61. FROM THEN ON WE WILL PUT IN THE VOLUNTARY TRF EACH TIME WE THINK WE NEED TO renew our survey of these particular stats‚ which will probably be only once a Quarter, & will thereby come out in the last month of each calendar Quarter for sending in on the First of the following Quarter. So you can prepare yourselves accordingly.
62. I KNOW IT'S ALWAYS DIFFICULT TO LEARN A NEW SYSTEM, a new job or even to get used to a new place, but we're a Revolution, pilgrims & strangers, constantly changing, constantly improving trying to better ourselves & our ministry. So it pays to make helpful changes even thought they may be somewhat difficult to learn sometimes. I know I get better packed with every move WE make!—And we always seem to move into a better place than we had last time!
63. SO LET'S HOPE YOUR STATS WILL BE BETTER PACKED these next few times so that they'll keep gettin' better & better all the time! GBY!—As well as easier & easier on us & more & more helpful to you & your Families. And if YOU think YOU'VE got it tough, just remember WE had to MAKE OUT these Forms & figure you how to arrange them to begin with! All YOU have to do is give us the ANSWERS, WE had to figure out the QUESTIONS! Ha!
64. SO TAKE HEART‚ THINGS COULD BE WORSE & probably will be before too long the way the World's going. But the faster it gets worse the sooner it's going to get better! PTL! So keep lookin' up‚ GBY, & we'll try to help you all we can. We'll be lookin' for your stats, & we hope as a result everything will be looking up & better & brighter henceforth! Ha! And if YOU think YOU'VE got it tough, pity US! We not only had to figure out the questions & the Stat Sheets & the new Revised TRFs & revised everything but,
65. WE'RE ALSO IN OUR WORLD SERVICE UNITS NOW LEARNING A WHOLE NEW COMPUTERISED SYSTEM of both writing Letters & correcting them & forming them in new formats & new ways, as well as new office filling system etc. with the latest in micro-mini computers, the famous new Apples!—And I'm not talking about the one Eve picked off the tree but the one we've picked off the System, & it sure is a fruit of knowledge & mostly good, TTL!
66. IT PROMISES TO CUT OUR MECHANICAL WORK IN HALF by reducing the amount of typing our scarce typist have to do & making our job much simpler & easier in the long run‚ like we're trying to make yours, but through a similar new learning method which takes a little time & difficulty & hard work to learn how to use in the first place. But it's already cutting down our time in finalising the Letters & transferring them to print for publication, so that you'll receive them even sooner than before & fresher & really news while they're still news & not just history!
67. SO PLEASE PRAY FOR US AN WE TRY TO LEARN THIS WHOLE NEW SYSTEM OF COMPUTERISATION! We found the Apple is the apple of our eye & the best in micro–mini computers, the lightest & most portable to begin with & can be carried in backpack or rucksack or shoulder bag right on the plane with us! So it's very helpful to us who move so often. The main unit itself is no larger than a portable electric typewriter, plus a few components which are also very small & easily transported, & which can do things faster & easier than our typists have ever been able to do them before, such as Letters, labels & mailing lists & various other kinds of office work, possibly even including our STATS if we should come to the point where our office needs one!
68. THE APPLE'S ALSO THE MOST CAPABLE OF THE SMALL COMPUTERS, with the greatest variety of uses & capabilities as well as its portability, & are also the most AVAILABLE of these micro-minis with the most widespread outlets handling them & maintaining them, servicing them, as well as being almost the CHEAPEST on the market!
69. SO WE'VE FOUND APPLE'S TOPS IN CAPABILITY, AVAILABILITY & PORTA–BILITY AS WELL AS ECONOMIC ABILITY! So please they for us that we'll learn how to use them so we can teach YOU how to use them in the long run, D.V., & let you know at least whether they CAN be of help to you or not in your particular type of work. We want to make it possible to make our work easier & faster & more efficient as much as we can, because of course if we do, GOD's work will be faster & easier & more efficient in the future. PG!
70. WHICH MEANS IT WILL HELP US ALL TO SPEED THE EVANGELISATION OF THE WHOLE WORLD SO WE CAN HASTEN HIS COMING! "For when this Gospel of the Kingdom has been preached in ALL the World as a witness to EVERY nation‚ THEN shall the END come!" (Mat.24:14.) Hallelujah! TYJ! So God help you to get on with it! Amen? The End is in view!—Particularly in view of some of the recent events about which you'll soon be getting Letters, including Sadat's assassination which is a very significant current event with very great prophetic implications!
71. THE ANTICHRIST IS NEAR, PERHAPS EVEN AT HAND AS FAR AS WE KNOW! So hurry up, let's get as much done as we can before he arises & tries to stop us! But thank God he never will, "THEY CAN'T STOP OUR RAIN!" (No.128), especially if we rain hard enough right now with all the goodies that we can & supply the Family with all the tools we can to do the job! They'll NEVER be able to catch up with ALL of you & NEVER be able to stop ALL those refreshing little droplets that we have scattered by the millions in millions of hearts around the World, & they'll NEVER be able to quench ALL that seed in ALL those hearts before the End comes!
72. SO SOME OF YOU ARE GOING TO KEEP RIGHT ON ROLLIN' TILL JESUS COMES‚ right on through that Antichrist reign of terror in which he's not even gonna be able to TOUCH some of you! We're going to have GOD & all HIS MONSTERS & hobgoblins on OUR side plaguing the wicked & the evil Antichrist & his system & protecting you in your witness to the World in those last days of our last chance before Jesus comes & raptures His own out of this whole mess!
73. THEN PRAISE GOD WE CAN LEAVE OUR STATS & HOMES & FIELDS & OFFICES & OFFICE EQUIPMENT & EVERYTHING & RISE TO MEET HIM IN THE AIR with nothin' but a robe of righteousness & all those jewels we've already sent ahead or who rise with us for our crowns, souls won for Jesus, to enjoy Heaven together forever with Him!
74. ALTHOUGH I HAVE AN IDEA THAT DURING THE MILLENNIUM HERE ON THIS EARTH under more or less present Earthly conditions even though it will be greatly cleaned-up & better-organised & run under you & the Lord, we may still be using some of this equipment, or the World over whom we rule any still be using some of it!
75. SO PERHAPS ALL OF OUR LEARNING & TRAINING ALONG THESE LINES WILL HAVE BEEN COMPLETELY WASTED, & not only be useful NOW but even perhaps useful in the FUTURE‚ as long as it's something that doesn't but or destroy! This is one reason I know there're not going to be any automobiles, because they hurt & destroy! But as far as OFFICE EQUIPMENT is concerned, I haven't found any MINI-computers killing anybody yet that I know of, although they've got some BIG ones that control the missiles who may do the job & probably will yet, of slaughtering a good portion of mankind! But after that,
76. ANYTHING THAT COULD BE USED HARMLESSLY & BENEFICIALLY FOR THE GOOD OF ALL MAY STILL BE IN USE & in the World, such as good OFFICERS & good OFFICE EQUIPMENT in our offices as officers of the Lord. So please don't necessarily abandon it all entirely, at least try to remember where you left it when you went up in the Rapture‚ & maybe when you come back you can find it again & make the World put it back to good use! Amen? Ha!
77. I'M ALWAYS FULL OF SURPRISES AIN'T I? You never know what I'm going to come up with next! But the more I think & pray about it the more God reveals to me & I've been thinking a lot & praying a lot about that lately, thinking about how we're going to have to organise the World after we come back with the Lord & mop up the Antichrist & his system & try to get the World cleaned up & straightened out & pick up the pieces & put the good ones back together again!
78. I'VE BEEN THINKING A LOT ABOUT THE REALITY OF THE MILLENNIUM & its specific details, of what we're gonna have to be & be doing & with what, & we're going to NEED some of this knowledge we've learned & some of this equipment to do the job! So don't give up the ship entirely, we may have to throw a lot of junk overboard, but the ship of God's coming Kingdom on Earth has got to sail on & on victoriously!
79.—AND SOME OF THIS EQUIPMENT, SOME OF ITS FITTING MAY BE VERY FITTING FOR THE FUTURE WORLD! Some of what we're learning now about how to use it may come in mighty hand y on deck in those coming days! So learn all you can & prepare all you can & do all you can NOW. Who knows? It may come in very handy in the Kingdom of God on Earth in the Millennium when Earthly conditions will still be fairly natural & similar to what they are now, at least for the wicked over whom we rule, before the entirely New Heaven & the New Earth which comes AFTER the Millennium.
80. SO HOW ARE WE GOING TO RULE‚ JUST WITH A WAVE OF A MAGIC WAND? Not entirely! I think we're going to have a few magic wands, & very great magical powers with which to enforce God's law & order. But I think we're gonna put to very good use a lot of what we've already learned, our knowledge of countries & languages & perhaps even office procedures!
81. BECAUSE EVEN GOD'S KINGDOM HAS GOT TO KEEP BOOKS! In fact, as I've told you before God's already keeping books on you & me! He must have the most efficient computers in the universe to keep all that info on the record including everything we ever did or said, whether good or bad, & whether it's going to be held against us or not! For we'll have to give account of every idle word & every deed & all the works done in the body by name, providing you name's in the book, GOD'S books!
82. SO KEEP GETTIN' READY FOR THE MILLENNIUM AS WELL AS FOR NOW, because God's gonna need all the officers & all that talent & all the knowledge & all the skills that He can possibly get, including possibly some of the useful equipment that we use now, in order to get this whole wicked World organised & show'm how it OUGHTA been run & SHOULD'VE been run & how it WOULD'VE been run if they had let GOD run it!
83. SO MAYBE A LOT OF THESE THINGS AREN'T GOING TO BE ENTIRELY WORTHLESS OR USELESS. May be some of the evil ones might even make dandy bad examples if nothing else, to show others what NOT to do & what NOT to be. Because in those days God's going to reward or punish people right here on this Earth according to how they behave here & now, much He does now, only even more quickly & effectively & terrifically!
84. SO AS I'VE SAID BEFORE, I'M SURE HE'S GOING TO USE YOUR KNOWLEDGE of these various countries & languages & peoples & places & methods & talents & skills etc. according to each man's gifts amongst the officers of His Kingdom! He might even given us our choice of fields, maybe the one we chose to love & be a missionary to & try to win for Him! Maybe He'll really GIVE us that country in those days! He says we'll "inherit the heathen" (Ps.2:8) & He will give us their lands even to he uttermost parts of the Earth!
85. SO MAYBE WE'LL INHERIT THAT COUNTRY THAT WE'RE WORKING SO HARD in now & being so persecuted & abused in & misused unappreciated! Maybe we'll soon be their officer‚ their president, their leader, their supernatural angelic spiritual God's Kingdom law enforces! What they wouldn't do WILLINGLY now & voluntarily at your pleading request wooing‚ they'll HAVE to do then whether they like it or not, at our command or else!
86. SO TAKE HEART! YOU MAY BE A WORM NOW, BUT YOU ARE GOING TO BE A GOD TO THEM THEN! So be encouraged cheer up & look up, our redemption draweth nigh! Cheer up! Things could be worse & will be before long, so enjoy it while your can! Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think!—As some Letters soon coming will show you.—And work hard while you can, for the night cometh soon when no man will be able to work like we can now!
87. THAT'S WHY WE AT WORLD SERVICES ARE WORKING LIKE MAD to try to get out everything we can & all the tools into our hands that we can NOW while we CAN before it's too late & things get tighter & more difficult to produce or get to you, or in some cases perhaps even impossible! So we're really pourin' it on now, we're really firin' the furnace & gettin' up the steam & we are pickin' up speed everyday! PG!
88. WE'VE GOTTEN OUT MORE LETTERS IN MORE MAGAZINES & MORE PUBLICATIONS IN THE PAST YEAR THAN EVER BEFORE IN OUR ENTIRE HISTORY! So God is really blessing you & empowering you & gifting you & giving you so much blessing we can't even hold it all! PG! Even the Mag isn't big enough to hold it all, & the mails are hardly big enough to hold it all, & wait till you start gettin' those VIDEOS! You won't be able to hold your peace! You're gonna explode with joy & blessings & the thrill of Worldwide Fellowship, seeing our brothers & sisters in action around the World & hearing our music & seeing & hearing our plays & skits & dramas & songs, plus Letters & Lectures & lessons & Bible Prophecy & everything!
89. WE'VE REALLY GOT A LARDER–FULL! PG! And God is dishin' it out more & more everyday, more dreams, more revelations, more knowledge more teaching & more experience everyday, so there isn't even room enough to hold it all! God's pourin' it on faster than we can give it out, so we're actually overflowing! Already the Magazine is overflowing & some of those big Komix Books are sure overflowing! In fact we're gonna cut'm down a little bit so they'll be less heavy & weighty & more numerous & more useful, & spread'm around a little bit more.
90. SO PRAISE THE LORD‚ WE'RE REALLY ROLLIN' & we're gonna keep right on rollin' into the Kingdom of God on Earth‚ Heaven on Earth!—In Jesus' name‚ amen? God bless & keep you all & continue to make you a great blessing to millions, as we are now & even more, in Jesus' name! Amen! And thanks a lot for all your loving help & your tender loving care for the Lord's stats of the Family. Thanks! Keep'm rollin'! GBY! In Jesus' name, amen.
91. P.S. WE'LL BE LOOKIN' FOR THOSE FIRST DECEMBER FIRST VOLUNTARY STATS just as soon as you can after we've logged the November 1st stats from our November 1st TRFs. Please remember, get the REQUIRED TRF STATS IN FIRST, those are the most vital, & THEN go to work on the Voluntary TRF Stats & send them in next as soon as you can to help our dear Families worldwide as soon as possible. Thanks! GBY!
92. AND IF YOU HAVE ANY SUGGESTIONS for improvements or redesigning of the TRFs, or good additions or subtractions or changes, please let us know. But I hope it won't have to be any bigger than it now is! About all I know we could do is we might be able to put some more on the BACK of the Voluntary TRFs. But that'd make our job even BIGGER, & I tried to boil it DOWN to just the bare bone, the most essential ones that we really need to know. So it's please not enlarge on it if we can help it, let's try to simplify it or even cut it down more!
93. IF YOU CAN THINK OF ANY WAYS TO ABBREVIATE IT or simplify it or reduce it or cut it down more, we'll be happy to hear about it! After we've totaled these first Voluntary TRFs we'll probably have a few things to say about how it worked out. But maybe we should wait until the NEW REVISED TRFs come in the following month & tote THOSE TRFs before we make any further suggestions, because that may even answer our questions & solve some of our problems. So after we've really experienced them & found out how they work or how to work them, then we'll know more about it won't we?—And be better able to give you new ideas if we have any, OK? Thanks a lot!
94. THANKS AGAIN & GBY AGAIN & SO LONG UNTIL NEXT TIME! I'll love you forever!—In Jesus' name! TYJ! Amen! (—WHEW, wotta Letter! You think it was tough READIN' it?—Ha! I hadda WRITE it! So do your work & don't worry!—Someday you'll have'ta do MINE & have ALL the worry!—Ha! Ha! See you there! In the next STATS or Video—Ha! PTL! TYJ! Amen!)
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family