—Father David 22-2-78 DO 667

Dear Children, Greetings in Jesus Precious Name!

1. THANK THE LORD AND THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR BEARING WITH US DURING THIS PRESENT FINANCIAL EMERGENCY CAUSED BY YOUR REDUCED GIVING subsequent to the "RNR" Letter. And we trust that you will soon see that we cannot go from one extreme to the other, from total tyranny to total anarchy!—And from your former giving of 25-to-50% to your local officers, to a drastic drop in your 10% giving to World Services! I think you will soon find, as the Scripture teaches, that:

2. "THEY THAT SHALL NOT WORK SHALL NOT EAT" (2Thess.3:10). You are not even going to be able to pay your own bills if you don't strike a happy medium somewhere between the two opposite extremes of overworking and underworking.

3. WE'VE HEARD OF A FEW WHO HAVE EVEN GONE TO THE RIDICULOUS EXTREME OF REFUSING TO PAY BACK LIT BILLS! So to local leaders who have been troubled with this problem‚ we are recommending that you withhold any further lit until the bills are paid. You must remember, as the Scripture also says,

4. "OWE NO MAN ANYTHING SAVE TO LOVE HIM" (Rom.13:8). So some of these errors and problems have arisen from the error of giving credit in the first place, which is also unscriptural. So we are again recommending against the policy of "lit now, pay later," and the restoration of our original policy, which has always been in the past "cash and carry." (See "Rev. Rules": No debts!)

5. EACH HOME SHOULD ESTIMATE ITS LIT NEED for the coming month at the same time that the Sprint Centers are estimating their printing needs for the coming month, and arrange to take care of both of them as concurrently as possible.

6. THE HOMES SHOULD SEND IN THEIR LIT ORDERS WITH CHECKS for the payment in full for the amount of lit they will need shipped to them the following month, so that the Sprint Centers can know how much to print and have the cash wherewith to print the stock that they will need for your use.

7. OPERATE BOTH SPRINT CENTERS AND HOMES ON THIS SENSIBLE ECONOMICALLY SOUND BASIS OF "CASH ORDERS," and you should have no further problems with big lit bills that cannot be paid for—lit which Homes did not order or could not pay for.

8. WE OURSELVES AT WORLD SERVICES ARE GOING TO HAVE TO OPERATE ON THIS SAME BASIS, since you have not been sending in enough tithes to pay for the extra one-per-adult–disciple copies, the rush English copies for the whole world. The extra printing and postage and other new expenses have cost us nearly 7,000 dollars additional expense to be sure that every one of you get every one of the Letters.

9. SINCE THE DRASTIC DROP OF NEARLY 25% IN YOUR TITHE-GIVING, WE'RE GOING TO HAVE TO ASK AT LEAST AN ADDITIONAL 1% ABOVE YOUR 10% to cover these one-per-adult-disciple rush mailings in English to all the world. The highest cost‚ of course, is not only the extra printing‚ which has at least quintupled, but also the enormous cost of air-mailing all of this heavy literature directly to you by airmail, the very most expensive postage there is. Since you will be receiving this notice with your mailing of Monday, February 27th of this month,

10. WE HOPE THAT YOU WILL INCLUDE THIS ADDITIONAL 1% ALONG WITH YOUR 10% TITHE‚ IN YOUR MARCH 1ST REPORTS TO YOUR KQS. If this notice did not reach you in time to include the additional 1% along with your tithe in the March 1st mailing of your Home Reports to your KQS‚ we suggest that you get this 1% additional off immediately in an extra mailing to your KQS, so he can notify us that your 1% has come in and we can restore your English rush copies for each adult disciple throughout the world as soon as possible.

11. SO THE SOONER YOU GET IN THIS ADDITIONAL 1% ABOVE YOUR 10% TITHE TO YOUR KQS, THE SOONER YOUR ONE-PER-ADULT-DISCIPLE MAILINGS WILL BE RESTORED, and along with it we hope to send you the backlog of Letters which will have accumulated while waiting for this 1%. Please do not wait to send the additional 1% in your April 1st report mailings‚ because we need the money now if we are going to print and airmail your lit now.

12. PLEASE SEND IN THE EXTRA 1% TO YOUR KQS JUST AS SOON AS YOU RECEIVE THIS NOTICE if you want to get your one–per-disciple rush copies and the backlog of whatever Letters you may have missed. We will be waiting to see if you want these extra copies, one-per-adult disciple in every Home, by whether or not you airmail in your 1% before April 1st, or in other words sometime during this month of March.

13. DO NOT WAIT FOR APRIL 1ST OR THAT WILL BE TOO LATE! We need it now to print your additional copies so we can send them to you as quickly as possible.

14. WE DO BELIEVE THAT YOU WANT THESE EXTRA LETTERS, one for each adult disciple in every home in the world, that you will want them, therefore we are going ahead by faith and having them printed in sufficient quantities to airmail them to you along with any backlog that you have missed just as quickly as we receive your 1% additional gift to cover the cost of this extra printing and airmailing in order that every grown disciple in the whole world can have his own individual copy of each new Letter as quickly as they are published!

15. SO WE ARE GOING AHEAD BY FAITH AND PRINTING THEM FOR YOU WHILE WAITING FOR YOUR EXTRA 1% before airmailing them to you. As soon as we hear from your KQS that they have received your 1% additional donation to cover this extra printing and mailing cost, we will mail you your additional copies sufficient to supply each adult in your Homes with his own individual copy of each new Letter.

16. WE TRUST THAT THIS PRESENT FINANCIAL EMERGENCY CAUSED BY YOUR UNDERGIVING WILL SOON BE OVER and that you will return to some happy medium of a normal work schedule which will neither require you to overwork nor permit you to underwork.

17. I HAVE SCOLDED YOUR FORMER LEADERS FOR ROBBING PETER—YOU—TO PAY PAUL, some of them, but you must also recognize that you, Peter, must not rob Paul to pay Peter! So we trust that you will soon restore at least sufficient giving to cause the World Services tiny 10% to be able to cover our actual expenses and costs of supplying you with these services.

18. IN THE MEANTIME WE ARE DOING OUR BEST TO CUT DOWN ALL COSTS by actually stopping all checks to all World Service units, cutting down on pioneer funds, KQS donations, baby bonuses, NNN publishing and mailing services, and other administrative and service costs until you have restored sufficient giving to meet these needs.

19. WE ARE DOING EVERYTHING WE CAN TO SURVIVE THIS ECONOMIC CRISIS until you restore sufficient giving to make these World Services possible. There are 13 World Service units throughout the world involving more than 100 people engaged in serving your needs from publications on down‚ and their needs must be met if they are to be able to continue their services to you. It all simply boils down to this, dear children:

20. YOUR INSUFFICIENT GIVING MEANS INSUFFICIENT SERVICES AND LESS LIT: No more Letters, mail, phone calls, books, comics, children's materials, NNNs, Family News, Questionnaires, clearances, KQS Home Services, pioneer help, baby bonuses or stats and so on until you give at least enough to cover their costs and the cost of producing them. This means not only the paper‚ ink and postage, but the upkeep, room, board and equipment of the laborers who are engaged fulltime in producing them! According to your January stats:

21. SINCE THE "RNR" YOU HAVE CUT DOWN 17% ON YOUR LITNESSING AND MADE A 25% CUT IN YOUR GIVING to World Services! I'm sorry, beloved, but this ought not so to be! If you want our letters and these World Services, you are going to have to give enough to meet their costs.

22. IF YOU ARE GOING TO SO DRASTICALLY REDUCE YOUR LITNESSING AND GIVING‚ THEN WE ARE GOING TO HAVE TO DRASTICALLY INCREASE THE AMOUNT OF YOUR REQUIRED TITHE! So we are waiting to see how much you still want us by how much you give toward our services this coming month. If you give enough to pay for them, we will restore these cutbacks which we've had to make due to your undergiving. If you do not work more and give more, we will have to either continue the cutbacks or raise the percentage of your tithe to meet their costs. In other words, it simply means this:

23. IF YOU ARE GOING TO WORK LESS AND GIVE LESS, WE'RE GOING TO HAVE TO REQUEST MORE TO SERVE MORE. So which would you rather pay, 11% by restoring your giving to a level which makes this sufficient to make our services possible?—Or are you going to continue to cut down on your earnings so that we will have to double the percentage of your required tithe? It's just as simple as that:

24. THE LESS YOU EARN THE MORE PERCENTAGE WE'LL HAVE TO REQUEST. As I said in my recent lament, "Will Ye Also Go Away?" I was ashamed of your leaders, but now I'm ashamed of you—unless you can restore your earnings and giving to a level that they are worthy of you and us and God's blessings!

25. I BELIEVE THAT YOU WILL GIVE MORE NOW THAT YOU KNOW THE FACTS and the reasons behind it all and can now understand our situation. So we're expecting to hear better things of you in the future, so by faith I'm telling you now:

26. THANKS‚ AND GOD BLESS YOU! WE DO BELIEVE THAT YOU WANT OUR LETTERS AND OUR SERVICES to keep us together in the fight for Him! Amen? So we will be waiting to hear something more encouraging from you soon. God bless and keep you all and continue to make us all a blessing in Jesus Name! Amen!—M&M‚ WS & ALL.

27. P.S. REMEMBER: IF YOU EACH WANT YOUR INDIVIDUAL LETTERS RESTORED QUICKLY‚ SEND THAT EXTRA 1% ABOVE THE 10% OF YOUR FEBRUARY INCOME NOW!—THANKS! WE LOVE YOU!—Dad.

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family