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WORLDWIDE CHURCH OF GOD
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91123
HERBERT W. ARMSTRONG
PRESIDENT and PASTOR
Dacca, Bangladesh
November 18, 1984
Dear Brethren and Co-Workers in Christ:
I, with the small entourage accompanying me, am now in the midst of a
five-week tour in the Far East. I am writing from Dacca, capital of Bangladesh.
Bangladesh borders India on three sides. It is a country about the size of
Wisconsin in area, but with approximately 100 million population--almost half of
that of the United States. It is one of the poorest countries on earth. Less
than 29
percent can read or write and many of this number can only barely be called
literate.
You people in America, Western Europe and Australasia cannot conceive of
the condition in which uncounted millions of human masses live in parts of the
world such as we are visiting. We came from Nepal, where I had another meeting
with King Birendra and Queen Aishwarya in the palace at Kathmandu, Nepal's
capital. Nepal is in the Himalaya mountains with Mt. Everest and other peaks
almost the same fantastic height. There also, 80 percent of the people are
totally
illiterate. Most of them have no idea of sanitation. One of our pilots, in a car
driven out of the city in a more rural area, saw children on the ground picking
lice out of one another's hair.
You people in supposedly civilized countries have no conception of the
poverty and ignorance of masses of human beings in this part of the world, or
even in some areas in Africa and South America. Yet in our more "advanced" and
supposedly civilized countries, we are plagued with crime, violence, illicit
sex,
drugs, excess alcohol, broken homes, and hospitals filled to overflowing, and
jails
and prisons likewise. The evils are appalling in a Western world of awesome
progress and advancement. We certainly should pray, as Jesus said, "Thy
Kingdom come." Only the coming of Christ in supreme power and authority can
save humanity.
I visited this country about 11 years ago, soon after the end of the
Pakistan
war, when Bangladesh became a new country. I thought then that it was the most
impoverished nation in the world. But great strides have been made since. This
is
due to two factors. The United States, Japan and other developed countries have
poured many millions of dollars into this country to help get it started on
development. This has resulted in many new modern buildings. The other cause
we saw this afternoon. A one-hour drive to one of the villages to inspect one of
the
village elementary schools. I was driven in a government Mercedes, since I am
here as a guest of the government. On the road to the village we had a flat
tire.
On the return we lost the muffler because of knotty tree roots protruding
through