Dad
May 31, 2003
—By Father DavidDO 8989 March 1980
News Article:
Equatorial Guinea Suffers On After Dictator's Death
—Shops Abandoned, Plantations Deserted
January 27, 1980
By David Lamb (L.A. Times)
MALABO. Equatorial Guinea, Jan. 27 (LAT)—The devil-god of West Africa is dead, and Malabo is an empty, eerie place, a sort of living ghost town that seems to have been struck by the plague or some other disaster.
It is of another world. Only occasionally is a car seen moving along the wide boulevards. Garbage has not been collected for months. Block after block of shops are abandoned. Outside the town, cocoa plantations are overgrown and deserted. There is no music or laughter, no sense of movement.
At night, when the generators are shut down, the town and its 25,000 people are swallowed by the stillness and blackness of the surrounding jungle. The silhouette of the cathedral's twin spires looms above the town. Dogs bark. Frogs croak and lizards scurry underfoot. Otherwise, there is no hint that anything at all lives here in the capital of Equatorial Guinea.
"National Miracle"
This is the legacy of the man who called himself "the National Miracle," Francisco Macias Nguema. To his people he was known as "the Tiger of Malabo" and the miracle he performed was to turn his prosperous little Roman Catholic country into an atheist concentration camp. By the time he was executed last Sept. 29—on the 11th anniversary of his election to the presidency—Equatorial Guinea had ceased to exist as a member of the world community.
The post office had been closed for months and children had not been vaccinated for years. The 200-bed hospital had no mattresses or medicine. Civil servants had not been paid for six months. The churches had been closed by presidential decree. The people survived on fruits and an occasional snake or bush rat. They clothed themselves by trading pineapples and yams to Macias Soviet advisers in exchange for second-hand trousers and shirts.
Macias retreated into the jungle as the nightmare deepened. First, some years back, he left Malabo, the island capital, and moved to Bata in the mainland province of Rio Muni. Then one night he moved out of his French-built palace there and traveled overland to settle in his remote native village‚ Nsangayong, in the heartland of his fellow Fang tribesmen.
Money Rots
With him he brought the national treasury, storing the huge wads of bills in a bamboo hut next to his cement-block home. He did it, he said at his trial, to avoid robbers. Much of the money rotted on the damp ground. The central bank closed. Wages ceased to be paid in Malabo, except in one case: Macias' salary in 1978‚ according to records produced at his trial, was $5 million.
Human rights organizations in Europe estimate that as many as 50,000 persons—one of every eight Educational Guineans—were murdered by the Macias regime. One-quarter of the population fled into exile. Today, the survivors speak of their purgatory in these terms:
Alfred Stowo‚ 19, unemployed: "My father was minister of justice so he was killed. His throat was cut and Macias drank a glass of his blood. Macias drank blood every day."
Benjamin Ndongo, 30, unemployed: "I was one of the ones taken to the labor camps to harvest cocoa. We worked 12 hours a day without pay. We got only rice and water. When you didn't fill your quota, you were beaten."
The Rev. Stephen Nchama, a priest: "The militia came to the mission one day and put up big pictures of Macias everywhere. When I refused to accept Macias as my god, I was beaten and tied up and put in the cellar. I stayed there five days."
Eleuterio Obama, 17, a militiaman: "Yes, some things we did were probably bad."
The glibness is unsettling because there seems to be no remorse or bitterness or understanding of what happened, merely an acceptance that something at least mildly peculiar has occurred.
The coup that overthrew Macias changed only the dozen or so men at the top of the government. Everything else remains the same‚ yet overnight the personality of this former Spanish colony changed. The torturers became law-abiding citizens. The 2,000 men in the army returned meekly to their families in Mane Ala Barracks. The Fangs stopped killing the Bubi tribesmen. And policemen started being civil, some of the same policemen who had clubbed citizens to death for forgetting to carry their party identification cards.
Sudden Transition
"The suddenness of the transition is spooky," said a visiting Western diplomat with experience in Africa. "The only way I can explain is to say that the rural African was taught to accept. Not question. He was taught obedience to his elders and to authority, a concept that colonialism enforced.
"He has no recourse to dissent—certainly not when a guy like Macias is running the show—so you give him a gun and power and he doesn't need a cause. And the man being oppressed keeps still because he wants to survive. Then a new president comes along and says, "Put the gun away‚ I'm the power now," and the African does what the chief tells him."
The man who overthrew Macias in a nearly bloodless coup last August, then had him tracked down in his jungle hideout, was his cousin, 38-year-old Lt. Col. Obiang Nguema Mba Nzogo. He had been Macias' most trusted ally. Then his brother was executed for some vague political reason.
Prisoners Freed
Some exiles saw the transfer of power as a cosmetic change‚ particularly when the new Military Supreme Council vowed to retain control indefinitely.
But Lt. Col. Obiang Nguema may yet silence his critics. He has freed all 5,000 political prisoners, reopened the churches, brought in 120 Moroccan soldiers to keep peace, ordered that ministerial commissioners take no more than one wife on trips at government expense and preached national reconciliation.
He also told the Soviet Union, which had armed the country's soldiers, trained its security thugs and fished its coastal waters, that assistance was no longer wanted. To replace the Russians Lt. Col. Obiang Nguema sent an SOS to Spain for teachers, doctors, technicians, government specialists—anyone who could help restore the country to the pre-independence levels of sanity and prosperity.
Mild-Mannered Macias
Equatorial Guinea achieved independence in 1968 with Macias, a mild–mannered civil servant, hand-picked by Spain, as the elected president. At that time, primary school attendance (89 percent) and per capita income ($246 a year) were among the highest in Africa. Foreign exchange reserves were strong, with the country exporting 40,000 tons of top-grade cocoa a year.
Today cocoa exports stand at 4,000 tons: the once-substantial export trade of bananas, coffee and palm oil has ceased entirely.
But Macias' behaviour soon deteriorated. Ten of the 12 ministers in his first government were murdered. Teachers and priests were killed. Most of the educated elite—Macias once called them "the greatest problem facing Africa today"—ended up in graves‚ prison or exile. Public torture, even crucifixions, were common.
One-Party State
Macias created a one-party state in 1970 and declared himself life president in 1972. He expelled thousands of Nigerian plantation workers in 1975 and ordered 30,000 of his people into forced labor in their place. That same year he kicked out the U.S. Embassy, and in 1976 he broke relations with Spain‚ leaving France as the only Western country with an embassy here. In 1978, Macias, a former Catholic, banned the Christian Church.
The burden of rebuilding Equatorial Guinea will fall on Spain. King Juan Carlos has made an official visit here and Madrid is providing $30 million in loans and grants. About 100 Spanish professional and technical people have arrived. More are en route. They will take over everything from the telecommunications system to the key ministries, from the hospitals to the fishing industry.
For any African country, this is the ultimate humiliation: calling back the former colonial power to pick up the pieces of a crippled nation. Zaire did it with the Belgians, the Comoros with the French. Now Equatorial Guinea is doing it with the Spanish. But there was no alternative.
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AFRICA REVERTS TO SAVAGERY!—By Father DavidDO 8989 March 1980
1. EQUATORIAL GUINEA IS A SMALL FORMER SPANISH COLONY in the crotch of Africa composed mostly of primitive Black African tribes, predominantly demon worshippers, or Animists, & Roman Catholics, fairly poor & producing typically African agricultural products.
2. WITH ABOUT 300,000 POPULATION, IT WAS SPAIN'S ONLY COLONY SOUTH OF THE SAHARA UNTIL 1968 when it was given its independence. Spain backed a formerly moderate Black Civil Servant for President, Macias Nguema, who soon however, became a very cruel demon–possessed despotic brutal tyrant who violated all human rights of his people & committed monstrous crimes against them!
3. HE DROVE THE FORMERLY MODERATELY PROSPEROUS LITTLE SPANISH COLONY INTO ALMOST TOTAL BANKRUPTCY, starvation & desolation, & drove out the Spanish almost entirely‚ leaving the country without Western brains or technology & in almost total desolation, with great deserted plantations turning back into jungles!
4. SO THAT, LIKE MANY OTHER SO-CALLED "LIBERATED" FORMER AFRICAN COLONIES, Equatorial Guinea became ruled by a murderous criminal far worse than its former colonial government, & its people & country much worse off than they were under the Colonialists! That's one of the facts of Africa you don't hear about, that most of it is now much worse off under native despots than under the civilised former European Colonialists!
5. BUT DO YOU KNOW WHAT THEY ARE GOING TO DO IN THE U.S.? (Maria: What?) ... [I]n New York & those big cities in the States‚ when everything collapses & there's no food—you know what they're going to eat, don't you? (Maria: Human flesh?) Exactly! I mean it's already happened, morality has already collapsed, they are going to be killing & eating each other!
6. WHEN PEOPLE GET DESPERATE FOR FOOD & THEY HAVE NO MORALITY & are demon-possessed ..., they are not going to hesitate to kill each other, eat each other, revert right straight back to the savagery & cannibalism of the jungle ...! I've been saying that for years! ...
7. AND THE LORD SHOWED ME THAT LAST NIGHT SOMETIME IN THE NIGHT JUST AS CLEAR AS ANYTHING, THAT THEY ARE GOING TO KILL EACH OTHER & eat each other just like they used to in the jungle! And you say it can't happen again? Well‚ just look at what is happening in Africa & those countries where the whites have moved out & left it with the Black savages! They have totally reverted to savagery in the jungle again, cannibalism & blood drinking & everything else—horrible!
8. THEY'VE HAD SEVERAL DICTATORS LIKE THAT IN AFRICA, & THEY'VE STILL GOT SOME supported by the Whites, like Mobutu in Zaire, & Mugabe. Let me tell you, the Whites won't hesitate to do the same if they have nothing to eat & nothing to drink! They'll eat human flesh & drink human blood too! They'll be slaughtering each other too, just to survive! And they will revert to savage gangsters & tribalism, gang against gang, mob eat mob!
9. IT'S HORRIBLE WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT WHAT THIS WORLD IS GOING TO REVERT TO & what they do revert to there in Africa, or even some other places in the World, when the authority & the restraint is removed! They'll go right back to the jungle & savagery! No wonder the Lord's going to have to allow the rule of the Antichrist just to restore some kind of authority & some kind of order! His reign is going to turn out horrible too, but at least it's going to be some kind of peace & order & authority to preserve some kind of civilisation at first.
10. THE WORLD'S GOING TO HAVE TO HAVE A TOUGH DICTATOR TO RULE A TOUGH PEOPLE! When lawlessness becomes rampant like the total chaos & monsters & the lawlessness they are going to have, it will be necessary to have a really tough totalitarian dictatorship to get things under control! It's horrible the things that happened in that little country of Equatorial Guinea after the Spanish moved out!—How he lived on human flesh & drank blood, just like they're going to do again when things get bad enough! (Maria: Even in the so-called civilised countries, huh?)
11. YES, THE WHITES WILL BE DOING IT TOO, REVERTING TO THE DEVIL! Finally his nephew overthrew him & begged the Spanish to come back & help them to restore the country. And when the Spanish came back in, suddenly the torturers become law-abiding citizens! They are just savage animals without Christian civilisation. ... Just think, it was only free about ten years from Spanish rule, & it degenerated to total anarchy, savagery in just ten years! As soon as Macias took over the rule of Equatorial Guinea, he became an absolute devil, probably was already a devil, just didn't have a chance to show it under Franco—you know how strong disciplinarians the Spanish used to be.
12. AND ON THE SAME FRONT PAGE OF THE SAME NEWSPAPER THERE IS A PICTURE OF TRIUMPHANT MUGABE returning to Rhodesia!—And that's just what'll happen there too, if they let that guy ever take charge! An absolute demon-possessed savage, crazy, insane, demonic, diabolical, slaughters women & children & dashes baby's brains out & hacks missionaries to death! An absolute savage!—Returning in victory to Rhodesia to take over!
13. THE SAME THING WILL HAPPEN IN RHODESIA like it will happen to other former civilised colonies in Africa—& the rest of the World too. And they'll simply revert to savagery & the jungle & demonism & the Devil until the Lord takes over, & that's what He's going to have to do.
14. HE'S GOING TO LET MAN TAKE OVER FIRST—A TOUGH MAN‚ THE ANTICHRIST—the last final man's government, to show no matter how strong the ruler is & the dictatorship & how tough the government is, they still can't control people & the World & the demonic activities of the Devil!—Jesus Himself finally has to come & take over.
15. BUT AT LEAST THE ANTICHRIST GOVERNMENT WILL HAVE SOME FORM OF LAW & ORDER & restore order out of chaos, control the mobs & the riots & the chaos & restore some form of civilisation & law & order, but it won't last long.—Seven years! And three–&-a-half years of it will revert to almost savagery to try to slaughter all the Christians like this guy did—Macias!
16. ... My God, what a horror is coming! Lord deliver us in Jesus' name! I think I would rather be dead than live in days like that under guys like Macias & Mugabe & some of the rest of them! Thank You, Jesus, spare us! Well, the World is going to pot without the Lord!
17. SOMETIME DURING THE NIGHT I SAW [PEOPLE] IN NEW YORK SLAUGHTERING EACH OTHER & slaughtering the Whites for food & flesh & blood to drink, because they couldn't do without food & without water! Horrors of the city!—My God! As Toynbee said‚ "Cities are the festering sores on the body politic!" Think of that! Whew! My God, deliver us from these horrors to come that are already beginning! Man thinks he has delivered himself from the dark ages & from the jungle & from savagery, but
18. IT WASN'T MAN WHO DELIVERED HIMSELF—IT WAS CHRISTIAN CIVILISATION that brought him out of the Dark Ages & out of the jungles! You're almost safer back in the jungle than in some of these cities, these asphalt jungles! My God! Whew! It says in 2nd Thessalonians 2:7 that "He who now letteth will let, until He be taken out of the way." In other words, the real meaning is, He that now preventeth this from happening—it's just the opposite meaning today of the word— will continue to prevent it until He is taken out of the way.
19. IN OTHER WORDS, GOD & HIS HOLY SPIRIT & THEIR RESTRAINING INFLUENCE ARE KEEPING THE WORLD RIGHT NOW FROM REVERTING TO THIS SAVAGERY & cannibalism & horrors of diabolical demonism! It's only Christianity & faith in Christ, Christian faith‚ that's brought man out of the darkness of savagery & the jungle & the deviltry that much of Africa is still in, & other places too—parts of South America & some of the cities of the U.S.A.! Some of those slums are just as much a jungle or even a worse jungle—like New York! Well, this article was a shocker, but it just proves exactly what I've been saying, that
20. WHEN COLONIAL POWERS TOTALLY MOVE OUT & WHITE MAN TOTALLY MOVES OUT & the Christians move out of Africa—if the Blacks run them out or slaughter them or massacre them & kill them & get rid of them—Africa is not going to get better! ...
21. THEY WILL BECOME EVEN FAR WORSE, BECAUSE NOW THEY'LL HAVE THE KNOW-HOW & the education & the guns & the weapons to do even worse than they used to! All they used to have were bows & arrows & spears & knives. Now they've got the equipment for mass murder & tribal wars to totally slaughter each other! Well, probably if they're going to slaughter each other, the quicker the better!
22. BUT IN SLAUGHTERING THE CIVILISED CHRISTIAN WHITES & running them out of the countries, it's going to mean the country is going to have to return to absolute chaos & savagery & jungle! And the more the World's civilised countries get rid of faith in the Lord & God & Christianity, the more they are going to do the same as the savages!—And watch & see when the Crash comes & the war comes & there's nothing to eat & drink in the cities of millions‚ & they can't get out & get away, how they are going to start slaughtering & slaying & eating each other & drinking their own blood—just like the savages in the jungle!—2Kgs.6:25-29!
23. IT WON'T TAKE MUCH TO RETURN THEM TO CANNIBALISM—JUST HUNGER & LAWLESSNESS! Oh God help us & deliver us in Jesus' name! It would be better to die‚ be better to starve & die of hunger, than to go through that kind of horror the cities are going to go through—mob rule, gangster rule, savage rule‚ cannibalism!
24. IF THEY THINK JONESTOWN WAS HORRIBLE —THAT'S NOTHING COMPARED TO WHAT IT'S GOING TO BE LIKE! There's a lot of people who are going to be tempted to do what Jonestown did when it happens‚ rather than try to survive in it! God's Word says men are going to gnaw their tongues for pain & seek death but won't be able to find it! (Rev.9:6 & 16:10.) Think of that! How horrible! Read also Isaiah 36:12!
29. THIS WORLD HASN'T BEGUN TO SEE THE NIGHTMARE SAVAGERY & darkness & demonism & the lawlessness of the jungle it's going to see when these cities stop running! God deliver us from them! Thank God our Family is getting out of them & getting the means to get out! Lord deliver us from the cities! Cities were supposed to be man's shining examples of civilisation, but
30. THEY ARE GOING TO BE THE MOST MONSTROUS EXAMPLES OF SAVAGERY when it happens! Man's so proud of his cities. Oh my Lord! I tell you, what's left of man is going to be ashamed of them when the time comes! That's where the savages are going to be, killing & eating each other & drinking their blood for food & water! It says this guy Macias slaughtered his victims & drank their blood! He was demon-possessed!—Devil–possessed!—The Bible says:
31. THE DEVIL IS THE DESTROYER! HE'S NOT A CREATOR! He's the Destroyer! The Devourer, God's Word calls him. (Mal.3:11; 1Pe.5:8.) God is the only one who can rebuke him. That's all the Devil knows how to do is destroy & devour!—& his people, that's all they want to do is destroy & devour, & that's what they do where they are let loose out of their cages & out of their bondage & given freedom!
32. YOU CAN'T LET LIONS & TIGERS & WILD ANIMALS OUT OF THEIR CAGES & out of their bonds! They just turn on you & destroy you! And that's what they're doing by letting those wild animals out of their cages & out from under authority & out from their Christian civilisation & civilised control! They are letting them loose to devour each other & their former masters! God help us! Whew!
33. THANK GOD HE IS GOING TO TAKE OVER SOME DAY! I mean even the Antichrist is going to look better than what's going to happen first! Isn't that something? Just like we used to say about false religions that claimed healing: They could only heal people from the very diseases that they themselves have caused‚ the devils have caused. They can deliver these people from afflictions caused by devils & demons, by rebuking their own devils & demons! Isn't that something?
34. THE ANTICHRIST IS GOING TO PRETEND TO THE WORLD THAT HE IS THEIR SAVIOUR by delivering the World from his own deviltry & demonism & savagery & restoring order again. Beelzebub casting out Beelzebub—casting out his own devils! The Lord didn't say he couldn't do it or he wouldn't! The Lord said if Beelzebub cast out Beelzebub then his house is divided & it can't stand. (Mt.12:26,27.) Well, that's exactly what's going to happen!
35. THE DEVIL IS GOING TO CAST OUT HIS DEMONS IN ORDER TO RULE, & in so doing even his own house is going to be divided & it's going to fall under the Antichrist! And the only answer is the Lord, thank You Jesus‚ & His coming to restore law & order & Christian civilisation. What a mess we're going to have to clean up! Whew!—Thank God we'll have the power to do it & supernatural bodies & strength to do it & the miraculous means to do it, thank God!
36. IT'S GOING TO TAKE THE ANGELS OF GOD & THE SAINTS OF GOD WITH SUPERNATURAL POWER & MIRACLES TO CLEAN UP THE MESS & the garbage can this Earth is going to be in by the time the Devil gets through with it! Just think—this big city in Equatorial Guinea was the capital city: Garbage stacked up, it hasn't been collected for months! The people have fled the city & fled back into the jungle, think of it! That's what they're going to do.—These nice big civilised beautiful White cities, too!
37. THEY'RE GOING TO DESERT THEM & FLEE BACK INTO THE WOODS & THE COUNTRY! Just think what would happen right now if in that city that lies there before us the lights suddenly went out, the electricity went off, the water stopped, the sewage ceased to flow & there was no food & no water! I mean, the town would go crazy! The people would go crazy! They'd go mad! They might put up with it for a few hours or maybe even a few days until they start starving or dying of thirst & hunger or of mobs & gangsters, but sooner or later:
38. THEY'RE GOING TO START KILLING EACH OTHER FOR FOOD & DRINK if they can't get out & find someplace else! What a nightmare! Dear Lord Jesus‚ help us! I don't know what you'd call this—The Coming Nightmare!—Back to the Jungle! I tell you, you'd be safer off in the jungle, that's for sure, than in some of these civilised cities when they become uncivilised! You get a sample when you're out driving, some of these drivers the way they drive!
39. I MEAN, THEY DRIVE LIKE THEY WOULD LIKE TO KILL YOU IF YOU DON'T GET OUT OF THEIR WAY, & they don't mind killing themselves doing it! And they drive furiously, angrily‚ demonically! I believe they really actually have got speed demons, hell-bent for destruction! And they're really slaughtering themselves! Insurance is the highest in these cities of any place in the world, the people are so busy killing each other!
40. THEY'RE ALREADY SLAUGHTERING EACH OTHER ON HIGHWAYS, ALL BECAUSE OF SELFISHNESS & demonic driving! They're turning these people loose with their chariots & their cars & they're already slaughtering each other! When the cars have no more fuel & they can't drive them anymore & they can't find anything to eat & they are loose with guns or weapons of any kind, even sticks & stones‚ they'll continue to slaughter each other worse than they did before!
41. DON'T HAVE TOO MUCH MONEY IN ANY ONE PLACE; we need to spread it out where in an emergency it can be used. And you don't want to have it all bottled up in bank accounts that are going to be closed!
42. IT OUGHT TO BE PUT INTO A LITTLE BIT OF THIS & A LITTLE BIT OF THAT, a few gold coins, some survival food, equipment & just keep enough cash on hand to pay running expenses.
43. YOU SHOULDN'T KEEP IN ANY BANK ACCOUNTS ANYWHERE MORE THAN YOU NEED TO PAY CURRENT RUNNING EXPENSES; the rest you ought to spread out in things that are safer, such as coins, food, camping equipment‚ vehicles, whatever you'll need & whatever is of actual value rather than money. Every Family should be ready!
44. SEE, I WENT THROUGH THE DEPRESSION!—I can remember my folks had $10,000 in the Bank of Bay Biscayne, Miami, & that was a lot of money in those days, that is like $100‚000 today! I mean, they had a lot of money then, & dear Franklin Delano Roosevelt one nice weekend had his fireside chat on radio on Saturday night & informed the nation that there would be a bank moratorium: All banks in the nation would be closed on Monday & they would not open again for two weeks, & then only the banks which were solvent would reopen.
45. AND LET ME TELL YOU, SOME OF THEM NEVER REOPENED, including my folks' bank, & they lost the $10,000! We finally got back about 15% of it, paid back at the rate of $15 a month, for over a period of something like a year or two. But thank God, that was when the Depression had really hit &
46. THAT $15 A MONTH LOOKED LIKE A MILLION! I mean‚ it was terrific—probably it was God's will‚ because it helped keep us going, since our church offerings were only about $10 a week for such a big family! We always had a dozen or two people living with us, & sometimes we couldn't even pay the electric bills! I remember going to church by candlelight because they'd cut off the electricity of the church since we hadn't paid the bill. So things get pretty tight, & when they do, banks are the most unsafe places in the World to have any money!
47. ONLY USE THE BANKS AS MUCH AS YOU HAVE TO. But since you can't just send the cash or the gold through the mail‚ you have to use checks, right? When it happens, the currency is not going to be worth much anyhow, & you probably can't even use the checks anyway. Take it or leave it‚ one way or the other, whatever you've got in banks or currency is going to be lost when it happens!
48. IT IS BETTER TO HAVE IT IN WHAT YOU CAN USE & EAT & LIVE IN, so I'm all for spreading it around in our Homes, which are essential to keep our Worldwide work going, & let them get as much survival equipment & food as they can, campers or tents or whatever, so they can flee the city! You know‚ I got inspired once in New York someplace, but they didn't like the message & they didn't ever ask me back either.—In New York City, that's where the Lord tried to warn those people: I said,
49. "YOU KNOW, ALMOST EVERYTHING THE LORD EVER SAYS IN THE BIBLE ABOUT CITIES IS BAD!" I went through the Bible & found out how many times he told people to leave or flee the cities. Since the very beginning, cities have been a dangerous place to live! Paul was always making his get–away from cities.
50. SO YOU NEED TO BE PREPARED TO FLEE THE CITY! And just like we have, you ought to have explored & discovered some good places to go, so that when it happens or you see it is about to happen, you can take off & try to get there!
51. EVERYBODY NEEDS TO HAVE CONTINGENCY PLANS, equipment for it‚ food for it‚ & some places spotted, not just one but several in case there are road blocks, roads closed or God only knows what! You need to know every trailer park in your area & all the different routes to them, so if you couldn't get through by one route you could by another.
52. YOU NEED TO HAVE SOMETHING BACK IN THE HILLS, in the woods or some place. If there isn't any food in the cities, people will really leave the cities & they'll be heading for the woods where there is water & fuel & maybe some farms with food. But although places in the country may last a little longer than the others‚ if they have food & weapons they will be targets for sure!
53. THE ONLY SURE RETREAT IS THE LORD, but if you do have a retreat‚ it had better be hidden & unknown, because they're going to be looking for them just like in "The Emergency" Letter, remember? (Letter No.160A.)
54. NO PLACE IS GOING TO BE SAFE, because they're going to know that the people who know those things are going to have food & they're going to be looking for food‚ & they're going to be looking for the food retreats & the refuges. I was just thinking...
55. WHAT WERE THE CASES OF RETREATS IN THE BIBLE? Did they have any retreats in the Bible?—I thought right away about Elijah. He went out & hid in a cave in the mountains & the Lord fed him by the ravens!: Bread & flesh in the morning & bread & flesh in the evening!
56. HE DIDN'T HAVE ANY FOOD STOCKED UP OR STORED THERE, but the Lord knew where there was some apparently, & he must have sent the ravens to steal it! So that's one case of a retreat—that wasn't exactly a planned retreat. He was fleeing & was beating a quick retreat from Jezebel, & he ran all the way! Ha ha! But at the least it was shelter & he was fed & the Lord talked to him there. (1Kg.17-19.)
57. AND IN THE LAST DAYS OF ISRAEL UNDER THE PROPHET JEREMIAH THE PEOPLE FLED THE CITY INTO THE COUNTRY & they were safe there when the enemy came in & grabbed the city. They weren't too worried about the country. They wanted to stop this defiant rebel government of the Jews against the World power!—Come to think of it, the Jews have always been rebels against the World power, but
58. THE LORD SAYS "SUBMIT TO THE POWER." (Ro.13:1.) In almost every one of those cases, Jews were the rebels who were fighting the World power, & that's why their country got conquered so many times & overrun & their capital city captured & crushed & their people taken captive!
59. THEY FOUGHT ONE WORLD POWER AFTER ANOTHER REBELLIOUSLY & refused to submit. Jeremiah, God's prophet, told the people "Submit your necks to the yoke of Babylon that ye may live!"—But they refused. So Babylon came in & conquered the city & destroyed it & their temple, & killed a lot of the people with the sword & with the fire & pestilence, & took the rest of them captive—that is, the people who stayed in the city. (Jer.27.)
60. THEY DIDN'T BOTHER PEOPLE WHO WERE OUT IN THE COUNTRY hiding in the woods & the bushes—the poor. They wanted the leaders: The powerful & the rich & their wealth, & they got'm!—The educated, technicians‚ the ones that they figured could do them some good—& that also stopped the Jews from leading the people in rebellion against the power again!
61. THE RUSSIANS HAVE MARCHED INTO A NATION that has always been rebellious & a bunch of bandits, & put down rebellion & banditry & restored order, & here Carter & the rest of the World are screaming about it when they ought to be complimenting them!—So we're not just talking!
62. IT'S GOING TO HAPPEN & WE NEED TO REALLY BELIEVE IT & get ready for it! The Lord's been good to us, it's good to keep reserves on hand, but if the reserves stack too much, they're not going to do you any good if the banks close! You need to spread it around, including your coins, your cash, & just keep enough cash on hand month to month, just sort of a hand-to-mouth existence for the cash—
63. JUST ENOUGH TO PAY YOUR BILLS EACH MONTH, with maybe a little over for emergencies, & keep all the rest of it in available things you can use if everything shuts down.—Such as, best of all, food & survival equipment & refuges.
64. YOU KNOW, IF IT IS A BAD EMERGENCY THEY MAY HAVE ROAD BLOCKS, & I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the country people try to stop the city people from leaving the city, if they have to do it with guns & road blocks!
65. IF YOU DON'T HAVE SOMETHING CLOSE ENOUGH that you can get to even if you have to walk or bicycle or whatever, it may not do you much good. If you've ever seen any of these war films that I remember from World War II, they were all the time showing people with wagons & pushcarts & baby buggies & everything else, most of them walking to get away from the battlefront, not able to get out with anything but what they could carry on their backs!
66. WHEN THE TIME COMES WHEN THERE ARE NO CARS & NO GASOLINE, you may not be able to just take off when you want to! So just having a trailer handy isn't going to be necessarily it, unless you've got it where it's going to be some good to you & there's water somewhere, & some way to get to it.
67. I THOUGHT ABOUT MAYBE BUYING A REFUGE somewhere back in the hills, the woods, but that is too uncertain. We might have to keep on the move, or you might not be able to get there, or you may have to find someplace else to land, & that might not do you a bit of good, & in the meantime you have wasted the money.
68. I THINK IT IS BETTER JUST TO TRY TO FIND PLACES WHERE YOU CAN CAMP, you know? Or if you could rent a farm, if there are any farms for rent. It doesn't have to be furnished, as long as it's got a phone & a toilet & lights & water, that's all you need.
69. I THINK THOSE LITTLE TRAILER-TENTS ARE ONE OF THE BEST THINGS YOU CAN HAVE in the way of cheap survival housing, if you don't have to use it all the time. One of the things about them is they're small & they can easily be stored in a yard or anywhere almost, & then they are real good for quick emergency, you can travel fast & you're off the ground!
70. AND BELIEVE IT OR NOT, TENTS ARE NOT TOO HARD TO HEAT‚ really, if you've got any kind of heat at all, since it's a small closed space. That's the happy medium, if you can get a tent-trailer‚ well, that's great, if you've got a place to keep it that's easily accessible. They don't take as much gasoline to flee & get someplace with.
71. SOME PLACES ARE BOUND TO ESCAPE, some places are bound to survive‚ God's going to take care of us.
72. THE LORD DOESN'T LIKE UNUSED SURPLUSES. He says that the canker of your gold & your silver will be a witness against you. (James 5:3.) "Canker" means corroded, or tarnished—how does it get that way?—From lack of use! He didn't say your gold & your silver would be a testimony against you, He said the canker of it, the tarnish of it. In other words, if you are not keeping it in circulation & you are not using it. So, you don't want to collect too many gold coins either.
73. THE GOLD COINS WILL ACT SORT OF LIKE A LITTLE MONETARY RESERVE for when things begin to pull out of the worst part. Then you've got your coins to sort of come through with you, & you can start getting maybe back in circulation. But what you will need most of all is someplace to flee to & something to flee in & something to eat on.
74. THOSE AUTO-ROUTES ARE A BLESSING when pulling trailers, not these little tiny dinky rinky-dink roads! But it's good to know little back roads in case the main ones are blocked, as they could be. That's some hints for you guys. You need to explore where the campgrounds are & where you could pitch your tent & get water & things like that.
75. WATER IS YOUR GREATEST NEED BESIDES SHELTER. You can go a few days without food or even shelter, but you can't go very long without water.—Four days to a week is about the limit you can go without liquids. When I was a kid out in the wild woolly West, Oklahoma & Texas,
76. MY WHOLE LITTLE VILLAGE ONLY HAD ONE WELL IN THE MIDDLE OF TOWN, one pump! They used to make jokes about it when I was a kid: "That's one of those one-pump towns!" It had a pump in the middle of the town that everybody went to with buckets & containers to get water. It's going to be that way again, Brother! And only the water that flows with or without pumping & not by electricity is going to be available!
77. NOT EVERYBODY IS GOING TO BE ABLE TO SURVIVE, BUT SOME OF US WILL MANAGE TO MAKE IT, Praise God! Our work will carry on until the Lord comes! The Lord's promised us we're going to have a witness right to the End, so let's give Him all the cooperation we can & make sure we get it figured out so some of us are going to make it. Praise the Lord? Amen!
78. DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT, TRUST THE LORD no matter what happens, & He'll show you the way, but He expects you to make preparations. He says "Fret not thyself for tomorrow," don't worry about it, but He didn't say don't prepare for it.
79. I REALLY BELIEVE IN PREPARING. I'm not going to worry about it, but I am going to do all I can do to get ready for it‚ & the Lord will have to do the rest. So, get busy & do it, amen? Praise the Lord! GBY!
80. I DON'T BELIEVE IN STOCKING UP MORE RESERVES that are just going to be wiped out in the Crash! I'd rather see them out there where your family can use them & get the stuff they need. PTL! Amen? OK, I'll let you go. Praise the Lord! Amen Lord, bless & have Thy way & give them wisdom.
81. HELP US TO DO ALL WE CAN TO PREPARE, LORD, not only ourselves but all our families, so that some can survive, so that as many as possible can survive, Lord. We hope all can survive‚ but at least some of us.—Amen! TYJ!
82. He's promised to be with us even unto the End of the World!—Mat.28:20.—And He's all we need! "He that endureth to the end shall be saved!"—Mat.10:22. "Be thou faithful unto death & I will give thee a crown of life!"—Rev.2:10.—And He shall say unto thee‚ "Well done thou good & faithful servant!—Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!"—Mat.25:23.—As in the old hymn:
83. "Abide with me, fast falls the even tide!—
The darkness deepens! Lord with me abide!
Change & decay in all around I see!—
O Thou who changest not, abide with me!"
—In Jesus' name, amen!—GABAKYAMYAB!
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TOWN AND COUNTRY
God made the country, & man made the town.
What wonder then that health & virtue, gifts
That can alone make sweet the bitter draught
That life holds out to all, should most abound,
And least be threaten'd in the fields & groves?
Possess ye, therefore, ye, who, borne about
In chariots & sedans, know no fatigue
But that of idleness, & taste no scenes
But such as art contrives, possess ye still
Your element; there only can ye shine;
There only minds like yours can do no harm.
Our groves were planted to console at noon
The pensive wanderer in their shades. At eve
The moonbeam, sliding softly in between
The sleeping leaves, is all the light they wish,
Birds warbling all the music. We can spare
The splendor of your lamps; they but eclipse
Our softer satellite. Your songs confound
Our more harmonious notes: The thrush departs
Scared, & the offended nightingale is mute.
There is a public mischief in your mirth;
It plagues your country! Folly such as yours,
Graced with a sword & worthier of a fan,
Has made, which enemies could ne'er have done,
Our arch of empire‚ steadfast but for you,
A mutilated structure, soon to fall!
(And did!)
(—By William Cowper, British poet, 1731-1800.—Taken from The Penguin Book of English Verse, edited by John Hayward, published by Penguin Books, Ltd.)
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family