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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, DECEMBER 28, 1984
I'm now waiting for Lesson 9, as I just mailed the test that came
with Lesson 8. I get so involved that time means nothing--! stop
only when my fingers and hand can't hold the pen any longer.
There simply aren't enough words of praise for this great Bible
study course.
V.E.--regular (Broken Bow, NE)
I have just completed correspondence course Lesson 11, and feel
ing it of eternal necessity to follow what Christ has told me to
do through His Word so clearly explained in all the lessons, I
want to seek counsel and water baptism. Please rush me the name,
address and telephone number of God's true minister in my area.
ON THE WORLD SCENE
G.R.--regular (APO San Francisco, CA)
--Richard Rice, Mail Processing Center
AFRICA'S AGONY; SUFFERING PEOPLES CALL
FOR A "NEW SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT"
According to a report by the United Nations Children's Fund, published last
week, nearly five million African children have died during 1984 and an
other five million have been disabled or stunted in growth by malnutrition
and disease. There was no breakdown given in the number of deaths directly
attributable to the prolonged sub-Saharan drought, but it certainly is a
major factor. Yet even in "good times" childhood deaths take a tremendous
toll on the earth's poorest continent.
In the famine-wracked country of Ethiopia, estimates are still fairly cer
tain that, despite Western food aid, about one million people will die be
fore the current drought/famine cycle runs its course.
Incidentally, Ethiopia's Marxist ruler, President Mengistu Haile Miriam,
recently thanked President Chernenko for the Soviet Union's generous "fra
ternal assistance" in helping Ethiopia during its current national calami
ty. Mengistu also appealed for more military hardware in prosecuting the
multi-front civil war. Other officials in Addis Ababa sharply criticized
Western countries for sending too little food aid too late. And in the ul
timate twist of irony, Ethiopian officials spurned an offer from South Af
rica to send 29 doctors plus tons of food and medical supplies.
They
wouldn't accept any aid from a "racist, imperialist" regime, they said.
(Ironically, it was South African military forces who liberated Ethiopia
from Italian troops in World War II, the only time Ethiopia had been occu
pied in its long history. It was never a European colony, so it can't blame
its problems on colonialism.)
Africans are now dependent upon foreign sources of food for one out of every
five meals; 60 per cent of the sub-Saharan region's 359 million people
daily have insufficient food. Nearly all experts believe that Africa will
be dependent upon food imports for the interminable future. We are thus
very likely into an end-time situation of more or less permanent famines
and pestilences (Matt. 24:7). And after the Green Revolution fails in
India in a few years (Union Carbide won't be making any more pesticides
there), add that overpopulated sub-continent to the food-short list.