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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, OCTOBER 14, 1983
PAGE 4
contact there was very negative and said he felt the magazine would be "ex
plosive" since he saw Glasgow as a "divided city'' and religion had played a
part in the division.
Messrs. David Gunn and Tony Goudie flew up to see the Group News Manager
with which the Church had dealt in the seventies. But even before they
arrived, the door that had closed was amazingly reopenedl
This manager
informed them that the "problems" had been a mistake, and we were welcome to
open up in any of their stores in Britain.
We are following a policy of keeping our outlets in major city centres and
airports where we get maximum turnover, exposure and control. When local
shops are used as outlets we find that the area tends to be saturated
quickly and response falls. The centres in which we concentrate our dis
tribution have both regular and non-regular traffic, and we have found that
the response rates have remained stable, averaging between 2.5% and 3%.
Further new centres are being considered for the future.
New Zealand Update August, which is traditionally a very high income month
for God's Work here, ended with the highest income ever received in New
Zealand. The figure was an increase of 19.1% over last August, bringing the
year-to-date figure to 17.2%.
The brethren in New Zealand were asked to pray about a gradual but constant
decrease in numbers of co-workers and donors. We're happy to say that this
trend has now been reversed, and there has been a steady increase in both
co-workers and donors over the past six months. We now have 1,635 donors
(up 5.5% over last year), with 507 of these having been added this year--an
increase of 16.3% over the number added in the corresponding part of last
year. Co-workers now number 728 (11.8% over last year), with 238 having
been added so far this year--a fine increase of 73.7% over the number added
in the first eight months of 1982.
Another encouraging factor is the continuing good influx of new visit re
quests--up 20.3% over the first eight months of last year.
Indonesian Report (From Australian Office) In early August, minister Bill
Sidney, accompanied by John Curry from the Australian regional office,
traveled to Indonesia to meet with our members there, as well as several
others who had requested personal contact with the Church.
God's Work in Indonesia is still very small, with just six members through-.
out the predominantly Moslem country of 145 million people. However, in
terest is growing and Messrs. Sidney and Curry met with several people who
expressed a strong desire to know more of God's truth.
They traveled to the three main islands of Java, Sumatra, and Kalimantan,
and baptized an elderly man in the north Sumatra city of Permantang
Siantar. He is a retired school teacher, and of the Batak tribe which,
until the end of the last century, had the habit of killing and eating
Christian missionaries. Today many of the people are outwardly Christian
but they still retain many of their pagan religious customs. One of these
is the drinking of blood, a practice reminiscent of the problem facing Gen
tile Christians in the early New Testament Church.
Another man visited during the trip was a retired one-star general of the
Indonesian police force. Until his retirement several years ago, he had