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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, SEPTEMBER 20, 1982
PAGE 5
The most requested booklets during the first six months of the year have
been:
NEVER BEFORE UNDERSTOOD (7,803), THE WONDERFUL WORLD TOMORROW
(1,331), and WHY WERE YOU BORN (1,098).
News From Southern Africa Feast preparations are all going well here. The
only potential trouble area is Zimbabwe, where insurgents' actions are
causing some concern. If conditions flare up prior to the Feast, arrange
ments may have to be made for the members to travel in an escorted convoy to
Victoria Falls. We pray that this won't be necessary and that our brethren
will have safe passage.
Mr. Ron Urwiller will be arriving here soon to help us streamline our part
in the processing of file updates by the International Mail Centre in
Pasadena. Then Mr. Richard Rice and his wife will arrive a week or so
before the Feast of Tabernacles.
Mr. Rice will help us with our mail
processing procedures and be our guest speaker for the Feast of
Tabernacles. He will visit and speak at our Durban, Victoria Falls, George
and Sonesta festival sites.
Excitement is very high with the news of Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong's forth
coming visit to South Africa, tentatively scheduled for November 4-9.
Needless to say the members are bubbling over with the anticipation of
hearing him in person once again. His last visit to Johannesburg was in
1977.
After Mr. Armstrong's visit we shall have Mr. Gerald Waterhouse with us for
the first two weeks of January, 1983. He will commence his tour of South
African Churches starting in Mauritius. After visiting South Africa he will
go to Zimbabwe en route to Nairobi, Kenya.
Our financial situation is holding up well in spite of rising costs, infla
tion and a depressed economic condition. Our August increase was 37%. Our
year-to-date increase was 22%.
From the Australian Office Responses to Mr. Armstrong's semiannual letter
offering his two books, THE UNITED STATES AND BRITAIN IN PROPHECY and THE
WONDERFUL WORLD TOMORROW: WHAT IT WILL BE LIKE, increased our mail count
significantly for August. So far 9,674 Australian subscribers (13.2% of
the mailing list) have requested copies of Mr. Armstrong's books, with re
sponses still coming in. Because of the distances involved and the slower
mail delivery in some areas, responses to Mr. Armstrong's letter from our
readers in Asia will not begin arriving until next·month. It will take six
months or more for the bulk of these Asian responses to reach us.
During August we received 21,928 letters and mailed out 21,006 iterns of
literature to interested readers. While our year-to-date increase for mail
received is not high--a plus 5.5%--actual publications mailed out year to
date show a significant 49.1% increase. This increase in the number of
booklets and articles requested is encouraging as it reflects a growing
subscriber interest in the literature advertised in the magazine.
Australia is at present in the grips of one of the worst droughts in living
memory. Eighty thousand farms (60% of the nation's total) are stricken
with drought, placing 350,000 jobs at risk in one state alone. National
unemployment is expected to reach nearly eight percent, interest rates have
risen to an all-time high of nearly 19%, and inflation is currently running