HomeARC ML 1046
BORDER BASES & RECEPTION HOMES!--For the Exodus! DFO1046 6/9/81
--By Father David
1. I THINK IT WAS IN LONDON WHERE WE FIRST DECIDED TO RENT A HOUSE & KEEP IT IN ORDER TO HAVE A PLACE FOR FOLKS TO LAND. We reserved it in advance for the team. Faithy & then others were sure glad to have some place to stay, & boy, I sure would have been glad that day if we'd have had some place to land! Mind you, we were wandering the streets knocking on doors asking to rent a room, & finally those poor hippies, of all people, took us in!
2. WHEN WE KNOCKED ON THE PREACHER'S DOOR, THE ONE THAT HAD THAT BIG GOVERNMENT CHURCH, HE PRACTICALLY SLAMMED IT IN OUR FACE! He was eating supper & he came to the door & opened it just a crack and we said, "Do you know of anyone that has a room to rent? We don't have a place to stay tonight." "No, no!" Bang! Just like that! Slammed the door right in our face! Wasn't even interested in asking questions like a man of God or a preacher of the Gospel or somebody who's concerned should have.
3. I THINK WE EVEN SAID, "WE'RE CHRISTIANS & WE NEED TO RENT A ROOM." We didn't ask for a room for nothing--we just said, "Do you know of anyone who has a room for rent?" We thought maybe some of his parishioners might rent rooms. Every place we went they were just jammed-packed full! If those hippies hadn't taken us in for about three days until Mama Helen had a vacancy I don't know what we would've done 'cause we didn't have that much money in those days & we couldn't afford hotel prices, they were horrendous even then to us!
4. I THINK WE REALLY NEED SOME LANDING BASES. THE ALLIANCE USED TO ALSO CALL THEM MISSIONARY HOMES. The Alliance had a hotel in New York, because that was the main jumping off place for all the boats, in those days it was mostly boats, so they ran a regular hotel. It was nothing fancy--just like a third-rate hotel--but it was very reasonable, $5 a night for two, which was dirt-cheap in New York!
5. IF YOU WERE AN ALLIANCE MISSIONARY YOU GOT SPECIAL RATES, & even other Christians who didn't belong to the Alliance, so they kept the hotel full with passing missionaries all the time. The rates were of course very cheap for the Alliance missionaries & I think they took some in practically free. I think we've gotten to the point now where that sort of thing, especially in South America & the Pacific, S.E. Asia & Indonesia is going to be really necessary, especially in some of those countries where they're really getting over-crowded.
6. THE ALLIANCE HAD A ONE-WEEK TIME LIMIT AT THE HOTEL IN NEW YORK because they figured anybody could buy their ticket & get all their papers arranged in a week. Of course, if there were special emergencies I presume they extended it. But I remember they only let my mother & me, who weren't missionaries but we were Alliance workers, they let us stay there one week & then we had to move since they already had the rooms reserved for somebody else.
7. THEY HAD RESERVATIONS STACKED UP FROM PEOPLE GOING THROUGH, HUNDREDS OF MISSIONARIES! The Alliance had about 2,000 missionaries so they had'm going & coming all the time! I think that sort of thing would be very helpful. Look at us!--We had to camp out in a pup tent for two weeks before we could get off from New York! New York is probably the major Border Base, & Miami is another one right now since some are going to the Caribbean.
8. I THINK THAT WOULD BE A REAL BLESSING & A GREAT HELP TO OUR MISSIONARIES & HELP KEEP YOU FROM WASTING A LOT OF MONEY, & I believe it'd practically pay for itself. When we had the Soul Clinic in Miami we just rented great big old rundown houses & chocked them full of junk furniture & we always had missionaries coming.
9. THERE WAS ONE DEAR OLD GENT IN MIAMI WHO RAN A WHOLE MINISTRY & HE & I USED TO WORK TOGETHER A LOT. He'd ask if I had room for somebody if he was full, or I'd ask if he had room. He ran a great big old home in a very nice section of town called "Serving Missions Overseas." It was a border base & he housed missionaries coming & going, charged a very nominal rate & had a time limit of two weeks on now long they could stay.
10. ALSO MISSIONARIES OVERSEAS WOULD WRITE TO HIM FOR ITEMS THEY COULDN'T OBTAIN ON THEIR FIELD, just like we do now with places like London, & he tried to get it for them & ship it to them, not for nothing of course. They'd pay him for it & he'd also publicise them & his work. He got out a little prayer letter & publicised his work & he had supporters, but it was a real missionary ministry!
11. I REALLY BELIEVE WITH THE VOLUME OF MISSIONARIES WE HAVE ON THE MOVE RIGHT NOW COMING & GOING, I mean, even all our people who have gone back to the U.S. furloughing, how they would have appreciated it if they could have had someplace to land & make their travel arrangements from there on. Not all of them are able to make them all the way through & especially missionaries going out! You just can hardly ever get all the info you need until you actually get to your point of departure or even arrival!
12. WE PHONED & WE PHONED & WE PHONED WHEN WE WERE IN DALLAS TRYING TO GET INFORMATION ON HOW TO GET TO ISRAEL & boat lines & everything else, & we got a little basic information from some of the local travel agents. But nearly all of them said, "Well, you'll have to wait till you get to New York where they've got all the latest info, blah, blah, blah, blah." So we did & slept in a pup tent out in the park for two weeks until we finally got our arrangements made.
13. WELL, OUR KIDS ARE SO INGENIUS THEY'VE BEEN GETTING BY THIS FAR, but I believe it would be a real ministry & could be a real blessing & it's something that I've got a burden for that I would like to help. I read all these stories about them going & coming & that's one of the major problems--just a place to land to get kind of re-grouped & recover from their jet-lag & make their travel plans of where to go next, & they don't always know till they get there & talk to the local missionaries & people with experience & find out from the local councils what the scores are etc.
14. YOU JUST HAVE TO GET TOUGH WITH THEM TO SHOVE THEM ON THEIR WAY, THAT'S ALL, & not give them the idea they've found their new Home. At TSC those who couldn't make their way or just didn't have the guts or the funds or whatever, we'd just take down to the bus station & buy'm a ticket & see'm onto the bus & it was cheaper & less trouble than keeping them! It's much better even if it costs something to take them & put'm on the bus & ship'm out!
15. THAT'S CHEAPER THAN KEEPING THEM ALL THE TIME, & ESPECIALLY SOME OF THESE PEOPLE THAT GET BOGGED DOWN & OFTEN ARE TROUBLE-MAKERS. The reason they don't have the faith to get any further is because they're not right with the Lord, & it's better to ship'm out. If we could even help some family we already know of, like the VSs or some reliable people, in one of the major cities or landing areas, sort of a staging area, & let them run a place like that, I'd be happy to help'm with the rent.
16. I'D SAY THE BEST PEOPLE WOULD BE THE ONES WHO ARE ALREADY THERE & HAVE PROVED THEY'VE GOT THE FAITH TO GET THERE & MAKE IT THEMSELVES. Maybe they already have a big place or something, maybe they don't use it all or need it all or they could get a bigger place. I mean, they're there & know the situation! We could even publicise it to the Family then, at least give them an address to which they could write to find out, some box number down there to make their reservation & give the date that they're coming in.
17. IT'S ALWAYS A BLESSING TO HAVE SOMEBODY MEET YOU AT THE AIRPORT WHEN YOU DON'T KNOW THE LANGUAGE & you don't know where you're going, or nothing. Boy, we spent almost half our time running back & forth to the airport picking up people & taking them home or taking them from the home back to the airport & they never ceased to thank & thank & thank us for all the blessing & help! We got letters from the field & later we got gifts from them too because they were really thankful that we had been a help & a sort of forwarding station.
18. WELL, I THINK WE NEED NOT ONLY BORDER BASES BUT SOME REAL RECEPTION HOMES IN LATIN AMERICA RIGHT NOW. Quite a few Britishers are going to India & things there are dirt cheap so we could probably rent a villa there in some major airport center like Bombay & have someplace for them at lest to land & shove'm on their way. Train transportation is dirt cheap there too so if you had to you could pay transportation for a whole family far enough to get'm so far out of your hair they couldn't get back!
19. BUT IT IS A REAL NEED & WE'VE DONE IT BEFORE, WE DID IT IN MIAMI & WE'VE MORE RECENTLY HAD BORDER BASES IN SEVERAL PLACES but they pretty much had to sort of shift for themselves & the only help they got was their own or from the people passing through. I don't know whether they got out prayer letters or anything. We used to get some Border Base reports a long time ago, I remember, in the Great Exodus.
20. OUR HOTEL THAT WE HAD ON MIAMI BEACH WAS USUALLY FULL OF BOTH STUDENTS & PASSING MISSIONARIES & visiting Christians coming down there. We had all 33 rooms packed full all the time so it also helped us to pay our rent, because we didn't do it for nothing usually. For our students we advertised free room & board, but the visiting guests & passing missionaries were supposed to pay something, & most of them were glad to pay it because it was so much cheaper than a hotel!
21. JUST THINK HOW MUCH OF THE LORD'S MONEY WE COULD SAVE instead of paying $50 a day to the Hilton or Holiday Inn. We could let them have room & board for $5 or $10 a day & that would probably be enough to pay the rent, & good Christian fellowship with Christians who know the language, know the area, know the problems & know all about it & can arrange transportation & visas & all the rest.
22. IT'S A REAL GENUINE NEED & WE'RE EVEN TOO LATE, BUT THERE ARE NEARLY 500 HOMES IN THE U.S.A. & 700 IN EUROPE that are still going to be moving as fast as they can & I think a lot of them would move even quicker & faster if we had some way to process them & help them to at least have a place to land & offer greeting at the airport & transport to the Home in an airport bus or van, some vehicle big enough to haul a lot of people & a lot of luggage!
23. WE FOUND OUT IT WAS REALLY CONVENIENT TO BE CLOSE TO THE AIRPORT because we had so much business & traffic with the airport. And then when I went on the road for Fred almost full-time, I finally got a house out near the airport because I was running back & forth to the airport at least two to four times a month & it sure was convenient to be close-by & not have to drive through all the city traffic & everything.
24. I'D SAY THAT THE SMARTEST THING WOULD BE TO GET SOME BIG OLD HOUSE SOMEWHERE OUT NEAR THE AIRPORT where it's not a big problem to go out & pick them up & take them home. It doesn't have to be near the city as long as it's near the airport, that's the main thing, with all the ticket offices. The only thing you'd have to go to town for is the consulates of other countries & some business. It's a full-time thing, keeps you busy all the time. We were busy all the time with big mobs of people. You saw a lot of those pictures in the Old Goldies.
25. IT WAS A REAL WITNESS IN THOSE DAYS! Well, I don't think today it could be that public a witness. But at least two or three times a week we'd take the whole school out to the airport to either receive an incoming missionary or to farewell an outgoing missionary, & we'd sing & praise the Lord & hold hands in a big circle right in the middle of the terminal & pray for them & everything! It was a real witness & people wanted to know what was going on.
26. IT WAS FUN & WE ALWAYS ENJOYED IT! The little kids really loved to go to the airport, excited to watch the planes & people. It was a kind of a different change from our other forms of witnessing & a real testimony & almost everybody has sympathy for missionaries. All we had to do was tell them we were missionaries or sending a missionary or we were a little Bible School receiving a missionary or whatever.
27. WE NEVER HAD ANYBODY GIVE US ANY TROUBLE EVEN IN THAT PLACE THAT'S PACKED FULL OF JEWS! We always had gobs of children & the Jews, even if they hate your guts, they are crazy about children. In Miami Beach that was the only way we could ever get out any lit. We couldn't pass out tracts, they won't even touch one! You couldn't get a Jew to take a tract unless you paid him! But they hardly ever turned the kids down! But anyway we were able to get our missionaries such cheap fares in Miami that we saved them hundreds of dollars, 'cause I had friends in the airline business there that I had witnessed to & had won to the Lord & they were a tremendous help for years with large reductions.
28. I THINK MIAMI WOULD BE A GOOD PLACE TO HAVE A BORDER BASE, a jumping off place for the people who can afford to take that route. It's cheaper from Miami if you're going tourist class to most of those countries than just from New York. Of course it's cheaper to go from New York via Puerto Rico & then start island hoppin', but a lot more trouble of course.
29. ONE OF THE BIGGEST MINISTRIES OF THE BORDER BASE IS TO TRY TO LOCATE EQUIPMENT FOR MISSIONARIES & accumulate it there for them. Our missionaries in Mexico & Central America sent us the money & we'd buy it & we'd have it there waiting for them. Then they'd come up in their own car or pick-up or whatever & pick it up--which is a big help, to already have it there & not have to come up & shop for it. And they'd sometimes handle mail for them too. So I think we should encourage those Border Bases because it's a real ministry.
30. SOMETIMES THEY CAN PRETTY MUCH SUPPORT THEMSELVES, but in Miami we had to have a lot of help from the outside & special gifts, but I publicised real well what we were doing & how we were helping missionaries get to their fields, not only our own Bible School students, but others as well. I gave the stats nearly every month how many missionaries we helped to get through & how many we'd received & sent off & how many meals we gave every month & how much lodging we furnished every month to show we were really doing something. It's considerable, & I think it's worth supporting.
31. SO I THINK REALLY THERE'S A REAL NEED FOR THOSE BORDER BASES ESPECIALLY RIGHT NOW with all of our families going South, & I think we ought to make an appeal in the Magazine for people who are willing to volunteer either information or their services or their Homes.
32. THERE ARE LOTS OF PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT LEAVING THE STATES FOR VARIOUS REASONS, mothers with children & some people on welfare & food stamps & social security & a lot of other things that's making it kind of hard to leave & they've got a big family who could perform a real service for our missionaries in that way.
33. NOW GOOD JUMPING OFF PLACES, LAUNCH PADS FOR MISSIONARIES FROM THE STATES where there are so many yet to go would be Los Angeles, El Paso, San Antonio & Laredo for Mexico & Central America. Miami for flights to South America makes a good Border Base for people flying. New Orleans for people going by boat; also they've got a lot of flights out of New Orleans but particularly for people going by boat.
34. NEW ORLEANS IS THE LARGEST U.S. PORT OF THE CARIBBEAN & it handles freight for all over the World, but particularly for all over the Caribbean & Latin America. So there's oodles of freighters as well as even some passenger cruise lines that operate out of New Orleans.
35. NOW THERE'S SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR THE FAMILY IF THEY WANT TO VOLUNTEER. If they haven't been able to find it possible to leave the States yet they could set up a Border Base wherever they are or wherever they feel led, Los Angeles, El Paso, San Antonio, Laredo, New Orleans or Miami or New York of course.
36. FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE FAR NORTHWEST, OF WHICH WE HAVE QUITE A FEW, & ALSO PEOPLE COMING FROM WESTERN CANADA, Seattle is the main jumping off place. They've got lots of planes from Seattle to San Francisco & lots of boats from Seattle to San Francisco & Los Angeles.
37. SAN DIEGO ISN'T AS BIG A CITY AS LOS ANGELES BUT IT'D MAKE A GOOD BORDER BASE only 20 miles inside the border, especially for people coming up from the interior to pick up stuff. It could be sort of a situation like between San Antonio & Laredo. San Antonio would be the accumulation center where they could provision almost anything. They could do the same thing in Los Angeles but then San Diego is 120 miles South of Los Angeles to where they could ship it down to the border Home there & that's only 20 miles inside the border from Tijuana & the missionaries could come up.
38. BOTH THE ALLIANCE & THE SOUL CLINIC MISSIONARIES USED TO GO INTO MEXICO MOSTLY ON TOURIST VISAS for six months, & then every six months they'd come up to the Border Base & pick up all the stuff that they wanted & their mail & their boxes that had accumulated since they didn't trust sending them into Mexico.
39. THEY HAD THEIR CHRISTMAS GIFTS & OTHER PACKAGES SENT TO THEIR BORDER BASE & it was stored there for them, or their refrigerator or their air-conditioner or whatever else they wanted to have shipped there, or their trunks when they finally got located in Latin America. They had them shipped to the Border base & then they came up in their car or truck & picked it up--which made it very convenient, because otherwise you never knew if it was going to get there or not!
40. OF COURSE, SEATTLE, SAN FRANCISCO & LOS ANGELES ARE PARTICULARLY GOOD BORDER BASES FOR THE ORIENT & PACIFIC to go to Japan, Philippines, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, even Australia or the Islands because they have more flights & boats to nearly all those places. So in all those major ports around the edge of the U.S. we could have Homes there volunteering to act as Border Bases, & I have the burden to help support them. The Family is being faithful in their tithe & I think it's another place where there is a need & we could be helping them.
41. THEY WOULD HAVE TO BE RUNNING BACK & FORTH TO THE AIRPORT picking up people & delivering people & helping them get their tickets & visas & supplies. We had some drivers always on duty going back & forth to the airport & back & forth to ticket offices & consulates & all the stuff like that. It's at least one driver's fulltime to do this, & then we had to have rooms for them & furnish them meals, & it's a lot of extra expense.
42. I'D LIKE TO MAYBE SEE PEOPLE WHO ARE ALREADY THERE RIGHT NOW IN THOSE AREAS VOLUNTEER TO OPEN UP THEIR HOMES AS BORDER BASES, & if you would be willing to do so, we WS, would use part of our missionary funds to help you. Make you a donation every month of so much, maybe depending on the size of your operation & how much traffic you might have to handle, anywhere from 500 to 1000SF [EDITED: "Swiss francs"] a month's donation which would just about help make the difference between being able to do it or not able to do it.
43. YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE SINGLES, COUPLES, & BIG FAMILIES COMING THROUGH so you'll have to have a few extra rooms, & you're going to have to have some kind of transportation to run them back & forth to the airport or to the train station or the boat & be able to feed them while they're there.
44. YOU SHOULD EXPECT SOME KIND OF DONATION FROM THOSE PEOPLE. They shouldn't be going to a field unless they've got some kind of money & fares & support, so they shouldn't expect to do it free necessarily. I don't think any of our missionaries going to the field should be so poor that they couldn't pay five or ten dollars a night for their room! What do you think? Like singles, five, couples, ten, families maybe twenty. They're not going to get any hotels for that! Right? This means room & board with us.
45. YOU NOT ONLY HOUSE'M BUT FEED'M & FURNISH THEM TRANSPORTATION! So I don't think that would be asking too much to suggest something like that, $5 a day room & board for singles, $10 for couples & $20-25 for families depending on the size of the family.
46. THAT'S ABOUT THE WAY WE USED TO THINK ABOUT IT WHEN WE WERE IN MIAMI, ALSO AT TSC. We expected people who came & stayed as guests to contribute enough to cover their room & board. Of course we were getting by at TSC so cheap since we had no rent to pay & only the food & we did so much provisioning that our figure was only $1.00 to $1.50 a day per person, & that's all it took us to feed them. We had no utilities to speak of except electricity; we did have to buy gas for the stoves, but water was free.
47. (MARIA: WE WANT THEM TO DO IT AS CHEAPLY AS THEY CAN, RIGHT?) Yes, as cheap as they can. Each area would be different according to the cost of the area & the rents, the cost of food & how much they can provision, etc. Just like we do our World Service Units, we could have you figure out how much you think it's going to cost you including your housing, your food & all your expenses, how much can you get along on each month. You send us a suggested budget outline & if we accept it, okay we help on it.
48. IT'S ALWAYS NICE TO HAVE SOMEPLACE TO LAND AFTER A LONG VOYAGE OR LONG FLIGHT when you're just exhausted, to land with friends, loved ones, fellowship & encouragement. Border Bases could have all the latest videos & entertainment while they're there.
49. I THINK THE BORDER BASE MINISTRY IS SOMETHING WORTHY OF SUPPORT & WORTHY OF ENCOURAGEMENT & I don't think we've really done enough for them. I'd like to offer them a little help if you'll write us & tell us what your facilities are, something about yourselves & your area & your length of service, background & photos, also recommendations from local Homes & your Local Area Shepherd, etc., what he thinks about it, whether he thinks it is practical or not & whether he thinks you could handle it.
50. MAYBE THE LOCAL AREA FELLOWSHIP COULD GET TOGETHER IN THESE BORDER CITIES & HELP MAKE THE DECISION. And if all things were equal & seemed to point toward the fact that you've got the right kind of place & can offer the right kind of services & are the kind of people who can handle it & can do a good job of it, you could write us a proposed budget of what you think it will cost & how much of it you can raise for yourselves in provisioning or litnessing & the Seven Supporters, & also from the income from the passing missionaries themselves & how much more you think you would need from us.
51. AT LEAST AS AN ENCOURAGEMENT TO HELP YOU GET STARTED MAYBE WE CAN GIVE SOME OF YOU A PIONEER GIFT to help you rent a bigger house. Most of the big old houses we found were quite old & nobody else wanted them. They had kind of tacky furniture & everything else, but it shouldn't be too bad for missionaries.
52. I WOULD CONSIDER ANY ONE OF THESE AS GOOD BORDER BASES: Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, El Paso, Laredo, San Antonio, New Orleans, Miami & New York because of those cheap flights to Puerto Rico & also to all over the Caribbean. Sometimes it didn't cost much more to fly from New York to Latin America than it did from Miami to Latin America. I can't see why one would be needed in Chicago, although you can get a lot of flights out of Chicago to Latin America & the people in Canada might come down there to get flights, I don't know. But you could write us & tell us what your experiences have been thus far in missionaries coming through.
53. PROBABLY OODLES OF MISSIONARIES HAVE GONE THROUGH THAT YOU DIDN'T EVEN KNOW ABOUT because the missionaries didn't know about you or where you were & didn't have time to find out, you know, & it would be a real blessing if you could be sort of a clearing house of information on that.
54. PEOPLE ARE WRITING IN ALL THE TIME ASKING US FOR THAT SORT OF THING: "Couldn't we have some kind of information center where we could get information on all this." Well, nobody knows as well as the people who live at those Border Bases what the facilities & transportation are & what bargains can be obtained.
55. FOR EXAMPLE, FRED FLEW HIS FIRST FIVE MISSIONARIES TO LATIN AMERICA THROUGH MIAMI & we had them there with us five days while they were waiting for their flight. They had bought first-class tickets which was the only thing available at that time on these fancy airlines, Pan American I think it was, & I turned around & told them to go cash them in & I found out from my friend he could do it for about $500 less each & we saved them $2,000 or more!
56. SEE, FRED IN LOS ANGELES DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT THAT, he couldn't, but I was right there in Miami already shipping missionaries in & out so I knew the situation & I knew where he could get it cheap & I knew what to do. The people at these Border Bases should have all that information: Where they can get bargain flights, charter flights, excursions, what shipping lines, etc.
57. WE PROVISIONED OUR ROUND-TRIP FIRST-CLASS DELUXE FARE ON A CRUISE SHIP for nine or ten people that time we went with Grandmother from Miami to Nassau round trip. I just got on the phone & shopped around, (I've done a little provisioning myself!) & I phoned every different line I could think of that went to Nassau. I finally found this Swedish-American line, a branch of the one that runs between Stockholm & New York, & that had Caribbean cruises. He said, "Well, call me back, I'll see if we have any vacancies or anything that's not yet booked. You call me back the morning we're to leave & if we haven't got them booked by then we'll let you have'm." We had deluxe staterooms & all meals & everything free!
58. WE HAD TO GO DOWN & MEET THE GUY, OF COURSE, IN HIS OFFICE & he talked to us & he was convinced that we were bona fide missionaries & he liked us & gave us free tickets. We were all travelling in the Cruiser then, so we parked the Cruiser in their huge parking lot they had for the cars of people going on the cruise, guarded day & night, 24 hours a day, parked it there, locked it up, left, & we had our nice cruise to the Bahamas! So the people who live there can do that sort of thing.
59. OF COURSE, WE WERE ALREADY LIVING THERE ON MIAMI BEACH SO WE HAD TIME TO SCOUT AROUND & PROVISION that before we left. But if you're just a missionary flyin' in blind & green & you're having to stop over & make arrangements for your visas, transportation, etc., what else can you do but go to a hotel?--Which costs a fortune & all your meals out & everything.
60. YOU MIGHT AS WELL BE GIVING THAT MONEY TO THE LORD that you would use for expensive hotels & meals. You wouldn't have to pay near as much, yet it'd mean a lot to that local Home. Right? So there's our renewed vision for Border Bases!
61. THIS IS GETTING TO BE OUR THIRD GREAT ESCAPE & so we really do need to revive some of those Border Bases. Also we need Reception Homes in Latin America for those flying or coming in.
62. MAYBE IN MEXICO & CENTRAL AMERICA THE BORDER BASES COULD ALSO SERVE AS RECEPTION HOMES because they're right on the border & they'd have all the information, where's a good place to go to get started & rent a house & all the rest. They're close enough & they know all the transportation & the possibilities & the fields & the cities & they need to know which towns are crowded already & which towns are untouched & all the rest.
63. WE'RE ALREADY STACKING UP TOO MANY PEOPLE IN PLACES LIKE MEXICO CITY, COSTA RICA & PUERTO RICO, ETC. We need to start pushing the less populated areas, I mean less Family-populated, but still big cities that could pretty easily stand a few families.
64. I WOULD SAY PERHAPS IN EACH OF THE MAJOR CAPITALS OF THE MAJOR SOUTH AMERICAN COUNTRIES WOULD BE A GOOD PLACE TO HAVE A RECEPTION HOME. One in Caracas, which could also serve people who want to go to the Guianas. One in Bogota for Colombia, one in Guayaquil for Ecuador (not Quito, that's not a transportation center & it's not a good place for landing or taking off either one), & of course Lima, Peru.
65. I THINK EACH OF THOSE COUNTRIES COULD STAND A RECEPTION HOME where people could at least land & recuperate & re-group & make their preparations to go inland, especially those coming by public transportation such as flying or by boat, & that's about the only way you can get to those places.
66. FORGET ABOUT COMING MOBILE FROM THE STATES! You can't get any further than Panama & you can't even get that far now with a war going on in El Salvador & a war just over in Nicaragua. They're pretty much cut off, & with war about to begin in Guatemala there's hardly any place that you can travel safely through Central America mobile.
67. I WOULDN'T ADVISE ANYBODY TO DRIVE THROUGH CENTRAL AMERICA NOW because the whole area is in a state of either potential revolution, actual revolution or just over revolution & the only safe way to get to Costa Rica now is by boat or plane, Panama too, & they're already getting too crowded. In fact, I wouldn't even recommend for any more people to go to those places.
68. I THINK CENTRAL AMERICA IS ALMOST A CLOSED FIELD NOW, they're getting too many people there. It's too easy to get there, too cheap & it's too nice & civilised & they're just stackin' up there, too many people considering how small the countries are, & those countries don't even need that much, they're already pretty Christian. I'm talking about Central America.
69. MEXICO, WELL IT'S EASY TO GET THAT FAR FOR THE MOBILE GROUPS WHO HAVEN'T GOT WHAT IT TAKES or the faith or whatever to get any further. Mexico's a big country & it's got a lot of people & they can still spread out. There are lots of towns in Mexico we haven't touched, big cities where we don't have people. They've stacked up too much in places like Mexico City & Guadalajara. Folks who like to go to the beaches & the cities, they get that far & that's as far as they want to go.
70. THEY'VE FOUND OUT BY THAT TIME THAT NORTHERN MEXICO'S NOTHING BUT DESERT & a damn hot one at that & nothing but a bunch of very poor peons living in tiny shacks--& they couldn't possibly provision anything or sell lit or FF the peons & that's as far as they've got the faith to go, so they get discouraged & go home. You've gotta go as far as the Mexico City area to reach the best part of Mexico, then it's mostly tropical jungles to Merida. Merida is way out near the end of the Yucatan Peninsula.
71. I MADE THIS TRIP ONCE BY BUS ALL THE WAY FROM MEXICO CITY TO MERIDA & IT'S QUITE A TRIP, VERY INTERESTING. I think it took us 16 hours, something like that, or maybe 24, & then we flew from there to Miami which was only a 45-minute flight. I don't know how many people have gotten as far as Merida but it's a pretty nice city. That's about as far as you can go mobile & I don't know that it's even safe to drive from Mexico City or Veracruz through those jungles to Merida. It was pretty primitive jungle but the buses made it, although we had to ferry across a lot of rivers.
72. FAITHIE WENT WITH ME THAT TRIP & LOVED IT! There were all kinds of wayside stands they kept stopping at for drinks & sandwiches, but I was afraid to buy a thing in the way of food the whole way. We brought along a loaf of bread, a huge chunk of cheese & two bottles of wine & we'd make cheese sandwiches every time we got hungry.
73. I'D DRINK THE WINE & FAITHIE WOULD BUY SODA POP AT THESE LITTLE SNACK PLACES which were pretty safe because they boil that stuff & then put in it carbonated water. You're told that if the water isn't safe buy cold soft drinks, so she'd buy cokes to go with her sandwiches & we made it all the way to Merida that way & stayed in a beautiful old hotel for only $5 a night for two people, with swimming pool & beautiful restaurant.
74. THAT WAS PRIMITIVE INTERIOR COUNTRY IN THOSE DAYS; I don't know what it's like today. Maybe the tourists have discovered it now, especially since it's just a short flight from Miami & they're always looking for new places, so I presume that place has gone sky-high since then. They've probably got Hiltons & Sheratons & everything there now 'cause it's got a better climate than Miami.
75. BUT I'D SAY WE NEED AT LEAST ONE RECEPTION HOME IN EACH OF THE CAPITAL CITIES OF SOUTH AMERICA, but Border Bases are all we need to service Mexico, & that's as far as you can get mobile. Even the people coming through mobile could stop at the Border Bases; let's hope they get a big yard where they allow them to drive their rig in overnight or a few days without the neighbours complaining, because usually they'll be campers & they'll be able to recommend any cheap camp nearby & advise them on road situations, highways & what cities are not over-stuffed with our people already.
76. WE'VE GOT LITERALLY THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE GOING TO LATIN AMERICA & WHERE THE HELL ARE THEY GOING TO GO? Most of the major cities are already crammed with them & they're going to have to scout around into the lesser cities, second & third & fourth & fifth & tenth cities of these countries, or it's going to be an impossible situation!
77. I SAID TO GO TO THE CITIES, BUT FOR GOD'S SAKE, I DIDN'T MEAN FOR THEM ALL TO GO TO ONE CITY! Go to all the cities! There's lots of cities in these places that really we've hardly touched, & even when we had all of our trouble in Colombia several years ago most of it was only in Bogota & the other guys were still gettin' by goin' great guns litnessing on the street & everything else, no problem, in the other cities of Colombia. It was only in Bogota where they had all their big trouble! Same thing in Mexico; it wasn't the people in other parts of Mexico who were having trouble--it was the people in Mexico City.
78. I THINK THE LORD PROBABLY ALLOWED IT IN BOTH PLACES FOR THE SAME REASON. Just like Jerusalem, they bunched up too much, there were too many of them on the street! People could hardly turn around without bumpin' into our folks on every corner selling lit! So they finally just got fed up with it, especially the Jews, & of course they congregate in big cities where most of the money is.
79. I HAVE A BURDEN FOR THESE BORDER BASES & RECEPTION HOMES RIGHT NOW, when we have thousands of people going South. I think that they're desperately needed! We needed them yesterday, last week, last year & I think they'd be a great help & a great blessing to solve a lot of the problems, even to get people scattered out!
80. TELL'M, "WE CAN'T STAND ANY MORE OF YOU PEOPLE IN OUR CITY! Now you're forbidden to stay here! Dad said so! We've got enough people in this one big major capital city & transportation & commercial center where you arrived! This is just a place for you to arrive, that's all! Now get out! Get out of this big city & go to the other cities!" PG?
81. WE'RE GOING TO HAVE TO ORGANISE OUR DISTRIBUTION OF PERSONNEL A LITTLE BETTER NOW that we're all going South & gonna be absolutely cramming these countries! And it doesn't take too many of us to cram a city because we're very obvious & we have very great exposure since we are right downtown on most of the main streets on every corner peddling lit, & one big city can only stand so much of that!
82. ON THE MAJOR CROSS-STREETS OF ONE BIG CITY, IF YOU'VE GOT PEOPLE ON EVERY CORNER, you've seen everybody in the city within the first few weeks or they've seen you, that's not always good either! So this would serve not only to help our missionaries in many ways, but also a help to them to get'm scattered out more & better distribution of personnel & better organisation of it, because each center would be able to report on how their country is doing.
83. MAYBE IT COULD BE THE VS'S BASE. We're already helping them & they ought to be based in the biggest city in their country as their base, transportation center, banking center, commercial center & be travelling out from there. They at least certainly will know the situation in their country & where personnel is needed & where it's not needed!
84. THEY COULD EITHER WORK WITH THE RECEPTION HOME OR IT COULD BE THEIR BASE. They'd have to have good personnel to be able to leave behind to keep it running while they're gone, because of course they've got to travel. It could be separate; it depends on the situation. If they don't want to do it or they can't do it they can turn it over to somebody else.
85. BUT AT LEAST THE BASE WOULD HAVE ALL THE INFORMATION ON AVAILABILITIES & TRANSPORTATION & SUGGESTIONS ON WHERE TO GO, what the rents are like, what the people are like, what the governmental attitude is like & this & that city & what the provisioning possibilities are & all those various things.
86. THE RECEPTION HOME COULD BE AN INFORMATION CENTER & A DISTRIBUTION CENTER to give the arriving missionaries a place to land, catch their breath, get information on the country & decide on where they feel led to go or wherever the VS or the Reception Home feels led for them to go, & if they don't take their recommendation then we can just wash our hands of them. I mean, that's their funeral if they don't do as the Reception Home suggests, because who should know better than they?
87. THE PEOPLE WHO SEEM TO THINK THEY'VE COME TO THE RECEPTION HOME TO SETTLE DOWN & take a Latin American vacation are going to have to know in advance that there's going to have to be a limit on how many days they can spend. My suggestion would be from three days to one week at the most with the exception of very rare emergency hardship cases or someone that they might want to keep a little longer, & they ought to be paying guests both at Border Bases & at Reception Homes!
88. THE PEOPLE WHO PRECEDED A LOT OF THEM HAD TO LAND AT HOTELS, & if they can afford to stay in a hotel, they can afford to stay in a Reception Home & that could help those Reception Homes keep going, right? And if they need our help we'll help'm because I think it's something we need to encourage now & it's very necessary, both to help the families get off in their Great Escape & to help them to arrive & get distributed.
89. IF WE'VE GOT HOMES IN RIO & IN BUENOS AIRES THAT COULD SERVE AS RECEPTION CENTERS, FINE! But if we haven't, we can have one in Montevideo servicing both these countries & perhaps Paraguay & Bolivia, although of course it would be better for each major country to have its own. How convenient Montevideo would be for a Visa Home, just a short trip from Buenos Aires.
90. LOOK HOW CONVENIENT WE FOUND THIS TYPE OF SETUP FOR WORLD SERVICE UNITS. We always have some other Home in some other countries to which we can send personnel to spend a few days, spend their week's vacation every three months. We give a one-month vacation a year to our World Service personnel, a week at a time every three months visa trip! I think it's a good system. They can take their trip & visit another country, take their week's vacation & rest in the other Home.
91. WE USUALLY SEND THE OTHER HOME A LITTLE EXTRA MONEY or we give'm enough money they can take care of them & pay their fare, & everything's hunky-dory. It's worked out as a wonderfully good system & I think it ought to work on the field too. I think these Reception Homes could make ideal visa centers for visa trips. They can go to the other country, spend a few days & come back again.
92. BUY MY GOD, BOLIVIA'S SUCH A POOR COUNTRY YOU'D BETTER HAVE ALL SUPPORT FROM HOME IF YOU GO THERE! I think Paraguay is almost as poor. But if we have good missionaries with good strong home support they can go to those places! You don't have to sell lit! You can get out on the street & pass it out or hand it out under the table or whatever! You don't have to get your living off the poor peons!
93. TO GO TO THOSE POOREST COUNTRIES YOU OUGHT TO HAVE HOME SUPPORT! I've told you you shouldn't even go at all without support! But you can go to some of those big rich countries if you can get away with it & there's enough money there & goods that could support you or at least help to support you. You shouldn't go without any support, that's for sure!
94. MOST OF THE PEOPLE WRITING FROM SOUTH AMERICA SAY THAT YOU SHOULD HAVE AT LEAST $1,500 to $2,000 LANDING MONEY, at least enough to go out & rent a house & pay your first few months rent--since you can hardly ever rent a house for less than three months--& for enough food to live on until you get started & your prayer letters get circulating, we hope, & your money continues to come, we hope, from the States, which it should!
95. I DON'T THINK WE SHOULD DEPEND ON THOSE COUNTRIES DOWN THERE TO SUPPORT US. I don't think we should look to South America to owe us a living! That's what they hate about the U.S. already, that all they cared about South America was to exploit the poor, exploit the cheap labour, exploit the cheap raw materials & ship'm back to the States, or fabricate it there & ship it back to the States & pay the labourers almost nothing & sell it for a high price in the United States.
96. THEY'RE ALREADY MAD ABOUT THE RICH U.S. ROBBING THE POOR IN SOUTH AMERICA! So why should we do the same thing? I don't blame them, & I don't approve of anybody going from the rich North to the poor South without almost full support!
97. FRED WOULD NOT LET ANYBODY GO DOWN THERE AT ALL UNLESS THEY HAD SPENT ONE YEAR IN THE U.S. ON THE ROAD RAISING FUNDS, pledges. He called it deputating, going church to church, home to home, family to family, everywhere putting on their program & giving their pitch about going to the mission field. When they had four or five hundred dollars in minimum support pledged in monthly pledges, which at that time was at least enough to survive on the field, then he would let them go. Well, due to inflation I'm sure it's probably closer to $1,000 a month now.
98. SO I DON'T THINK MISSIONARIES SHOULD LEAVE THE UNITED STATES UNTIL THEY'VE GOT NOT ONLY THEIR FARE BUT ALSO NEARLY $1,000 A MONTH IN PLEDGED SUPPORT, FRANKLY. (Maria: If it comes to a choice of whether they're going to leave without Home Support or not leave at all, what would you counsel them to do?) If they've got no Home Support I'd say don't leave at all! Period!! And I've said that before!
99. THAT MAKES ME MAD TO EVEN BE ASKED THAT QUESTION, & I'm sure you're asking because too many people have asked that stupid, idiotic question!: "If it comes to the choice of leaving the U.S. or not leaving it at all if we don't have any Home Support, what should we do?" For God's sake, if that's all the faith you've got & all that God has blessed you with is nothing, then you are nothing & you ought to stay home! You'll certainly never survive on the field!
100. IF YOU CAN'T RAISE IT IN THE RICH U.S. HOW THE HELL ARE YOU EVER GOING TO RAISE IT ON THE POOR FIELD? That just makes me furious that people are writing asking that question! "What should we do, we've got our fare but we can't seem to raise our own support? Is it better that we just go ahead without it or stay home?" I'd say stay home! Stay home!
101. I DON'T CARE IF YOU'VE HAD THE FAITH TO RAISE YOUR FARE, if you haven't got the faith & the appeal to people at home to inspire enough confidence & to sell yourself at home & to elicit & solicit confidence in yourself as a good witness & missionary at home & a soul-winner & somebody that's got faith & got something on the ball at home to inspire enough people to promise to give you $5 or $10 or $20 or $100 a month while you're on the field after you go, then for God's sake you're never going to make it on the mission field!
102. IF YOU HAVEN'T THAT MUCH FAITH OR YOU CAN'T INSPIRE THAT MUCH CONFIDENCE IN YOUR OWN PEOPLE whose language you can speak & who have lots of money, how in the Hell are you going to go out to the peons in some poor Latin American or Southern Hemisphere country & expect them to support you?
103. YOU COULDN'T EVEN PERSUADE YOUR OWN RICH FOLKS AT HOME IN YOUR LANGUAGE TO SUPPORT YOU! Why should the poor peasants of the Southern Hemisphere want to support you when they don't even know who you are or what you're there for or why! Why in the Hell should they support you?--To come preach them a Gospel they don't even thing they need! It makes me furious!
104. I MEAN, WE MAY HAVE TO SET UP SOME KIND OF A SYSTEM LIKE FRED DID. Of course, we don't have all that much red tape & that much bureaucracy. He tried not to have it at first either, but he finally found he had to have it. They couldn't be an official missionary unless they'd received an appointment which they received after a certain period of training at home, & they could then be appointed deputating missionaries, which meant they were limited to the home field to raise their support.
105. WHEN THEY HAD RAISED ENOUGH MONEY FOR THEIR FARE & THEIR MONTHLY SUPPORT ON THE FIELD IN PLEDGES they came back to the Soul Clinic in Los Angeles, had a big ceremony & a send-off & they were now full-fledged appointed missionaries to their field because they had their fare & enough pledges in monthly support. He wouldn't appoint'm or send'm or recommend'm or anything unless they had that, & we may have to get to that point if you people don't get the point! I've said time & time again, don't go unless you've got your Home Support!
106. MAYBE WE OUGHT TO HAVE THE RECEPTION HOMES CHECK ON THEIR MONTHLY PLEDGES WHEN THEY GET THERE. Say, "OK, let's see your monthly pledges. Let's see your pledged support. Otherwise we're not going to find a field for you--we're going to put you back on your round-trip ticket home!"
107. THAT'S WHAT SOME COUNTRIES DO IF YOU GET THERE WITHOUT ENOUGH MONEY TO LIVE ON, stick you back on the plane & send you home, & I don't blame'm! Why should they support you? You come from a rich country! You should've brought enough greenbacks with you to keep their country green & not have to solicit it there! Right?
108. WELL, YOU PEOPLE HAVE GOT TO GET THAT THROUGH YOUR THICK HEADS that you must not leave the rich North to go to the poor South without not only your fare but also virtually your fully pledged monthly support! Unless, of course, you've already got booked jobs or planning to get jobs or you're going to an area where it's almost sure you can get a job & there's lots of openings & field for that, well fine.
109. THAT'S WHY I'M NOT SAYING IT HAS TO BE ABSOLUTELY FULL SUPPORT, BUT I'D SAY IN THE POORER COUNTRIES IT SHOULD BE unless you've got the faith to really get a job, & you certainly cannot count on street litnessing in many of these countries. You can't count on door-to-door litnessing, even that's forbidden in many of them, & somebody's going to phone the police that you're going around door-to-door. You can't always count on FFing, although that's pretty reliable & one of the most reliable in closed countries. Music & teaching are good, but you can't always count on that either!
110. SO YOU OUGHT TO HAVE AT LEAST ENOUGH MONEY TO GET THERE, (A ROUND TRIP OR ON-GOING TICKET), land there, pay for your few night's stay at the Reception Home & have enough money for your transportation to your field from there. The Alliance used to call it the Regional Center. That's where the missionaries landed & then they were shipped out to the hinter land from there. You ought to also have enough money for at least three months support until you can find some way to support yourselves.
111. YOU SHOULD HAVE ENOUGH MONEY TO PAY THE RECEPTION HOME SOMETHING FOR YOUR ROOM & BOARD WHILE YOU'RE THERE, enough money for your transportation into your field & at least enough carried cash for rent, food & supplies to live for three months on the field at least! Cash & carry!
112. WE NEED SOME NEW REPORTS ON WHAT THE AVERAGE MONTHLY LIVING COST IS IN EACH OF THOSE VARIOUS COUNTRIES for a family of four or five in an averaged-size Home including the rent, utilities & food, & you ought to take enough clothing with you.
113. DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE ALLIANCE INSISTED ON? Families going to some primitive pioneer fields had to have five years of clothing because clothing was difficult to obtain in some fields or was very expensive, especially the kind Americans like to wear. They had to have trunks full of five years of Winter & Summer clothing, & some of them shipped whole houses full of household goods like refrigerators & furniture!
114. I MEAN, THEY WEREN'T MISSIONARIES!--THEY WERE JUST MOVING! They were movin' along, all right, but they weren't planning to keep moving! They were planning to go there & settle down! They were just moving from the United States to another country! They had their fare & they had their landing money & they had their cash for support, they had pledged support.
115. USUALLY THE REGIONAL SUPERINTENDENT ALREADY HAD A HOUSE RENTED FOR THEM & everything was arranged for them in advance. They brought their household goods & clothing for five years & plenty of money, settled down in fields where they could get cooks, housekeepers, maids, gardeners & washers dirt cheap & they could get a whole domestic staff in nothing flat for almost nothing!
116. SOME WHO WERE SUPPOSED TO BE MISSIONARIES WERE DOING NOTHING BUT GOING TO THE FOREIGN FIELD because they found out they could live cheaper there & the wife could have all the help that she needed & didn't have to do a lick of work for the children or the house or the cooking or the wash or whatnot & they could just settle down there & live like kings on a fraction of what it cost them to live in the United States!
117. SO THEY WEREN'T REALLY DOING MUCH MISSIONARY WORK AT ALL! They were just moving to a foreign country where they could live cheap on what people were paying them to be missionaries, when they were hardly doing any kind of witnessing or missionary work at all! Well, I'd like to see our missionaries figure it out that good where they could move there & live there & have such good support & still be good witnesses & missionaries & soul-winners!
118. I DON'T THINK WE OUGHT TO RECOMMEND ANYBODY TO GO TO THE FIELD UNLESS THEY'VE GOT NOT ONLY THEIR FARE, either round-trip or on-going, plus their forwarding fare into the field, not just to the big city where they land; too many of them are doing that. Plus at least enough for their living expenses including rent, utilities & food for three months as a starter, & I mean cash with them! Not depending on, "We hope to get it later. Well, we don't have any cash with us right now to rent a house but we're expecting it in our first mail, blah blah!" Baloney!
119. I DON'T WANT TO SEE ANY OF YOU PEOPLE LEAVING EITHER EUROPE OR NORTH AMERICA going to those poor Southern Hemisphere fields unless you've got your full fare, round trip or on-going, plenty of cash for landing, & cash enough with you to live, at least three months' room & board!--Plus pledged support of the minimum living costs per month! Now that's the way it ought to be! Then they won't be so damned worried about just trying to survive!
120. I MEAN, YOU CAN GIVE THE LIT AWAY, WHICH YOU OUGHT TO BE DOING ON THOSE POOR FIELDS, & you won't be so damned pressed to beg for money door-to-door or even to have to FF just for money like some are doing! Or to have to go & get System jobs that take so much time & are such a grind, just in order to be a missionary. There are oodles of people in the rich North with so much money they don't know what to do with it all! They'd love to give some to you!
121. DO YOU KNOW WHAT SOME OF OUR PEOPLE HAVE DONE? They've put ads in the newspapers asking help from perfect strangers for going to the mission field: "How would you like to help support us?"--& they've gotten offers of hundreds of dollars from people just reading the want ads--from people with money who want to help people but they don't know who or what.
122. A LOT OF PEOPLE DON'T BELONG TO ANY CHURCHES, they don't give to churches, they're not any particular religion but they hear of some poor missionary going to the mission field & they want to help'm. Some of you folks back in the States & Europe ought to try that! Put a notice in the personals or the want ads:
123. "WE'RE INDEPENDENT CHRISTIAN YOUTH MISSIONARIES WITH SMALL CHILDREN GOING TO THE MISSION FIELD, would you like to help us either on our fare or with our monthly support? If so we'd be happy to come & visit you & get acquainted & explain our work," etc. So they can meet you face to face or invite you to their home or whatever to meet you & get acquainted & see that you're bona fide missionaries. Word it whatever way you feel led to fit your situation & be sure to let us know the results!
124. YOU CAN PROBABLY WIN'M TO THE LORD, FIRST OF ALL, & THEN WIN THEIR SUPPORT. Christmas is a good time for missionaries, to encourage boxes & gifts, etc. It's one hell of a time for preachers & evangelists at home because everybody spends so much money at Christmas on themselves that they don't have enough left for the Lord. They often forget the pastors & evangelists but they don't forget the missionaries because they know they're way out there in the field somewhere & they've got nothing & can't get anything.
125. I DON'T APPROVE OF ANYBODY LEAVING THE NORTH TO GO SOUTH UNLESS YOU'VE GOT YOUR FULL FARE which is either round-trip or on-going & you've got plenty of money to land with to get into the field & to live for at least three months cash with you!--Not just pledges but cash with you, because it may take three months for your first mail to reach you from the States or for the people to remember they made a pledge! That'll give you three months to start gettin' out prayer letters back home to remind them of their pledges.
126. WE ALWAYS FOUND OUT THE MOST EFFECTIVE METHOD WAS TO PUT A SELF-ADDRESSED ENVELOPE RIGHT IN WITH THE PRAYER LETTER. I found that the missionaries who sent me letters like that with self-addressed envelopes got the best results. It was the most effective method to remind me to give to them! Because you know what I did with their self-addressed envelopes? I put'm in the stack of bills to be paid!
127. SO AT THE END OF THE MONTH WHEN I GOT MY MONEY, I sat down to pay my bills & I wrote checks for all my bills & put checks in all the missionaries' envelopes. Otherwise you've got nothing to remind you & you forget their address or you can't find an envelope or you don't, blah blah. I have told you kids this time & again! All this information is in the old Letters.
128. YOU'LL HAVE THREE MONTHS ON THE FIELD TO BE GETTING OUT HOT FIELD LETTERS with the news that you're actually there, that "We had the faith & we've made it & here we are & here are the conditions & here are the pitiful sights we've seen & here's the work we're already doing." You're producing, effective! This will inspire the people back home that pledged you support to send it!
129. YOU'VE GOT THREE MONTHS TO REMIND THEM: "Here's our little nicely conveniently self-addressed envelope with our new address down here to which you can send us your money direct & we're sure to get it!" So by the end of three months the money has begun to come in & it amounts up to maybe your full monthly support.
130. BUT IT TAKES TIME & IT TAKES EFFORT & GUTS & HARD WORK & INSPIRATION & FAITH & you've got to have all of that or you're not going to make it & you might as well never leave home! You're just going to be a burden & a problem to the field & probably have to go home in defeat anyway!
131. IT'S BETTER, I THINK, FOR A SOLDIER NEVER TO HAVE LEFT HOME THAN TO GO OUT & BE DEFEATED! If they can't make it at home & they can't raise their fare & they can't raise their support, I haven't any idea whatsoever that they're going to be able to make it on the field at all! If you can't win enough souls at home yourself who love you & inspire common interest in you & want to give to your support as a missionary, you'll never make it on the field!
132. THAT WAS FRED'S OPINION & THAT WAS PRETTY MUCH THE ALLIANCE'S WAY TOO. Of course, the Alliance required too much education, five years; & five years of clothing & supplies. Then they had five years on the field & then they had a one year furlough. And it's worked out a lot like that with our kids, although ours haven't been set rules.
133. THEY'VE GONE & SPENT FIVE OR TEN YEARS IN THE FIELD & then they're plenty ready to go home for a little furlough, & if the trip home doesn't do anything else for'm but get'm so sick of the System & sick of home & fed up, it's worth it! Even my little trips into Mexico used to get me so fed up with the United States it almost made me sick to have to go back! I actually hated to go back to the United States again after spending a few weeks in Mexico or Cuba or the Bahamas.
134. THERE'S NO DIFFERENCE GOING TO CANADA; it's the same bunch of rich sticks in the mud. But trips to South fields & staying there awhile makes you so sick & fed up with the rich North, & if you're not already sick & fed up, a trip home will make you sick & fed up! We've got such testimonies almost by the hundreds pouring in of how sick they are of the U.S.! After they get back there they can hardly wait to get back to the field!
135. I THINK WE'RE GOING TO HAVE MORE PEOPLE GOING SOUTH & ESCAPING THAN EVER BEFORE & if we can have Reception Homes in every major capital in South America, that suits me fine! So to go around the coast one last time to sum it up, counter-clockwise you've got Caracas, Bogota, Guayaquil, Lima, Valparaiso, Buenos Aires, Montevideo & Rio as Reception Homes. We should have Homes in each of those places that are big enough to take in landing missionaries & get'm started on their way into the interior out of that town.
136. THERE ARE PROBABLY SOME CITIES ALREADY OVERFLOWING WITH PEOPLE & these Homes will act not only as a mercy to the missionary to give them a place to land, but also to give them a place from which to shove'm on their way to somewhere else! Also maybe to check up & find out: "Now, let's see, do you have your on-going round-trip ticket?" Probably he would have or he wouldn't get in. Most countries require'm, or you can't land!
137. "AND HOW MUCH DO YOU HAVE IN CASH FOR YOUR FIRST THREE MONTHS LIVING?"--which they should have. I mean, this is something a lot of countries even require! They've got to know that you've got enough cash to live in that country for your three months tourist stay. So you shouldn't even leave without that, plus pledges for monthly support thereafter.
138. WE COULD HAVE THESE RECEPTION HOMES ACT AS CHECKS ON THEM TO SEE IF THEY'VE GOT IT: "How much cash have you got? Have you got your fare inland? Have you got your cash for three months living? And let's see your pledge book & your pledge stubs of your pledges."
139. I EVEN DREW A PICTURE OF A PLEDGE BOOK ON ONE OF OUR LETTERS, & IT WAS JUST LIKE A CHEQUE BOOK. (See No.922.) You can buy these things or have them printed. Some companies do them as sales slip books & they'll print on it whatever you want with a perforation where you could tear it off & give it to the person who signs it, etc., & you keep the stubs with their name & address & how much they pledged a month. They keep the coupon with your name & address & how much they pledged a month to remind them to pay it.
140. SO THESE RECEPTION HOMES COULD ACT AS DOUBLE CHECKS ON THE PEOPLE THAT ACTUALLY LAND THERE to see if they've really got what they're supposed to have. And frankly, if they take the liberty to accept the hospitality of one of our Reception Homes & sleep in their beds & eat their food, we've got a right to ask'm a few questions!
141. "HOW MUCH MONEY HAVE YOU GOT? How much have you got in the way of monthly pledges for your field? Oh, you were planning on writing prayer letters after you got to the field to get your monthly pledges? Oh, you didn't bring enough cash to live the first three months because you figured you could get a job or you could get out & litness or provision it & you wouldn't have to!
142. "WELL, I'M SORRY BUT TOMORROW MORNING I'LL BE DRIVING OUT TO THE AIRPORT ONCE AGAIN & we'll be happy to put you on the plane back home. You are not for our field! Period! Or at least we'll put you on the first bus out of town into the boonies & hope you get lost!" I mean it! I would prefer to ship them back home! Why clutter up the country with them & have'm be a problem?
143. HONEY, DON'T WORRY!--THE RECEPTION HOMES HAVEN'T GOT THE AUTHORITY TO FORCE'M TO GO BACK! But they can kick'm out & on their way, at least get'm out of town & out of that major arrival city where we've already got too many people:
144. "OH WELL, WE'LL BE HAPPY TO TAKE WHAT LITTLE MONEY YOU HAVE LEFT & BUY YOUR TICKET TO GO TO TIMBUCTOO! We hear there's nobody there or hardly anybody or they're asking for help, & maybe they'd even like to have you even if you're stupid enough to leave home without any money & no pledges!
145. "MAYBE THEY NEED A FULLTIME DISHWASHER & CHILDCARE BABYSITTER OR COOK if you're not good for anything else!" But they can get most of that dirt-cheap on the field anyways, so I don't know what they need with rich Americans coming down there to wash dishes! But anyway, PTL, that's the way I feel about it.
146. AS FAR AS THE OTHER AREAS IN THE WORLD, WE PROBABLY COULD THINK OF A FEW MORE, not only Latin America. I'd say maybe Bombay for India, 'cause I think it's the major port & landing place for air flights, right? Bangkok in Southeast Asia is pretty centrally located too & is about the only place left in Southeast Asia because the Communist have taken over Vietnam & Cambodia & Burma.
147. I'D SAY MAYBE RECEPTION HOMES WOULD BE VERY HELPFUL IN BANGKOK, KUALA LUMPUR & SINGAPORE, then for Indonesia & the East Indies, someplace like Jakarta. We need some place in those major cities of Southeast Asia & someplace there in the East Indies, if they want to go to the Islands, Indonesia, Borneo, New Guinea, etc.
148. I DON'T KNOW WHY WE NEED ANY MORE PEOPLE IN AUSTRALIA when we've got about 500 or 600 people there already, but I think that Australia can maybe act as a Border Base for shipping people out to other places. It could act as a Border Base for the East Indies, South Pacific & also Southeast Asia. So maybe we could have Homes in some of those Australian cities act as Border Bases to brief people on the situation in the islands & Southeast Asia, East Indies & South Pacific & send them from there.
149. I DON'T THINK JAPAN IS GOING TO BE ALL THAT MUCH OF A TARGET if they keep those damned Polaris submarines out of there, but it's sure going to be involved immediately in any kind of war. It's not too safe a place to go, but if people are gonna come from the States & make Japan their first stop or something like that, it can act as a sort of a Border Base to ship'm from there on to other places, maybe one in Tokyo or Osaka, etc.
150. THE PHILIPPINES IS A GOOD FIELD. They're wonderful people, receptive, & the government is favourable to the Family, so I think we could stand a Reception Home in Manila, & that's about it.
151. THERE'S NEARLY TEN BORDER BASES FOR THE STATES & SEVEN OR EIGHT RECEPTION HOMES FOR SOUTH AMERICA, then Bombay, Bangkok, & Kuala Lumpur or Singapore, someplace in Indonesia, Manila, Tokyo, & maybe one or two in Australia, somewhere, roughly speaking, around 20 Border Bases & Reception Homes.
152. WE DIDN'T GET INTO EUROPEAN BORDER BASES BUT THAT'S ANOTHER GOOD IDEA. Almost any major European capital that's a jumping off place with good transportation to Latin America or the Far East & the Orient would make a good Border Base & we could have Homes there to volunteer.
153. I DON'T SUPPOSE WE'D HAVE TO HAVE MORE THAN ABOUT FIVE, like Madrid, Paris, London, Bonn, & Geneva could pretty well handle Europe, or maybe one up in Stockholm to help see'm off, I don't know. I don't think they've got many flights direct from Stockholm that far away. They usually go by way of these other big cities. That makes about 25 of these places altogether, both Border Bases, shove off places & the landing places, Reception Homes.
154. I DON'T THINK A CITY'S VERY WELL SUPPLIED WITH WITNESSES UNLESS THEY'VE GOT AT LEAST TWO OR THREE HOMES, A GOOD LAF. I think one Home is apt to get pretty lonesome & is not really going to be able to stand very easily without any fellowship and without any co-workers & companionship & cooperation. I think every fair-sized city ought to have at least a LAF of two or three Homes.
155. WE COULD PUT NAMES & PICTURES OF VOLUNTEERS FOR BORDER BASES & RECEPTION HOMES IN THE MAG & say, "These people have volunteered to do such-&-such, does anybody know any reason why they shouldn't? Please write in immediately. Speak now or forever hold your peace!" You also need a recommendation from your Local Area Shepherd, & if you are the Local Area Shepherd yourselves, then one from your DAF or GAF or both of them. We need some recommendations & will check out volunteers thoroughly.
156. WE'RE GOING TO REQUIRE SOME INFORMATION FROM THESE HOMES BEFORE WE'RE EVEN GOING TO VOLUNTEER TO GIVE'M A PIONEER GIFT TO GET STARTED. This ought to give us some idea of their wisdom & their ability if they can give us some analytical report of their field & what towns need help & what towns don't & what's the cost of living in those cities & what are the conditions for witnessing, living, housing, food, whatever, on the same general order as the South American Handbook that we got out before.
157. EACH VOLUNTEER HOME SHOULD GIVE US ALL THAT INFORMATION ABOUT THEMSELVES, their country & also recommendations from at least a couple of Area Shepherds. They ought to maybe get recommendations from as many as they can get, but no less than two. If we accept their application & it looks good, we could also put a summary in the Magazine about these people who have volunteered & it would be of interest, it'd be news if nothing else, especially including their report of their field if they are potential volunteers for Border Bases or Reception Homes.
158. WE CAN ASK: "DO ANY OF YOU FOLKS KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THEM? Would you like to comment on them? Do you think they're capable? Do you think they're reliable? Could they handle the job?" etc., look after the building, guests, transportation & all that.
159. WE'LL SEND YOU AN INITIAL PIONEER GIFT TO HELP GET YOU STARTED, make sure you have the right facilities & transportation, etc., & if you make it you ought to get a good start, & you let us know by the end of the month that you're open & ready to go. If you send us a good report & everything else is favourable, we'll send you your next gift & so much a month from then as long as you send us a good report that you're accomplishing your job. No cheque until we get your report & it's satisfactory.
160. WE'LL PROBABLY HAVE TO HAVE A SPECIAL REPORT FORM FOR YOU, & you need to send us along with your first application your estimated budget, how much you're going to need & how much you think you can raise & how much you think you'll maybe receive from your guests & how much you think you'll need from us, & we can help you with what you need up to a certain amount.
161. WE'RE GOING TO HAVE TO FIGURE OUT SOME SYSTEM OF RESERVATIONS. We're going to have to require that anybody planning to use a Border Base on leaving or a Reception Home on arriving must give prior notification, request for reservation for such-&-such dates in time so they can receive a confirmation just like a hotel, that they will have a room & a space on those dates & they won't already be overflowing with somebody else.
162. IF YOU DON'T GIVE SUFFICIENT PRIOR NOTICE & RECEIVE A CONFIRMATION, you're running your own risk as to whether they will have room for you or not. If they've only got one or two extra rooms, the time for the already-arrived missionary to get out is when the next one arrives! Ha! He'll have to shove off! Wouldn't that be a pretty good system--people who want to know where they can write these Border Bases or Reception Centers can write into their CROs or we could even have them publish their box number in the Magazines as fast as their applications are accepted & confirmed.
163. IN THE CHRISTIAN & MISSIONARY ALLIANCE CHURCH ON EACH OF THEIR MAJOR MISSION FIELDS THEY HAD A MAN CALLED THE FIELD SUPERVISOR, who organised the dispersement of missionaries & who could be contacted it a moment's notice regarding the personnel or finances or conditions of the field or whatever. He received the incoming missionaries at his home & he forwarded them on their way to their respective field; in fact, he usually made arrangements for their housing & their reception at a mission station even before they came.
164. I THINK OUR RECEPTION HOMES COULD TURN OUT TO BE THE CLOSEST THING THAT WE EVER HAD TO FIELD SUPERVISORS, which is why I think it'd be well if we could possibly combine the VSs with the Reception Homes. I think the ideal combination would be a VS establishing a Reception Home as its base in the major capital of that country & working out from there in his travels.
165. HE WILL HAVE AN IMMEDIATE KNOWLEDGE OF ALL THE THINGS IN THE FIELD & he will be back in the Reception Home two or three times a month, perhaps even spending half his time there taking care of mail & business & then having somebody qualified to operate it while he is gone. I think everything we said originally about organising VSs could be applied to a Reception Home as a VS base or a VS base as a Reception Home, if they have sufficient facilities.
166. OF COURSE THE VS'S HAVE TO HAVE SOMEBODY THERE AT THE RECEPTION HOME TO RUN IT, but they could make that their home base & supervise it as well as supervising the field. To me they're already the proven leaders, or should be, & would be the ideal ones who are more or less free to do it, either that or a GAS or NAS maybe.
167. I'VE ALREADY SUGGESTED THAT WE'RE GOING TO HAVE TO PROBABLY GIVE SOME HELP & SUPPORT ON THE GAF OR NAF LEVEL, to the man who has that big an area to cover & has to do a lot of travelling. I think the most efficient & economical way to handle that would be to have our present VSs elected, for example, as GASs or NASs since they're ideally suited already for the job. They already travel & know the area & that's going to be the main job of anybody like that.
168. THEY'RE NOT GOING TO BE ABLE TO SPEND AN AWFUL LOT OF TIME AT HOME, they're going to be organising other fellowships, organising meetings, conducting them, travelling, supervising. And if our present VSs could also be large area supervisor like of a whole country, if the VSs, NASs & the RHSs, the Reception Home Servants, could be combined altogether, we could triple their support commensurate with the tripling of the job responsibility!
169. WE COULD ROLL IT INTO ONE & COMBINE IT & GIVE THEM ALMOST FULL SUPPORT since they will be spending virtually their full time at the job. I'd like to see those responsibilities & jobs all rolled into one & I think it could be done if they have qualified personnel to run the Home while the Supervisor is gone. I don't see much difference between a VS & a NAS, same thing as the Alliance's Field Supervisor all rolled up in one couple.
170. I THINK THEY COULD DO IT & THAT WAY THEY WOULD HAVE ENOUGH SUPPORT to be able to devote their full time to it without worrying too much about hitting the streets or whatever, trying to raise their support. I suggest to the Family that the VSs should be considered as possible candidates in their election of the NAS since he will have a very important high-level job & should be experienced & trustworthy & if possible have our approval.
171. THAT WAY WE CAN COMBINE THE JOB INTO ONE MAN OR ONE COUPLE & VIRTUALLY A FULLTIME JOB, worthy of fulltime support by rolling it all into one with VSing, NAF & Reception Home. We could give them almost their full support. Then they could very well afford to give it their fulltime, & the rest of their support will probably come in from the field or their monthly pledges or room & board at the Reception Home or however they've already been getting it.
172. I SAID BEFORE, THAT THE VS'S WOULD HAVE TO BE TWO COUPLES TAKING TURNS, one travelling while the other couple stays at home operating the office in their absence, taking care of correspondence & phone calls, etc., & answering problems & questions & mail.
173. ALL I AM IS AN IDEA MAN, I GIVE YOU THE GENERAL IDEA, I try to tell you as many details as I think I can, but you guys will have to work out the details, how to put it into practice. When I talk over a problem like this & discuss it--although it's not much discussion, I'm doing most of the talking--it sort of helps me. I kind of evaluate the situation while I'm talking.
174. AND ONE THING I CAN ALWAYS BE SURE OF WHEN I'M EMOTIN' & TALKING IS THAT THE LORD INSPIRES ME & gives me answers even while I'm talking, because that's when I've got to know the right thing & do the right thing & say the right thing, because it's gonna count & influence people & it's gonna influence plans & it's gotta be right, that's all! So I only stop long enough to ask you guys what you think, yes or no.--Ha!
175. ALONG WITH THE NEW FELLOWSHIP ORGANISATION THIS WILL GIVE US SOME KIND OF SUPERVISION & CONTROL OVER THESE AREAS. We can have our man in Lima & our man in Buenos Aires & our man in Rio & so on, whoever is the best man in the area, knows the area, knows how to handle people, is popular with the people & is reliable, faithful, dependable, can supervise the area, supervise the Reception Home, supervise the missionaries & visit the Homes, organise Fellowships & meetings, carry around a video & exhibit, handle the Video Library.
176. IF WE CAN FIND TWO SUCH COUPLES TO CARRY ON THE WHOLE WORKS, I would say they would be worthy of almost full support for the job. I think the job should be combined for efficiency & economy, particularly since good leadership is a little scarce. This is one way you can get one man to do three different jobs, & if he can do three jobs I would consider giving him full support.--Ha!
177. FOR EXAMPLE, IN BRAZIL, WHERE TIAGO & TABITA ARE NOW THE VS'S, Ebed & Estrella, who have been the Portuguese VS's & are moving to Brazil, could come in & operate the Reception Home & the Office, Communications Center & the Video Library. They wouldn't have to do much travelling at first or know the language perfectly as they get oriented & adapted to the country & its conditions. I think it would be ideal for them to operate the Rio Reception Home & give Tiago & Tabita more time to travel. And in that case with two couples, Reception Home, Library, Office & VS base, etc. I think they certainly would deserve as much support as we can give them.
178. THINGS ARE SORT OF BEGINNING TO FALL IN PLACE NOW because like in the case of the Chain-Saw that we had to get rid of, we had to take over several things a little more directly with a little more direct control & supervision, & the first thing was your leadership. We took the leadership out of their hands & then we took over the finances, & now I think we're going to have to more or less take over more direct control of personnel as well, especially in these tremendous moves we're making, to make sure that it's not just one big hodgepodge mess!
179. I THINK THE FAMILY WILL BE ENCOURAGED TO KNOW THAT WE'RE TRYING TO GET THIS EXODUS ORGANISED! That was one of Moses' biggest problems, if you'll read those books, organising the Exodus, & first of all he had to get them all organised in tribes, & then he had to organise the Judges, organise the moves & the invasions & everything else, so it's a big job, in exodus!--And this is our biggest exodus yet!
180. I THINK THIS IS GOING TO ENCOURAGE MORE HOMES TO MOVE if they know they're going to have a Border Base to help them get off & a Reception Home to receive them. We're going to have certain restrictions & requirements, a minimum of what you need to go, something to aim at. Everybody needs a goal, target dates, etc. And then you're going to have someplace to land for sure & advise you where to go from there.--Amen? PTL! TYL! GBAKY moving!
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family
