—MOOctober 30, 1974NO.317A—DFO

Copyrighted October, 1974 by The Children of God

P.O. Box 31, London WC2E 7XL‚ England or GPO Box 3141, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00936

Dear Kids of the RF and London Council:

1. Greetings in Jesus' Precious Name! Thanks again for your faithful reports‚ pictures‚ gifts, love notes, etc. I am still trying to clean up this ream of paper I have in my lap of miscellaneous items so I'm just gonna try to go through 'em quickly as I come to 'em without necessarily any rhyme, but perhaps a bit of reason with some questions and comments on them:

2. WE LOVE THAT LITTLE INTERNATIONAL PUBLICATIONS BULLETIN No.4 and especially the gorgeous picture of most of you on the back with all your gorgeous happy smiling faces! How can you all possibly be so beautiful! I do believe we've got the most beautiful kids in the world and I know you're the most wonderful because the Lord Himself told me I'm the most blessed man on earth to have such glorious children! God bless you one and all!

3. WE DID MISS SEEING HULDAH AND GENESIS, however. I presume Huldah was busy making love to the computer and Genesis to her Ambassador's field, but we'd love to have pics of you two, too! Of course, Genesis, you're probably going to become one of the famous nudes in the world as our dear cover girl for the world's craziest sex book, so we do have a little idea of what you look like all over! PTL! Thanks for those other gorgeous pics some of you gorgeous gals have been sending me also, but Maria seems to prefer you gorgeous guys for some reason, so we each have our bedside walls and tables littered with both of you, so ours looks like a typical teenage room‚ photos, posters, nudes, and all! Keep 'em coming, and thanks a lot! We love you all!

4. HOWEVER‚ FINDING FAULTS SEEMS TO BE A PART OF A FATHER'S JOB and trying to correct them, so I must tell you we were disappointed to find that that fascinating little bulletin had no copyright, no address, no editor's name much less art and typist credits, sad to say! We always like to know "who-dunnit?", and so are very disappointed when we can find nary a name to give credit or blame! In spite of my frequent harpings on giving credits where credits are due and even the Devil his due, it's amazing how many reports, charts, works of art and whatnot we still get with no signatures much less the typist's name and frequently with no date as well, and we often haven't even the faintest idea where it came from on top of it all!

5. I KNOW I'M SUPPOSED TO BE A PSYCHIC AND A PROPHET, BUT I REALLY SHOULDN'T HAVE TO GO INTO A TRANCE AND GET A SPECIAL REVELATION FROM GOD AS TO WHO WROTE YOUR REPORT and when and where it came from, should I? God bless those of you who don't forget your name as well as credit to your dear little typewriter queens and /or artists and/or photographers and/or etcs.!—Especially when we want to praise it, we like to know "whodunnit?", and when it's wrong we'd like to catch the culprit as well! As most of you will note I hardly ever write a two word comment without signing my name to it and dating it as well so you'll know "whodunit" and when even if you don't know where! Please do the same for us, will you? How many times will we have to keep asking you to do this?

6. WE'D LOVE TO THANK ALSO WHOEVER WROTE UP THAT NICE CLEAR PERSONNEL LIST ON LONDON AS WELL AS YOUR BEAUTIFUL MAIL–PROCESSING FLOW CHART‚ but there's nary a name nowhere much less date, signature or place, so how are we to know? So how are we going to thank you for it as well? But it certainly did help us to understand better your office operation, and we got a good many of our new ideas on how to break up the blob from this list and chart. God bless you! We know you signed the personnel list, Jeth, but since I didn't know you could type, we're wondering who did the beautiful pick-and-shovel work on the actual keyboard?—God bless'em!

7. ALSO, WE'RE CURIOUS TO KNOW FROM YOUR FLOW CHART EXACTLY HOW AND WHERE AND BY WHOM the mail is sorted, opened and donations handled before the mail is read and you know for whom they're designated or not. Is everything just dumped into the same pot regardless of designation? Maybe you feel this is fair, but the donor may not!—And if he designates his gift for a specific purpose, that's where he expects it to go, and if you don't put it there‚ it's not exactly honest, is it? If I tip a special waiter for his particular service, I don't like to see it thrown into a bowl with all the other tips to be shared with some other dumb cluck who's loafing and doing a lousy job and not earning his share!

8. I KNOW ONE OF OUR MOTTOS IS "FROM EACH ACCORDING TO HIS ABILITY AND UNTO EACH ACCORDING TO HIS NEED" but both I and the Lord believe in special rewards for those guys who really do a good job with their talents, and neither of us believe in supporting the lousy loafers who bury theirs! So I believe if you have enough faith and are doing your best with what you've got‚ God will see that you're rewarded accordingly, and will lay it on the hearts of your donors to give to your particular department according to your works and how much they appreciate them!

9. SO I BELIEVE IN THE GIFTS GOING TO WHOM THE GIFTS ARE DUE, and I think it's dishonest not to put designated gifts where they belong and to the person or department to whom they were sent and specifically designated, unless that person or department voluntarily is willing to turn around and donate it to the common cause because they have enough and don't need it as much as someone else or other department who does, but isn't as glamorous, appreciated or well-publicised as his! Savvy?

10. IN FACT, EVEN IN OUR EARLIEST DAYS WHEN EVERYTHING EVERYBODY RECEIVED PERSONALLY OR OTHERWISE WAS DUMPED IN THE COMMON POT FOR THE EXPENSES OF ALL, THIS WAS DONE VOLUNTARILY only and with his prior written consent, having joined the team with that understanding, and when our needs and expenses were small and everyone's needs were furnished no matter what‚ including food‚ clothing and shelter such as it was and what we had of it, as well as medical expenses, whether it were a new tooth or new glasses or a new baby or whatnot, according to their faith and needs. But this was when we were still one big blob all together!

11. BUT NOW THAT WE'RE BREAKING UP THE BLOB AND YOUR DEPARTMENTS ARE BEING SEPARATED to try to go it alone as much as they can on their own faith and to try to earn their own through their own works and be rewarded accordingly as to how well they push and publicise what they're doing and each appealing for help for his own task as much as possible, I, like the Lord, believe that each should be rewarded according to his works and how well he does it and how much faith he has for it, and so should certainly receive for his department those gifts which are designated for his or its use, and only undesignated gifts placed in the general fund to be used as needed by those in need. This is the way Fred did it and it worked fairly well-and God does too!

12. BUT WHEN FRED FAILED TO GIVE US OUR SHARE of what was given, much less all that was given to us and in our name, such as the Coachella ranches, and began to selfishly keep the lion's share and not even furnish our needs, so he could buy properties for himself, and finally threw us, out and kept it all to himself, God took us away from him, his most valuable possessions and the geese who were laying his golden eggs!

13. HE GOT TO KEEP THE EGGS HE ALREADY HAD ALL RIGHT, BUT THE GEESE WERE SOON FLOWN and gone and laid him no more‚ and God only knows what he's done with it all now, but I'm sure God is judging him according to his works, and ill-gotten gains have a way of taking wings, and God collects what you refuse to offer voluntarily and takes a collection in place of the offering, sometimes even more that you should have offered!

14. HE GOT AWAY WITH THIS FOR AWHILE, LIVING LUXURIOUSLY ON MUCH OF THE OFFERINGS WHICH WERE INTENDED FOR HIS POOR STARVING MISSIONARIES AND ORPHANS WHILE HE FED STEAKS TO HIS DOGS and we were thankful if we had hamburger! But God doesn't pay all of His accounts in the Fall, and although sometimes His wheels of justice seem to grind exceeding slow, they eventually grind exceeding fine, and he that fails to be broken upon the Rock of God, will someday find the Rock falling upon him and crushing him to powder and dust which the winds of His judgements will blow away and the place thereof shall know him no more! So beware dishonesty and injustice! God is on the side of the poor who are always with us, thanks to His protection and supply, whereas riches and the rich are always fleeting and for the moment and soon gone again! AMEN?

15. SO IT DOES NOT PAY TO ROB THE POOR!—Nor to withhold the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields with hard work while you yourself live luxuriously on the proceeds! I do not believe in anyone living beyond their needs, but of course the needs of some are few but the needs of others are great according to the nature of their ministry.

16. I COULD HAVE ASKED FOR AND TAKEN THE LION'S SHARE AS FRED DID AND LEFT THE REST OF YOU TO SUFFER as he did, but as you well know‚ I have not until recently even asked anything particularly for ourselves beyond our actual meager living expenses. We've had no salary, no savings and nothing but what was needed for our actual food, clothing and shelter and miscellaneous necessities such as office supplies, etc., which you folks have so faithfully furnished, thanks to the Lord!

17. IN FACT, ONLY OF LATE HAVE WE SUGGESTED THAT WE EVEN BE CUSTODIANS of a very small part of your reserve funds to help to preserve them as well as to tide us over any emergencies which may be coming when you might no longer be able to provide our needs for a time due to world conditions, an international emergency such as the economic collapse and war which is surely coming, or even a temporary halt of your own operations due to some national or local emergency, which is only common sense and a small and reasonable request in view of the facts.

18. IN FACT, I'M SURE THAT IF I WERE TO APPEAL DIRECTLY TO THE KIDS FOR THEIR PERSONAL SUPPORT OF US PERSONALLY, AS YOU WELL MUST KNOW, THEY WOULD SURELY SEND ME THE LION'S SHARE if they could, and some of your very needed ministries might suffer as a result. But instead, we have begged for them mostly to help you and your more expensive ministries with their larger numbers and greater needs, rather than to send the preponderance of their funds directly to us which we do not need as much as you.

19. SO OUR PERSONAL APPEALS HAVE BEEN MOSTLY FOR YOUR SAKES, and we hope they have done some good and will do even more now as we bear down and get more specific as we've found we must do in order to make clear these definite needs-Amen? If we were an hireling only interested in our personal wages and cared nothing for the sheep, we might have sheared them recklessly and left them to starve in the cold as Fred did, but as you well know we have always tried to put the sheep and their needs first and ourselves last.—Amen?

20. SO WE THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTINUED FAITHFULNESS AND RECENT GENEROSITY in this regard, although some of it has been very slow in coming and some of our suggestions were not followed at all‚ as outlined in our last Letter on your moves and money‚ both of which I hate to talk about but are necessary to deal with as seemingly necessary evils which we all need!

21. BUT I'M NOW TRYING TO HELP YOU SEE HOW TO APPORTION THESE FINDS FAIRLY according to needs as well as abilities, and that along with our general socialism of general sharing, there should also be, as with the Lord, some incentive toward a greater measure of departmental enterprise and independence and individual faith for each's individual needs to inspire each to not only carry their fair share of the load but also to have more faith and work harder toward receiving their share of the rewards!

22. AS IN A PIONEER WORK, LIKE WITH A YOUNG CHILD‚ WE MAY HELP THEM TO GET STARTED but eventually they must grow up and carry their own load as much as possible, and if God does not bless them in this regard‚ something must be wrong somewhere. If your pioneers are not blessed in some way at least spiritually, financially or somehow‚ and everything and everybody is down and nobody seems to be getting anywhere and not much is being accomplished‚ something must be wrong.

23. JUST SO, IF A DEPARTMENT IS NOT BEING BLESSED IN ITS LABOURS WITH FRUITFULNESS IN SOME WAY, INCLUDING THE LORD'S SUPPORT, IT IS EITHER NEGLECTING TO ASK FOR IT OR IS NOT GETTING THE JOB DONE and therefore the Lord is not blessing it. Even God tells us to ask and we shall receive, but He also says to seek and ye shall find and to knock and it shall be opened unto you! So if you're not getting results in your department, you're probably falling down along one or more of these lines: You're not really plugging for your needs, getting out and working at it by procuring your own and you're failing to knock on the opportune doors which would be opened to you if you'd work at it! God expects you to do your part and He'll never fail to do His!

24. IF YOURS IS A NEW WORK AND A NEW MINISTRY OR A NEW DEPARTMENT, WE MAY HAVE TO HELP YOU ALONG FOR AWHILE, BUT YOU CANNOT BE A BABY FOREVER! Sooner or later you must grow up and put away this childish dependence and try to make your own work pay for itself or encourage God to pay for it or others to help you support it. If you're really doing your best and working as hard as you can at it and doing all in your power to make it go and support itself and you still can't make it, then maybe you're going in the wrong direction or doing something God's not pleased with or He wants you to change somehow.

25. SUCH AS BREAKING UP THE BLOB INSTEAD OF TRYING TO FIND A BIGGER BUILDING!—No wonder He didn't provide one! He didn't want all of His eggs in one basket! Your eggs are too fragile and vulnerable for that and He wanted different ones to each carry a few in different baskets so that at least some are bound to survive, and we'd also soon find out who's doing the carrying and who's not, as well as to protect you from the attacks of the Enemy! So we've had to attack the problem at the root of the trouble instead of trying to prop up all the branches to hold the old "Tree" together which needs to be hewn down to make room for a new one! Amen? You'll get the picture of "The Tree" soon, God willing!

26. SO AGAIN I SUGGEST THAT EACH DEPARTMENT THAT WANTS TO TRY TO STAND ON ITS OWN TWO FEET AND RAISE THEIR OWN SUPPORT AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE BE ALLOWED TO LEAVE HOME and be as independent as possible with our help only to get them started and in cases of emergency, like the Early Churches of the New Testament times, and without so much centralised control and dependence.

27. SO AGAIN WE URGE EACH OF YOU TO DO YOUR BEST TO PLUG YOUR OWN DEPARTMENTS, DIG YOUR OWN DITCHES, PUMP YOUR OWN WELLS‚ ADVERTISE YOUR OWN NEEDS AND RAISE YOUR OWN SUPPORT as much as you can by encouraging designated donations from both disciples and friends and families. Then budget each department's fair share of undesignated general income according to its needs and those who need the most help or are least able to make it on their own.

28. I SUGGEST WE ENCOURAGE THE KIDS TO GIVE TO WHOM AND WHAT THEY WANT TO GIVE FOR specifically and see whose ministries they appreciate and want to support the most! That would probably be me and mine, of course, with most of them‚ but neither I nor they can get along without you and yours, so that would not be fair. Therefore we must encourage them to give as the Lord leads, both to us personally as well as your various ministries and departments as they feel led in showing their appreciation for each of our works.

29. IF ANY OF US WIND UP WITH AN ABUNDANCE BEYOND OUR PERSONAL OR DEPARTMENTAL NEEDS, WE SHOULD SHARE IT WITH THOSE WHO LACK and have needs which have not been supplied because of lack of knowledge or understanding or appreciation-or even sometimes their own ignorance of the need or their failure to let it be known and dig for it!—Amen?

30. SO WE'RE STILL AWAITING YOUR REPLY AS TO HOW YOU THINK IT SHOULD BE MOST FAIRLY DONE, but we do feel the Publications should be first, as that is our most important business, most needed and most vital. If the Colonies give as they should, there should be plenty for each needed department and you could budget each's fair share according to its needs, including our own and our Publications, plus designations as possible. Fair enough? God bless you all! Love, DAD

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family