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operations, Dick and I had qualified for the chief executive
positions, directly under our father. He felt it necessary to put
into writing the whole background of this Work -- especially
including his earliest experiences which shaped and directed his
life toward it.
You see, Dick and I had come along ten years after our two
elder sisters -- and our parents were not married until they were
25. They had lived -- as few people ever have. Our father's
earlier life, prior to 25, had been filled with experiences such as
few have ever lived through -- actually preparing him for this
tremendous Work. Often he had tried to relate some of these most
unusual experiences. But never had there been opportunity to just
sit down and relate the entire chain of exciting, unique
experiences and incidents in direct sequence and in order. There
was so much we didn't know -- so much he felt we needed to know, on
the execution of our rapidly expanding responsibilities.
Yet, just as there never was time or opportunity to sit
down and relate the entire story, in order, to us verbally, there
was the question: How could he take time away from his own
increasing responsibilities even to write the story for us? Much of
his time had to be devoted to writing articles for The PLAIN TRUTH
-- writing booklets -- writing Christ's Message to be put in
advertising space in magazines. A possible solution seemed to be
to use this as article material for The PLAIN TRUTH. He had to
take time for this -- and it would not be taking time away from
regularly required duties.
But now the question arose: Would it be right to publish
it, or allow others, outside the family, to read it? Would it not
be sending out material about himself -- and shouldn't he write and
publish ONLY about CHRIST and CHRIST'S MESSAGE! As I mentioned
above, for years he had refused to allow even his picture to be
taken. But finally a radio listener wrote in asking WHY my father
refused to publish his picture. He put it bluntly:
If, he asked, you attend a church service, and the preacher
HIDES behind the pulpit, and lets the congregation only HEAR his
sermon, wouldn't you think he had something to hide beside his
face? Wouldn't you become suspicious of him? Don't we who HEAR
your Message over radio have a right to know what you look like? --
to know something about you, personally -- to know who is
sponsoring you, whether you belong to some denomination and if so
WHICH?
And the requests continued to come in daily, asking all
these questions about this Work -- who is back of it -- HOW it is
financed. Then he had to realize that even the Bible -- the very
Word of God -- contains the life-story of MANY MEN and even a few
women. Twice the Apostle Paul related the story of his personal
life and of his conversion -- and God Himself caused this to find
space in HIS SACRED WORD to us. It seemed that these personal life
experiences would be not only interesting, but HELPFUL to PLAIN
TRUTH readers, as well as to Dick and me.
And so, as part of his regular monthly responsibilities in