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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, September 18, 1979
Page 8
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
The Netherlands
The month of July is the vacation month in Holland. Many people have 3 to
4 weeks vacation and consequently incoming mail is slow and very low: 457
letters were received and 224 donor/co-worker letters. However, our in
come shows a 11.57% increase over the previous month, a healthy sign in
deed. Our attendance over one year ago is plus 10.42% and requests for
visits keep coming in. The quality of the visit requests is very high and
interest is very positive.
Our newspaper advertising campaign is to start this month covering the
Northern and Eastern provinces of the Netherlands. A series of three
lectures for PT readers has been scheduled for October 31, November 7
and 14 this year in the city of Zwolle.
We are looking forward to a most enjoyable Feast. This may be the largest
Feast we ever had in Holland. So far we have 77 foreign people scheduled
to attend. This should bring our total attendance to about 300. This
year we will have Mr. & Mrs. Peter Michielsen from Calgary, Canada visiting
for the Feast and assisting Mr. Bram de Bree (the Dutch Regional Director)
in the speaking (in Dutch). A simultaneous English translation will be
provided.
P hilippines
Our incoming mail continued to show a healthy upward trend as compared
with previous months--a good total of 7,661 letters. Also, we processed
and sent out 23,957 mail matters; almost 80% of this volume can be attri
buted to the warm responses brought about by booklets offered in our Sub
scriber Development Program.
However, as early as March this year, we had to slow down or stop the pro
motion of PTs by way of insert coupons to keep the PT copies to a finan
cially manageable level of 50,000. Nevertheless, our latest statistics
showed 50,953 Philippine subscribers as of August 13.
Churches: We have 19 Churches or local congregations and 9 outlying Bible
studies. Church attendance·totals 1,682 and local Bible study attendance
totals 1,354. Bible study attendance in the 9 outlying areas is 195.
Finances: Increase in August this year compared to August of last year was
46.50%. Income from January to August this year registered an increase of
25.90% over the same period last year.
Plain Truth Lecture: Mr. Adair conducted a PT lecture on August 4 in Davao
City, some 1,000 kilometers south of Manila. There were 130 new people
out of the 172 who attended; the rest were members. These people were
invited to a special Bible seminar the following day and thirty-seven new
people came, out of the total attendance of 77 which included members.
Speaking Engagements: Mr. Bien Macaraeg, Elder of Metro Manila Church,
spoke on sex and dating at the Eulogio Rodriguez Institute of Technology.
Present were 400 students. The first speaker was a Catholic priest who
is a radio personality and magazine columnist. He apparently beat about
the bush on his basic theme that "as long as one has love he can express
it any way he wants." Mr. Macaraeg's message, on the other hand, aroused