HomeARC ML 1214
SEVEN COURSES!--A Missionary Feast! DFO 1214 27/2/82
(From a discussion with Keda, Supervisor of the Eastern Fields.)
1. THESE PROSPECTIVE MISSIONARY FAMILY MEMBERS COMING TO THE SOUTH NEED A LOT OF TIME TO BECOME ADJUSTED & learn to fit into their new situation. They may have been top leaders, shiners, litnessers, organizers, musicians, everything imaginable where they were in their native habitat, but down here they can be almost like a fish out of water, suffering so from the heat & the mosquitoes & the food & the shit & God knows what else!--Until they finally manage to survive & they finally come to the thankful realization that they can survive!
2. I'M SURE THAT DOUBT ACTUALLY OCCURS TO MANY OF THEM ARRIVING HERE having had no idea how much heat there was in this part of the World. How can you stand so many clothes on, anyway? (Keda: I think my blood's pretty thin by now.) That's true. That's really true once you've lived in this climate long enough, but I'd say it takes at least a year or more to really thin out & for a person to get adjusted to the heat & inured to the mosquitoes where they don't kiss you so much any more.
3. WE'RE TRYING TO BE MORE POSITIVE WITH TECHI & NOT CALL THEM BITES but it's a nice little needle kiss, deep kiss, French kiss! I'm trying to convince her that the mosquitoes kiss her because they love her, they like her & they don't realise it bothers her. Why not be positive, huh?
4. ANYWAY, THESE PEOPLE REALLY ARE GOING TO NEED A REST & A VACATION WHEN THEY GET HERE. Even the Alliance found with new people coming to the field that it was impossible for them to get immediately into the work at all. They had to have a couple of weeks off just to rest & relax & get adjusted to the climate & the field & the culture.
5. SOME OF THE BIGGER DENOMINATIONS like the Presbyterians & the Methodists, etc., put them in school for a year learning the language with nothing else to do but to go to school & learn the language & get adjusted to the climate, etc., with a nice house to live in. They lived on the field just about like they lived at home with every convenience & luxury--maybe not quite as big or as much as they used to have--but just going to school for a year, nothing else to do until they learned the language.
6. LET THE BIG ONES DO IT WHO HAVE LOTS OF MONEY & CAN AFFORD TO DO THAT SORT OF THING, BUT WE'RE IN A HURRY & we need help fast & we can't wait to give you a year off to just sit there on your fannies & learn the language! We need you to get busy right away! We can't give our missionaries full support from a huge multi-billion dollar denomination that has millions to give to missions & gives them little enough at that, but at least gives their missionaries complete full support so they don't have to worry about money.
7. OUR MISSIONARIES HAVE TO LEARN HOW TO SUPPORT THEMSELVES & are supposed to be busy on home support & raising it. They shouldn't have even left the home field unless they raised it. Actually we may even have to clamp down like Fred finally found out he had to do, with so many people washing out & fluking out on the field & a bad testimony because they didn't raise enough home support.
8. HE FINALLY LAID DOWN THE LAW that they not only had to have their fare to get to the field, plus landing money, but they also had to have enough money in good solid monthly pledges to support themselves on the field. This is what I've advocated especially for the poorer fields where it's impossible for them to live off the land & support themselves!
9. SO I CAN UNDERSTAND WHY THE LORD HAS LEFT OUR EMPHASIS ON SOME OF THESE FIELDS FOR LAST, in a sense, because they are the toughest fields & if we had started here we might've gotten discouraged. You, Keda, are one of the few who's survived & you can look around you out here in these fields & you can see that there are very few of the old-timers who have survived.
10. I AM SURPRISED HOW MANY HAVE SURVIVED & how many local leaders, nationals who've survived so many years with so little attention, so little visitation or leadership. They really have not had much shepherding & they have not had much attention & they have just pretty much gotten along on their own. I would say they've actually become almost stronger than most of our leaders!
11. I'D SAY SOME OF THE LOCAL LEADERS YOU ALREADY HAVE IN THE SOUTH EAST ARE STRONGER than the ones that are coming down from the North. So don't bank on them too much at all because they'll be absolute zero for the first few weeks just trying to get used to the climate & the food & the culture shock & just recovering from their last minute preparations & their trip & the jet-lag & all the rest of it. I mean, if they survive all that they'll be doing pretty well!
12. AS FOR VIDEO TAPES THEMSELVES, WE FOUND OUT EVEN IN EUROPE & SOUTH AMERICA THE SAFEST WAY WE ALWAYS SEND THEM IS BY COURIER & BY FAMILY COURIER. Whenever anybody's going that way, they pack'm in their clothes & take them, & we've never had any trouble yet along that line. Otherwise even the most broadminded & highly-civilized countries can still sock it to you for duty. France & Switzerland both charge about 30% duty & that sort of thing. It doesn't matter if it's family or personal or whatever, they just sock it to you!
13. SO JUST ABOUT THE ONLY WAY TO GET THESE VIDEOS INTO ANY COUNTRY IS PRACTICALLY SMUGGLE THEM IN in your personal luggage & just forget about mailing them. We had videos held up for weeks in France & Switzerland & places like that even, stopped by the customs, & we finally had to make a deal with the head of customs in one place to get them at all, & finally we bargained & made a deal. But anyhow, he was pretty mean & I think he came down from 30 to 10% or something like that so that it didn't cost us so much any more & we could still get them by mail.
14. I TOLD THEM, "DON'T MAIL THEM IN BATCHES! Of course they're going to attract attention. Just mail them one at a time!" Well, somebody goofed & began mailing them even two at a time or half-a-dozen at a time & they got caught. So you're no worse off here than most countries & the rest of the World, they're all cracking down on videos.
15. FOR ONE THING, THE BIG BOYS WITH THE BIG MONEY & BILLIONS INVESTED IN MOVIES & TV VIDEOED SERIES, ETC., that they want to sell, want to stop this piracy that's going on, & if they can't get the cooperation of the governments they have set up units of their own. They have set up a unit in Hong Kong financed by some of the biggest movie producers in the United States, units of their own detectives to catch the pirates in Hong Kong--which was the big pirate base for awhile--& to put the screws on the government to make'm enforce the laws.
16. THEY'D CATCH'M & THEY'D PRESENT THE EVIDENCE TO THE GOVERNMENT & insist the government crack down, so they've almost got the pirates run out of Hong Kong. So you can understand these guys who want money for their shows that they spent millions on. They want to keep cleaning up on them & they don't want somebody getting them for nothing! So that's one reason why the governments are getting tough on the importation of videos, etc., there's big money behind it.
17. THAT'S JUST LIKE THE U.S. FINANCING THE POLICE IN THAILAND TO STOP THE DRUGS. It seems the Thais could hardly care less, really, & in fact were probably making money off of it. The U.S. has got to turn around & give them more money than they've been making if they're going to start cracking down on it so it's like pouring money down a rathole, it's so ridiculous, & anyhow, they'll never stop it.
18. AS LONG AS THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO WANT TO DRINK OR TAKE DRUGS OR HAVE WOMEN or anything else, they're not going to stop the basic indulgences of mankind on which crime thrives. Countries like the U.S. actually help to promote all that by making it illegal & there's nobody who would hate to see it legalized more than the Mafia! They make their billions off of it & so they fight legalization! Just like the tobacco companies fight the legalization of grass & all the rest. So the U.S. is crazy as usual & they actually promote the thing by making it illegal.
19. THE WAY BRITAIN HAS SOLVED IT IS SIMPLY BY MAKING IT LEGAL & they get it from legal sources, so they have no Mafia & they have no gangs operating the trade & they also have no organised prostitution gangs because prostitution is legal there in Britain. You can do as you please with your own body, even if you set up business & advertise or whatever.
20. SO THAT'S THE WAY TO CURE CRIME IS STOP MAKING IT A CRIME, MAKE IT LEGAL! Then the big gangsters & the Mafia & the big boys & the racketeers & the guys who really make it bad, they have nothing they can do! What can they sell? It's almost free! You know how Canada put a stop to kidnapping? Except for political kidnapping, every country in the World could stop ransom kidnapping overnight just by passing a simple law like Canada did, forbidding the relatives to pay ransom.
21. THE MOMENT SOMEONE IS KIDNAPPED THEY SET UP A POLICE GUARD ON THE FAMILY to make it impossible to pay ransom, & therefore the would-be kidnappers know that it's impossible to collect a ransom so they don't kidnap! You've never heard of a kidnapping in Canada for years! They passed that law years ago & the U.S. could've done it years ago too & Italy & a few other places.
22. SO THAT SHOWS YOU HOW STUPID PEOPLE ARE & WHY I BELIEVE THAT THE U.S. GOVERNMENT IS HANDLED DIRECTLY BY THE MAFIA! Of course Nixon was a Mafia president, he was even put in by the Mafia. His best friend was Bebe Reboso, the head of the Mafia for the whole Caribbean & Florida! Everybody knew that & every time he got upset & sucking his thumb & crying, well, he ran down Bebe Reboso to take a trip on his yacht! That's what Edgar Hoover said!
23. HE SAID IT IN HIS THING ON COMMUNISM WRITTEN SOME 20-30 YEARS AGO NOW, "YOU CAN TRUST A COMMUNIST TO BE A COMMUNIST!"--to look like'm--& in it he had about the Mafia. He said, "If we don't stop the Mafia they will eventually go legit by buying huge corporations & businesses & becoming the bankers & the industrialists & they will control the government & they will elect a president"--& by the time Richard Nixon came along they had done it! It was done! Finished! They run the U.S. now. OK. PTL!
24. (AFTER LUNCH:) YOU SEE THE KIDS IN ALL THE WATER & POOL SHIVERIN' & SHAKIN' & BLUE? It can happen right here in hot weather if you stay in long enough. I know it used to happen to me & we used to do it all the time. A good sunburn can give you a cold too, fever, cold, everything! But I've never heard yet--at least not in Miami--of a sunstroke in the Tropics. You can get those in hot dry countries where it's very hot, pretty hot sun, but I think the heavy moisture content of the air acts as a shield so that the sun is not actually quite as hot on your head as it is in places like Texas & Arizona.
25. WITH TEA I PREFER SUGAR! I don't mind honey in my coffee, but somehow honey spoils the taste of tea. To me it just disturbs the whole delicate flavour of tea. Coffee's strong enough to take it but not tea. I have to sin a little bit to enjoy my tea. We loved that raw sugar we used to get in Britain, those heavy big large brown granules, actually raw sugar.
26. I THINK SAM & ARA ARE A HOPELESS CASE! (Maria: Yes, they'd never get straightened out.) They're a difficult case. They've chosen their bed & they're going to have to lie in it. They're obviously like their parents & they compromised. The Scripture I got for them was: "They compromise for gain." It's support & in some ways you can't blame them too much, what else could they do? They had to have home support in India. I wouldn't be too hard on'm but you know they gained something on this Earth that they will now lose in the next World. So anyway, I don't think we can do much for them.
27. I DON'T WANT YOU TO HAVE ANY ILLUSIONS ABOUT THE LEADERSHIP COMING IN FROM THE NORTH. If they keep their religion in this climate & manage to survive & keep their patience & their determination--& those who really love the Lord, of course, & they mean business will--they'll live or die, sink or swim somehow & they'll make it just like some of our folks will make it.
28. I DON'T THINK PETER WAS EVER IN THIS HOT A CLIMATE BEFORE, WERE YOU? Nor Dora. Pearl & Joseph are used to it & I'm used to it. Maria, she's getting along fine. She's warm for the first time in her life! Ha! I think she's almost enjoying it! Once she gets over the mosquitoes I think she's going to love it, this naked climate where she can actually run around nude & not have to worry about freezing all the time!
29. I DON'T THINK YOU'RE GOING TO BE ABLE TO DEPEND TOO MUCH ON NORTHERN LEADERSHIP FOR AWHILE until they have come down & gotten acclimated & sort of tested & adjusted down here & see who survives & who survives with grace & really loves the Lord enough to stay here. I mean, not even South America gets anything like this. The climate, yes, but it's a whole different culture & people.
30. AFTER ALL, SOUTH AMERICA IS A EUROPEAN CULTURE. It's a European people, a European Catholic religion & it's not all that different from Europe. The climate is the only big factor there that they'll have to get used to, so the people going South to South America will not have near as much problem except the physical change. So many places in South America are just really very much like Europe or old Spain & Portugal, etc.
31. IT'S THE SAME LANGUAGES & SAME RELIGION & IN SOME WAYS THE SAME PEOPLE, except there's a strong Indian mixture & in some of the Northern South American countries there's a strong Negro mixture, & of course particularly in Brazil there's a strong high Negro mixture. But they should be very familiar with that if they come from the U.S.! Ha!
32. BUT COMING TO THE EAST IS A WHOLE DIFFERENT KETTLE OF FISH! They not only have a traumatic climatic change to a totally different climate that they're unaccustomed to & all the bugs & the mosquitoes & the dirt & dumping the garbage in the street & all the rest--I've never seen a garbage truck come by here yet--but they have a whole different culture, different religion, totally different language, totally different writing! You can't even read the signs, they don't even resemble the Phoenician characters alphabet or the European alphabet & it's just another World!
33. IT'S ANOTHER WORLD FOR THEM BOTH PHYSICALLY & CULTURALLY & RELIGIOUSLY & ALMOST PSYCHOLOGICALLY, so I think they really do need a little time to get adjusted, maybe a little more time than you realise. I have been more recently in touch with the Europeans & in Europe & those places & I don't think most of them really have the faintest idea of what they're getting into unless they've made a trip here before sometime or other.
34. IF THEY'VE MADE A VISIT TO THE EAST AS A HIPPIE GETTING THEIR DRUGS IN YEARS GONE BY, well, then they know a little bit about what they're getting into. But if they've never been down here it's going to be quite a shock no matter how much you tell them, how much they've read or whatever, it's going to be quite a shock!
35. I THINK YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO WAIT FOR THESE PEOPLE TO GET ADJUSTED TO THE CLIMATE & I think we ought to give them, as I say, a week or two vacation just to get rested up & to get used to the heat & the climate & the bugs. Of course, they can always be doing a little something around the house & especially those who have kids will have plenty to do just taking care of the kids & helping with the housework & feeding & all that.
36. I THINK THESE PEOPLE WHO STAY AT RECEPTION CENTERS unless they are awful big paying guests should consider themselves not just hotel guests but members of the Home & on the work schedule like anybody else, you know, even if they're contributing a little money to their room & board. Well, everybody in the Home contributes something to their room & board, right? So that doesn't make any difference. That doesn't mean that they're going to be pampered like hotel guests & can sit around doing nothing.
37. I THINK THE GUESTS COMING THROUGH OUR RECEPTION CENTERS SHOULD BE PUT TO WORK JUST LIKE ANYBODY ELSE!--Put on a work schedule for dishes & cleaning & cooking & everything else so that it'll help them get used to a little work & get their minds off themselves & the heat & the bugs & get busy.
38. BUT AS FAR AS GIVING THEM IMMEDIATE PLACES OF LEADERSHIP to start telling the natives & the old veterans what to do in their area where they have been for years & know it like the back of their hand, I don't think it's going to work. I think you're going to have to give it a lot more time than that.
39. NOW AS I SAY, IF IT'S SIMPLY TECHNICAL UNITS YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT such as an office unit or a musical unit, printing or photographic unit, well, that's a little different story. These technicians & musicians, they know their business no matter what the climate is! Well, they're going to have a few adjustments on climate too. Boy oh boy oh boy! Ha!
40. WHEN I FIRST STARTED A BIT OF PHOTOGRAPHY WHEN I WAS YOUNG & doing my own developing & everything, I read in the instructions on the boxes, "Keep these chemicals at 65-68 degrees F or you'll have washed out or dirty photos," etc. I thought, "My God, it never goes below 80 degrees F here! What am I going to do?" There was no air conditioning so I used to go to the icebox & chip ice in a tray & then I'd set my trays of chemicals in this tray of ice to try to cool them down! Ha!
41. CAN YOU IMAGINE A DARKROOM IN A CLIMATE LIKE THIS without air conditioning where you had to be closed up tight & not a crack nor a cranny nor a nail hole for ventilation, unless you've got some indirect form of ventilation or circulation or air conditioning. Can you imagine doing darkroom work in this kind of climate? I mean, how they do it I don't know!
42. SOME OF THESE TECHNICIANS ARE GOING TO HAVE A FEW THINGS TO LEARN. It's not going to be so simple like where they worked before where everything was just the nice right temperature already & chemicals didn't get hotter than Hades or where you have to use ice trays to keep your chemicals cool & stuff like that & where you don't dare keep your film too long either. In fact, you're not even sure about the film you get off the shelf. You'd better check your dates, & even that's no guarantee it'll be good.
43. YOU DON'T EVEN DARE USE FILM AT ALL THAT'S GETTING NEAR THE END OF ITS TIME because it can be spoiled just sitting on the shelf. The colours begin to look filmy or mottled or washed out, faded. And even if the film is fresh & you put it in your camera & you leave your camera lying around anywhere for long, well, then you'd better just forget it. So they've got lots to learn on a lot of these things.
44. I DON'T KNOW HOW YOUR COMPUTERS ARE TAKING THE HEAT, but do they seem to be working? (Peter: Yes, but at first it needs a little bit of dry-out time to sort of dry it out a little bit. At first it acts up a little & then after about five minutes it runs OK.) And I don't know how it affects electric typewriters, maybe not too much the mechanical type. And of course musical instruments are frequently affected very strongly by climate & heat & moisture, especially reed instruments & things like that that I used to play.
45. SO THEY'VE GOT A LOT OF THINGS TO GET USED TO, BUT NOT QUITE AS MUCH IN THEIR TECHNICAL TRADE TASKS. I think they could probably be put to work right away in music or offices or darkrooms or whatever with their technical jobs without any problem. But I think they're going to have to have a little time & education before it comes to overseeing, for example, a Home that is a witnessing, litnessing outreach Home when they themselves don't even comprehend the problems at all.
46. NEW LEADERSHIP COMING IN NEEDS TRAINING so that they can understand the problems they're facing. Even though they have great leadership talent & great knack for dealing with people & how to run a Home or a District or whatever it may be, & no matter how spiritual they are, no matter what good leaders of people they are & no matter how good shepherds they are normally & naturally.
47. THAT'S ALL IN THEIR FAVOUR, OF COURSE, but before they can take charge of anything down here I would suggest you put them through a kind of a boot camp training in which they start like they were babes from scratch & they go straight out onto the street litnessing the best they know how, language or no. At least they can pass out the Komix or something. What have you found to be the best way to break in new people?--People who are not from another part of this area but people from the North, total foreigners & strangers to this culture, climate & everything?
48. THE CLINICAL METHOD, THAT'S WHAT IT TAKES! Exactly. See, that's very similar to what Fred's method was, the Soul Clinic method, & it certainly works! And that is to take an old hand, an old experienced witness, a real soul-winner, a real litnesser who really knows his stuff & is an old hand at going door-to-door on the street corner, whatever, & putting a fresh green recruit with him to watch & learn how they do it first hand.
49. DOCTORS, HOSPITALS, NURSES & EVERYONE DOES THE SAME THING. That's what internship is for. They can get all the book learning & theoretical learning & everything else in medical school & they're still not ready to be a doctor no matter how many years of that kind of training they had. Then they've got to go into three years of internship actually watching other doctors & nurses work & working with them & doing it with them & learning by observation & experience. Just like any kind of job, really.
50. I MEAN, THERE'S HARDLY ANY JOB YOU DON'T HAVE TO LEARN, office work or on-the-job-training mechanical work or anything else. This is the advantage of the old-fashioned apprenticeship method & what they called journeymen, some of them, in the old-fashioned days. Well, of course, in the good ol' days the boy learned a trade from working with his father, his father teaching him & training him & sharing the shoe repair jobs & whatever it was.
51. IF THE FATHER DIDN'T HAVE THE TRADE HE WANTED or the boy wanted to go into something else he'd hire him out as an apprentice to somebody who was in that trade or that skill & sometimes have to pay for it, or he'd have to even work for his room & board just to get the training & get paid nothing just to work & get the training & the experience to learn the trade.
52. THIS IS THE WAY FRED WORKED HIS SOUL CLINIC TRAINING & IT WAS REALLY GOOD! You've got only two weeks of indoctrination classes--they called it orientation & indoctrination--& then after two weeks they found out how much you knew or didn't know about the Bible. You memorised a lot of Scripture & you had a lot of classes on how to witness, litness, win souls & go door-to-door & all the if's, and's & but's & no's & yes's & everything for two solid weeks.
53. NOW MAYBE IN THESE TWO WEEKS THAT THE PEOPLE ARE GETTING ACCLIMATED & adjusted to the climate & the culture, maybe you can have some old experienced veterans give'm a briefing. Establish a regular series of specific classes on the culture, the history, knowledge of the religions, the people, the country they're in, its customs, its culture, its laws, its mores, its religious beliefs & what to expect of these various kinds of people, etc., as well as maybe learning a few little basic phrases of the language.
54. HAVE SORT OF AN ORIENTATION INDOCTRINATION FOR AT LEAST TWO WEEKS. Some places it might take more if you have time, but I'd say that they'd need at least two weeks almost pure class time. Meanwhile they can help with the chores of the house & cooking, housecleaning, childcare & office work or things they can do there without even having to get in touch with the public yet.
55. MAYBE ON WEEKENDS THEY COULD GO OUT WITH EXPERIENCED TEAMS & just go with them & watch'm, you know, see what they do & sort of get used to looking at the people & being looked at & at least standing there passing out tracts if nothing else, even if they can't say a thing. They ought to be able to teach them a couple little phrases such as "please" or "thank you" or "I love you" or "God loves you."
56. I TOLD YOU ABOUT THAT FAMOUS PIONEER INDIAN MISSIONARY, one of the first British missionaries that ever came to India. All he knew was two phrases in the native language. I don't know which one it was, I think it was Hindi, & that was "God loves you" & "I love you." Of course, which god, that's a good question!--Ha!
57. THAT'S WHAT I TOLD SIMON ON HIS PROGRAM, "I DON'T MIND HOW MUCH YOU TALK ABOUT GOD, every religion has some god if they can feel an entity there. But the minute you start to say "Jesus," uh-oh, that's a different story in the Oriental area! He's a competitor! If you're talking about god, well, that could be Brahma, Hari Krishna & who know's what. So they need to learn all these things & what to do & what not to do.
58. WHILE THEY'RE GETTING ADJUSTED TO THE CLIMATE & THE BUGS & JUST RECOVERING, at least they ought to be able to set up, maybe stay awake! Well, maybe after the first couple days at least, ha! Give them two days totally off & plenty of naps in the next two weeks. Definitely siestas.
59. I'M FOR A SCHEDULED SIESTA IN THESE HOT COUNTRIES! The natives learned that & they do it. I'm for the siesta & thank God they've got it all through Southern Europe & South America. Any place where you find hot countries they've learned that they've just got to slow down & take it easy & take a nap in the afternoon after lunch.
60. GIVE'M A GOOD TWO WEEKS TIME, the first couple days completely off doing nothing except taking care of their kids & helping with the housework, etc., & lots of time to sleep & rest up & sleep all day if they feel like it. They can sleep through meals too if they want to, but they don't get the opportunity to necessarily eat afterwards if they miss it! It won't hurt'm in this hot climate to miss a meal or two; you don't usually get as hungry any more.
61. GET SOME OF YOUR OLD VETERANS UP THERE AS TEACHERS. At each Reception Center they should pick out who they think is best at teaching this or that, teaching religions, teaching customs, teaching history, teaching about the climate & how to survive it, even teaching them about the practical things of living & the bugs & how to defeat them. They need a whole lot of instruction.
62. I GAVE MY FOLKS A SERIES OF TALKS ON ALL THIS BEFORE THEY EVER LEFT THE NORTH. In fact, I even gave'm some talks on it in South Africa so they were pretty well prepared & knew what to expect at least & they weren't surprised or shocked or totally overcome by the horror of it all.
63. NATURALLY ON MY "GARDEN OF EDEN" SERIES I TRIED TO MAKE IT SOUND AS APPEALING AS POSSIBLE. I wasn't going to tell'm about what had happened to the Garden of Eden after the Devil got it! I wanted them to remember it as it was. They'd find that out soon enough! Ha! It wasn't going to encourage them to come down here.
64. BUT FINALLY I GOT UNDER CONVICTION & I WROTE THAT LITTLE LNF FOR THE MAGAZINE, "THE TROUBLE WITH THE TROPICS" to warn them about some things. You should always be sure to leave your closet doors hanging open, your clothes out to air & a few other things if you don't want your shoes to turn green, & shake your clothes out & your shoes before you put them on & a few other things. Watch out for certain kinds of plants & bugs & all the rest.
65. I THINK THAT KIND OF INDOCTRINATION ORIENTATION IS VERY ESSENTIAL TO NEW MISSIONARIES. I don't care if they're old-hand missionaries from the West & the North, if they're coming down to this area they need that particularly & it might not be a bad idea even in South America. I know there are quite a few other fields that could probably use it.
66. LET'S FACE IT, FRED WAS DOING IT IN THE USA! He had a whole course called "cults" & you learned the basic beliefs of Catholics & Jews & the various common religions of the U.S. & what to say & what not to say & how not to offend them & what to agree on & all these things. That is quite a knack when you're witnessing. And at the same time they had somebody teaching them the basic language phrases.
67. WHAT WOULD YOU SAY WERE THE MAIN THINGS THAT THEY WOULD NEED TO LEARN? First of all, maybe just as they're already physically here, someone needs to teach them about the physical environment, right? An environmental course on the living conditions & how to keep cool, how to keep clean, how to keep free of the bugs, how to take care of your clothes, how to watch your food & water & what to watch out for when you're outdoors & what kind of vipers & snakes & bugs to be careful about & what kind of people to be careful about. All about the physical environment & how to survive physically. And what would you say is next most important?
68. WELL, IT COMES BACK TO ME THE FIRST TIME I EVER TOOK MOTHER EVE TO A FOREIGN COUNTRY, DOWN TO MEXICO. This may surprise you! What do you think is the very first thing I taught her to do before she even knew the language? Come on, you know what the first thing you have to know how to do is. (Keda: Ask for the bathroom.) Yes, well that's one, & of course go into a restaurant to order your food.
69. BUT ONE OF THE MOST VITALLY ESSENTIAL THINGS YOU NEED ESPECIALLY TO TEACH WOMEN ... AHEM! (Peter: How to count.) Exactly! How to count in the money & the value of the money. How to count, how to say the words & how to understand them, & if you can't say the words & understand them, at least how to write it down somehow. That's one of the first things you've got to know in a foreign country, how to count, or you can get ripped off right & left! So you had better teach them real quick how to count. Well, that's part of the language instruction course.
70. SO I'D SAY BESIDES KNOWING ABOUT THE PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT, THE NEXT THING THEY NEED TO DO TO SURVIVE IS TO LEARN A LITTLE OF THE LANGUAGE, & one of the first parts of the language they need to learn is how to count. Then the common customary polite terminology of "good morning", "good afternoon", "good evening" or whatever it is. Even if they get it mixed up, well, they're saying something & people can tell they're trying & they'll smile.
71. THEY REALLY NEED TO LEARN THE BASICS--THE COMMON GREETINGS & COMMON THINGS THEY NEED TO KNOW, the absolute necessities of the language to find where the toilet is, where's the railroad station, where's the café & the names of different kinds of food, etc., how to count the money & all the basic language. I think that's one of the first things they need to start teaching them. Physical environment & how to survive it, the basic language, the basic phrases & words & how to survive it.
72. THEY CAN BE TAUGHT SOME SIMPLE LITTLE RULES OF PRONUNCIATION & HOW THE WORDS ARE WRITTEN. Somebody can write it on the blackboard or something just like they're little kids, first graders in school learning their ABC's, amen? And I think that'll be a great help to them in some of these countries. They say that Indonesian is a fairly simple language to learn because they use the European characters there which is certainly a big help!
73. THE NEXT MOST IMPORTANT THING THEY NEED TO LEARN IS SOMETHING ABOUT THE CULTURE & THE CUSTOMS, even before they need to know the religion. I think religion could be a complete course in itself on the various kinds of religions & their ideas, etc., & even their customs & their dress & all that sort of thing, their taboos. You don't want to offend them with certain things, even foods, etc.
74. BUT I WOULD SAY THE GENERAL CULTURE & CUSTOMS & MORES OF THE PEOPLE, how you should dress & not dress, what offends them & doesn't & what to say & not to say. What to do & not do in polite society, in other words, or even on the common street what is expected; how to survive in the streets & how to watch for thieves & pickpockets.
75. A COURSE IN CULTURE & CUSTOMS & THAT SORT OF THING WILL INCLUDE A LOT ABOUT THE PEOPLE & THEIR CHARACTERISTICS & their nationalities & maybe a little bit about the historical background of this culture I think would be good to come in there, who they are & where they came from. Almost everybody came from somewhere & has some former identity or something. They need to know something about the country & the culture & its history & people, customs all these things. What next?
76. AFTER ALL, IF THEY'RE GOING TO WITNESS, WHY ARE THEY WITNESSING? Who are they witnessing to? What kind of religion do they already have? Why do they need Christ? I think they need a course in religion. It doesn't have to be some big theological thing with all their theories & four thousand different gods & whatnot but just the general idea of what the religion is, first of all, what it's supposed to be & what they teach it to be, & then actually what it's practised like. You know what I mean? Because it's sometimes different as night from day.
77. I MEAN, YOU CAN STUDY ABOUT THE TEACHINGS OF BUDDHA & A LOT OF THOSE THINGS & they all sound very beautiful & wonderful & nice, & then you find out they're just as idolatrous & perverted as anything else. So I think we need a course in the religions of the land & what the religious beliefs are as well as what their practices are. PTL! You can hardly be considered leaders on the field & leaders of others & teachers of others when you don't even know anything about it yourselves!
78. NEXT THING AFTER YOU KNOW WHAT THEIR RELIGION IS & EVERYTHING, WELL, WHAT'S THE BEST WAY TO WITNESS TO THEM? How do you talk to them? And of course the new ones, even if they don't know a word of the language can get out there & pass out the lit. I saw a little girl over here the day before yesterday--to show you how hungry they are for any scrap of paper or literature--she saw a torn page, about one-&-a-half pages out of a comic book that somebody had thrown over here in the garbage.
79. SHE WAS ONE OF THOSE BEAUTIFUL LITTLE GIRLS COMING HOME FROM SCHOOL in one of those immaculate spotless white dresses & she went over there & practically crawled through the bushes to pull out this one page of comic out of a comic book that was on a heap of trash! They're so hungry for literature, especially pictures, & this is what we're geared for, which is the Komix!
80. I AM FOR THE KOMIX!--As long as they don't reduce them too much where they're so small & microscopic they can hardly even read the print & maybe hardly even see the pictures much less read the print! Some of the Komix I would say they might be able to reduce a little bit if it's going to save them quite a bit, if the print is at least still readable.
81. I WOULD SAY IF THEY HAVE TO & IF THEY'RE THAT POOR & if they need'm by that many millions & the people are that hungry that they'll read'm anyhow even if it's microscopic, well, all right. We can make a few allowances, right? Especially when you can stand out there & get out thousands in an hour & the people just grab'm out of your hands & are hungry for anything! I'm for making them as easy to print as possible & as cheap & as numerous & as plenteous as possible! But for God's sake, please let the text be at least big enough they can read it!
82. THE KOMIX TEXTS VARY SO YOU CANNOT SET ANY STANDARD FOR THE SIZE IN THE VERY POOR COUNTRIES. But that's the only standard I would suggest, & that is at least don't make them so small you can't read them! Some of them have very small print & if you tried to reduce them at all you couldn't read it, it's hard enough to read already. You can't reduce them at all! Others have very large print & you could reduce them to half size & still be very legible.
83. BUT OF COURSE THAT'LL BE THEIR FIRST FORMAL WITNESSING even before they can speak a word of the language. The people who can talk & skit & preach in the language can take them out with them & while they're carrying on a skit or a meeting or a public performance the new dummy deadheads that know nothing can get out there & at least hand out lit. I mean, they don't even have to hardly hand it out, just hold it out & the people will grab it! Believe it or not, it's that way a lot in lots of places, even in South America. They're very hungry for the lit.
84. SO YOU SHOULD HAVE SOME CLASSES IN WITNESSING; what to do & what not to do & what to watch out for & what the country likes & doesn't like & what the laws are. And teach them most of all to follow their leaders while they're out litnessing, follow the veterans & the old-timers & watch them & see what they do & learn by the clinical method of observation & mimicry, just watching & then doing what they do until they finally sort of get the hang of it.
85. BUT UNTIL THESE NEW PEOPLE COMING IN FROM THE NORTH HAVE BEEN THROUGH THIS BASIC COURSE of training of I'd say at least two weeks to a month, I don't think I'd let'm out of the house within a week, really. It'd be like sending babes out in the woods for some of them. They've never been in this kind of a situation before. Those who from their hippie days used to go through & live here, well, that's different, they're like veterans. But the new people who have never been in the Orient before, just forget it! Don't let'm out of the house for a week or two depending on their experience.
86. MAYBE THE FIRST WEEKEND THEY CAN GO OUT WITH THE REGULAR WITNESSES & just stand close & pass out lit. But by that time they should know enough about the situation, what to do & what not to do. Each field can adjust the length & the content of the course according to the difficulty of the language or the difficulty of the situations & according to the need, but I'd say those are the basic needs: Knowledge of their environment, basic language, basic culture, religion & witnessing.
87. LORD HELP US NOT TO FORGET ANYTHING because this is probably going to go out to all these stations & give them an idea what to do with those newcomers in those Reception Centers when they first arrive & get them busy learning about their new field immediately & let the old vets teach them & treat them like absolute babes, & they'd better get the point! They're not big shots!
88. IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT A BIG SHOT THEY WERE UP NORTH, THEY'RE NOT EVEN A LITTLE SHOT DOWN SOUTH! They're just a mere babe, a totally ignorant, dumb ignoramus as far as the new field's concerned & they're just like a babe fresh off the street who'd just gotten saved & catapulted into a new society like into Homes in the old days or even now. They've got to learn everything from scratch, the whole works, & we cannot allow them to get out in circulation or anything until they've had a little briefing, before they're even allowed out with veterans on the field.
89. WE FOUND IN THE SOUL CLINIC THAT THAT TOOK ABOUT TWO WEEKS even in their own home country where they knew the language, to really teach them everything they needed to know about witnessing & everything. They didn't even have to learn a language or how to count or a new culture or anything!
90. FRED DIDN'T LET THEM GO OUT ON THE STREETS OR DOOR-TO-DOOR FOR TWO SOLID WEEKS! They just buried them in this case in the Word, memorisation & plan of Salvation, Salvation Scriptures, soul-winning techniques & all this sort of thing, which is of course what they gave to them. All that is also basic to this type of missionary training.
91. (KEDA: THEY COULD ALSO HAVE MAYBE A COURSE OF RELEVANT LETTERS, things you've already written that are relevant to that field.) Yes, a reading course that someone won't even have to teach. That's a very good idea, pick out a reading course. I recommend they start that before they even leave the North as they're preparing to go South. You're a good one for that. That was your idea, why don't you list up a nice reading course of Letters that you'd think would be good for them to read even before they come South. What would we call them? Babe missionaries?--Missionary babes!--Something to put the idea in their heads that they're not so smart, they're just missionary babes. It's a babes ranch training, really, Missionary Babes Ranch.
92. I THINK WE'VE GOT ABOUT FIVE COURSES ALREADY, HAVEN'T WE? (Keda: Yes!) Name them. (Keda: Physical environment, language, cultural background, religion, witnessing techniques & then reading course.) That's six! We ought to have seven, come on! (Maria: Well, one thing they should touch on is the history of the work in that particular country & what ministries are accepted & what aren't & even hotels you can FF in, etc.)
93. I THINK THAT'S A VERY GOOD IDEA, THE HISTORY OF THE FAMILY IN THAT AREA & its locations & its problems & the past bad experiences perhaps with the people or the government & why & the mistakes that were made. That's a very good suggestion! I must say the Lord brought that to mind a minute ago & I was going to mention it in connection with something else, but I thought, "Well, it doesn't quite fit into this category at all." So the Holy Spirit's faithful! Family history & experience in the area, both ancient & modern, what it was like at first.
94. IT WOULD BE INTERESTING TO GIVE THE STORIES OF THE FIRST FAMILY PIONEERS. Let's give them credit where credit is due, who were the first pioneers in the area, where did they settle, what were their experiences, what did they accomplish, if anything? What lasting fruit do we still see around us here who are now national leaders as a result.
95. IT'D ENCOURAGE THEM TO SEE WHAT PROGRESS THE FAMILY HAS MADE IN THAT AREA ALREADY & to know a little bit about the background there some of the people who they will be meeting & working with--their background, their history, their testimonies, their life stories, maybe even get a few of those people to stand up in that class & tell their stories.
96. (MARIA: MAYBE WE CAN GET ALL THESE THINGS IN THE FN EVENTUALLY. Instead of just having to repeat them on the spur-of-the-moment every time, it could be written up. It'd be interesting to the rest of the World too.) I think it would be well to go back & mention the Family history in that whole area or maybe in the whole Orient & the East, who were the first pioneers that came & where they went & what countries they went to & give a general Family history.
97. I THINK THESE NEW PEOPLE COMING IN, YOU'RE NOT GOING TO BE ABLE TO APPOINT THEM IMMEDIATE LEADERS. I think it'd be very unwise to appoint them as immediate leaders, no matter what! I don't care if they were VSs back in Europe, they are not ready to even be a Home Shepherd in this field! No! They're nothing but a green, green as the greenest grass babe like they came fresh off the street! I mean it! I don't care how top leaders they were or what they were.
98. I NEED IT! I COULD SIT HERE AT YOUR FEET & LEARN OF YOU, WHAT YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS FIELD! I am that dumb & that green about it. About all I know is what I've read & the geography I know. I think Keda mentioned about things & I've studied the map enough I've almost got it photographed & a knowledge of climates & having read about these countries & history & a lot of those things I could tell you, but actual experience in the field & missionary & witnessing experiences, & really what the people are like from our standpoint, that's something you & these people who are leaders & national leaders down here would have to tell me! We know no more than what we've seen on video & read in the FN.
99. SO WE'VE GOT OUR SEVEN-COURSE DINNER FOR OUR NEW MISSIONARIES! I suggest you put them in this course right off the bat after maybe the first day or two rest, & they're to be considered required courses authorized right from me so they'll know they've got to sit there whether they like it or not! They've got to take those courses!
100. NOW YOU SET UP THE BASIC CURRICULUM, another job for you, & you can outline it in a little bit more detail, Keda, what should be taught in each of those courses, & get it out to these Reception Homes & respective fields & just tell these people they have got to sit down & take those courses like it or not, no matter whether they were big shots back home or not!
101. THEY ARE NOTHING BUT BABES ON THIS NEW FIELD & THEY ARE TO BE TREATED LIKE BABES. I mean, we can have respect for fellow man & respect for their past history, but that doesn't mean two cents on this new field except their spiritual qualifications. That's just about all that you can say that they've got that they can bring with them is their spiritual qualifications. Even witnessing, it doesn't matter if they were genius litnessers or witnessers, they know nothing about litnessing or witnessing in this field.
102. SO THE ONLY THING THEY CAN REALLY BRING WITH THEM IS THEIR KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORD & THEIR SPIRITUAL QUALIFICATIONS, & that's a lot of course, & that's "well begun is half done" if they've got all that. But they've got a whole new kettle of fish here to learn about & they're going to have to start from scratch on all of these seven things, amen? So that's what I want you to do with these people first, don't even appoint them as Home Shepherds.
103. THEY'RE NOT READY EVEN TO BE A HOME SHEPHERD! How could they be a Home Shepherd over people who might just be national babes as far as the local situation is concerned, but the raw national babes straight off the street knows more about the field than they do! How could they tell them what to do? They need to be sat down alongside the national babe & learn of him what he can teach'm. I mean it!
104. I REALLY WOULD HATE TO SEE THEM GET IN ANY KIND OF AUTHORITY UNTIL THEY HAVE BEEN GIVEN THE TEST to see if they can survive the climate, the physical environment, the language & all the rest & then learn something about witnessing conditions & what the poor little fellas are up against out in this field before you can give them any kind of authority of leadership over them. Preferably I think I'd almost choose a national who has had a few years in the Family & experience to have authority over them until they learn. Because the national knows the language, the culture, the religion, he knows it all! He knows more than they'll ever learn, really!
105. I LOVE TO SEE THOSE NATIONALS ON THOSE VIDEOS! I mean, they thrill me when I see people like that that are so full of fire & the Spirit & the knowledge of the Lord & the Word & leadership potential & have stuck with us for years now. They're the ones I think that you should be giving more ministries, really now! It's their field, it's their country, it's their people & we don't want to come down here like the colonialists & act like the bigshots & the bosses & tell them how to run those! We need to come down here & sit at their feet & learn of them how to work in this country, & I mean it!
106. WELL NOW, WHAT DETAILS HAVE I NOT COVERED IN THAT SO FAR? Two days rest, one week indoctrination, maybe at the end of a week a weekend out with the veterans & local yokels to help them to pass the tracts if nothing else. Just stick close like little children would to their mamas & daddies. Then another week or maybe up to a month before you can even trust them to really go into fulltime work, & even then never without an older brother.
107. EVEN IN THE STATES THAT WAS OUR RULE, we never sent them out witnessing without an older brother or sister who knew the local situation & understood the people & how to witness & what to do & not to do. The clinical method, always with somebody who knew the language & knew the people & they learn of them & learn with them. The two-by-two system, the "buddy system" as we used to call it in swimming. I don't think two new ones should ever be sent out together. I frankly think that these Combos, Reception Centers perhaps need to be the indoctrination centers as well before you could possibly send anybody into the field as raw total strangers who know nothing.
108. IT'S A LITTLE DIFFERENT IN SOUTH AMERICA if they already know a smattering of Spanish, they know the Catholic religion & they've been a little bit familiar with the Latin Americans even in the States, etc., or they've visited Mexico or even visited Los Angeles or San Antonio & whatnot. It's not altogether new by any means, there's no culture shock really because they've had the music, they've had the whole works & it's not the problem in South America. When you think about new missionaries going there, well, they don't know the language very well there but they could get by.
109. I THINK THIS PROGRAM WOULD BE OF GREAT HELP & GREATLY IMPROVE THEIR MINISTRY & hasten their ministry & broaden their ministry if they could go through at least this two weeks course in the Reception Center, this indoctrination orientation in all these seven fields. I think it'd be a great help & I think it would help to give them more assurance & confidence & faith in their own capability to go out raw into the field alone.
110. WE COULD STRETCH IT OUT WITH SOME OF THEM MAYBE & MAKE IT A ONE MONTH COURSE. Fred even started with a two weeks course & lengthened it to one month. He finally wound up with a three months course & finally with a three months in-school course plus a three months in the field, home field course basic training. The whole course was considered the basic boot camp training in the school & then field training where they were sent out into some field with some other older witnesses & experienced people, or even down at TSC where they could learn how to rough it & survive & live with people who already knew the Latins & the language & older experienced missionaries who came back from the field to teach them & get them really ready for the field.
111. AND FINALLY HE REQUIRED THREE MONTHS ADDITIONAL DEPUTATION which meant if they spent three months in school, three months in home field training with other older missionaries or somebody, then they would get a temporary missionary appointment. They were appointed Soul Clinic missionary candidates & authorized to go out in the field, invade the churches, raise money, raise pledges, say they were already appointed Soul Clinic missionaries & raise money to support themselves to go to the field.
112. IF AT THE END OF THAT ADDITIONAL THREE MONTHS OF DEPUTATION THEY HAD RAISED ENOUGH IN PLEDGES--that was a pretty fast job, I'll tell you, if they could do it that quick! A lot of them didn't make it through until about the end of the year, really!--But if they made it & succeeded in three months, they had their fare & they had their support in pledges, he would give them a full missionary appointment to the field & they'd go, he considered them ready for the field. Now he didn't have any formal field training like this we're talking about, but I think it could've greatly improved the tenure of their missionaries down there & their survival if he had.
113. MOST OF THEM DID LAND USUALLY WITH MISSIONARIES WHO WERE ALREADY THERE or in their home & with them. Or some of them just invaded raw fields they never saw before, never knew before, went to Acapulco & all kinds of places just raw. But usually they had learned some of the language, they had some smattering of the language, & enough about witnessing & tract passing. They could get by for awhile until they learned by experience. Experience is the best teacher but a tough one & a costly one, whereas teachers are a shortcut to learning if we could make this indoctrination period of training possible.
114. BUT WE DON'T WANT THEM TO LAND THERE & SPEND ALL OF THEIR MONEY BEFORE THEY GET OUT OF THE RECEPTION CENTER! They're apt to see the need there & the Reception Center's apt to need it so much that they're going to be helping & spending &, "Well, they need this equipment, they need a refrigerator, they need food, they need beds, they need this furniture & that, they need a car"--& before you know it their landing funds are all spent & they don't even have enough money to get to their goal city & rent a house or survive for three months! So we've got to watch out about that!
115. I'LL TELL YOU WHAT WE USED TO DO IN THE EARLY DAYS, WE HAD THE GREAT ESCAPE FUND. Because we found out that the folks who were raising money for the Great Escape from the United States, the first method was: "Bring your litnessing money home & whatever you don't need, lay it aside, give it to the Colony Shepherd & let him keep it for you in his bank account until you're ready to go." And you know what happened! For some reason or other it got spent.
116. WE FINALLY DECIDED THE ONLY SAFE THING TO DO WAS HAVE THEM SEND IT TO US so I had Jeth set up a Great Escape fund, a special bank account to send in their funds if they wanted to trust us to keep them for them & we would keep the funds until they were ready to go & they could be guaranteed they were going to get them back. And when they were ready to go & they sent for their funds, they got their cheque if I had anything to do with it!
117. I REALLY CRACKED THE ROD OVER JETH'S HEAD ON THAT TOO because he had a little tendency to have a few needs once in awhile. (Maria: Quite a few!) Well, he did pretty good. I think we wound up with something like $20,000 in the long run that was never even claimed! The people never made it, they never got out, they never filed a claim for it & we never heard from them again. Many had left the Family completely. So what else could we do but we just put it wherever it was needed in several fields.
118. IF THEY DON'T LEAVE NOW I DON'T THINK THEY'LL EVER LEAVE. But you've got to have something to do with them. They're going to be perfectly green & raw & some of them not even spiritual, a bunch of old backsliders & whatnot. They may have a wad of money, a fistful from their job or whatever, but in no spiritual condition of any kind & they need to be put in a basic babes training. Some of them never even got the babes training. They know nothing, they don't know beans from beans.
119. I THINK THAT IS MY MAIN ANSWER IS THESE PEOPLE CANNOT BE USED AS IMMEDIATE LEADERS, & that applies to everybody that comes from anywhere to any new field. The same holds true of the people coming from Australia, anybody transferring from one field to another. They need to start at scratch in the Babes Missionary Course, sit right there & learn of the local yokels & the local nationals all the things they don't know if they are changing fields, coming to a new field.
120. I THINK THIS SHOULD BE REQUIRED OF THEM & LET IT BE KNOWN! We'll let it be known. This Letter will probably let it be known & they'll expect it & not expect to come in high & mighty to a new field like, "Well, we were big shots in the North & we're going to tell you little people down South here how to run things."
121. I WANT THEM TO SIT DOWN UNDER THOSE LITTLE PEOPLE DOWN SOUTH & LEARN HOW TO FOLLOW, & I MEAN IT! Because they don't know anything if they've come from any other kind of Western, Northern, European or American field of any kind unless they've already been out here for years, & even then if it's a different field they may not know anything about it, or from Australia & New Zealand & whatnot.
122. IN FACT, THE AUSTRALIANS & NEW ZEALANDERS PROBABLY KNOW A WHOLE LOT MORE ABOUT THIS FIELD than the Americans or the Europeans because they lived out here at least near it for years & heard about it & it's been in their newspapers & they must've studied it in geography. When you were in school, didn't you study something about these countries around here, your neighbours? Well, you know more about it than even the Europeans & the Americans, but you still don't know enough until you've been there, you don't know as much as the natives, right?--So they need to learn.--
123. SO LET'S GIVE'M THE "7 COURSES!--A MISSIONARY FEAST!":
1) The Environment--How to survive cool, clean, healthy & free to pests!
2) Language--Basic vital words & phrases, how to count, etc.!
3) Culture & Customs--The land & its people, their history, dress, taboos, etc.
4) Religions--What they teach vs. What they practice!
5) Witnessing--What to do & what not to do!
6) ML Reading Course of Letters relevant to the field.
7) Family History there, our pioneers & their progress!
--And so make sure they're prepared for the job!--Amen! PTL! GBY! I hope you all come down soon, & the sooner you start your "7 Courses" the better the feast you'll have & the stronger you'll be for the job!--Amen? PTL! GBY! Come soon before it's too late!--And you already on the field could stand some of this 7-Course feasting too, right?--Especially you new ones!--So come on you ol' vets, let's cook & serve'm a gd'n! Amen? PTL! GBY all! ILY! GBAKYAMYABIJNA!
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family
