Latest News Flashes 143
- Latest News Flashes No. 143 (4 pages, 937k) — 1991-03
LATEST NEWS FLASHES!—No.143
—By WS Staff 3/91
Contents
1. "DISCOVER (REVEAL) NOT A SECRET TO ANOTHER!-Pro.25:9
GBY! With "times waxing worse & worse," as the Bible predicted, we are having to tighten up our operations more & more to protect ourselves & our children from wicked & ungodly men. As the Lord recently told us through Dad, 'The time has come when there must be great secrecy." (See ML #2644:7)
Besides keeping ourselves out of the Enemy's clutches, we also want to keep information, such as the names, addresses, details of our Homes & overall Family activities, from falling into the wrong hands. Therefore, we want to caution you regarding your correspondence & newsletters, especially those you send to TSers, outside friends & relatives.
If your letters or other mail ministry correspondence contain DO information about you, your Home, the latest push on your field, or the Family in general, then they could be a channel through which our enemies can eventually find out these things. Even such seemingly innocent things as a photo (in the wrong hands) can do a great deal of damage. For example, the clue that led to one Family Member's abduction & the kidnapping of his children was a photo of their children that he sent his backslidden ex-wife from Central America, showing some plants in the background. The photo was enlarged & then taken to an expert botanist who could determine localities where this foliage was known to grow, & then American Embassies in those potential localities were notified, & were ready to nab him the next time he entered a U.S. Embassy!
We therefore want to caution you that your GP newsletters as well as all non-Family correspondence should not contain local or general Family inside information nor revealing photos that could be used against us or our ministries or local friends, etc. If you publish a GP newsletter you should submit it to your Home's Teamwork or Security Deacon before copying it, as "In the multitude
of counsellors there is safety." The Home Teamwork or Security Deacon should study over the newsletter to make sure that it does not contain any security breaches nor divulge any information dial it shouldn't. If those checking the newsletter feel something needs to be changed for security reasons, then we ask that you either make the changes or not send your newsletter out. After you have agreed upon your GP newsletter's content & sent it out to your mailing list, please also send a copy of it to your R.O.
We realise that many of you on the mission field receive support from relatives, friends, contacts, supporters, TSers & other Family Members on Home fields, & we don't want you to have to cut off this source of support However, if you are unwise about the content of your newsletters or personal correspondence, you could jeopardise not only your support, but your whole field or even the whole Family!
So please be sure that any news you share in your GP newsletter is agreed upon by your Home Teamwork or Security Deacon for the sake of your own security & that of your field & the Family in general. "Discover not a secret to another!"—Pro.25:9. Thanks! GBAKY & your security! WLY!
2. FAMILY PHOTO, VIDEO & NEWSLETTER CLEAN-UP!
We thank the Lord for the marvellous way that He continues to protect & keep our Family worldwide despite all that the Devil through our diabolical enemies would try to do to stop us. Truly, His mercy endureth forever! However, as always, we, His children, should be aware of the Enemy's devices & be on guard & give the Lord Our full cooperation & help in averting & eliminating any possible means that the Enemy could use to get at us or our children or families. As our enemies are determined to stop at nothing in order to destroy us, so we should be willing to do whatever is necessary to prevent info from falling into their hands which could in any way endanger any of our precious Family, both in your local area as well as in some other far-flung field.
Four such tools which our enemies would like to get their hands on & use against us are Family photos, videos, diaries & DO newsletters which collectively could give mem not only information, but also the names or faces of Family Members around the World! In this day & age, with the Enemy "walking about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour" (1Pet.5:8), we need to lake any & all necessary precautions to protect ourselves & our families as well as our loved ones & close Family friends around the World!
So a good question to ask yourself is: How safe would you feel if someone with whom you have been exchanging photos & personal DO newsletters were to get visited by the authorities, or had their personal belongings searched by our enemies for material to use against the Family? How could such information be used against us in general & against you in particular? Wouldn't you be happy to know that your own personal photo & those of your personal family as well as info & details of your ministry are not floating around where they could potentially fall into the wrong hands? Likewise, how would you feel if you allowed the photos or newsletters of Family Members you dearly love to fall into the wrong hands?
As you will recall, some time back all Home Members were asked to destroy any potentially damaging pics, such as nudie-cuties, photos of your leadership, etc. In addition, any of our more "explicit" circuit videos were to be erased or sent to your NVLs. We pray that you have already carefully purged your photos & videos so that in the event of an unexpected raid by the Romans, you would not be guilty of inadvertently passing on information to our enemies which could be used against other Family Members or against our Family worldwide. (In some recent Home raids such items were discovered by authorities, &, unfortunately, used against the Family Members being investigated!—How would your Home have fared?)
In order to prevent the above scenarios from taking place, we now feel that our Family's photo, video & DO newsletter precautions need to be taken a step further in order to ensure that we do not feed fuel to our enemies' fire & attempts to damage our work or ministries. We would therefore like to ask all Homes to closely observe the following "Photo, Video & Newsletter Guidelines":
A. We request that everyone go back through their Family photos & purge out all pics of all Family Members other than your personal family. For adults, this means that you can keep pictures of your mate (past & present!), children & grandchildren. (If pics of your children include other children, it's ok to keep them.) For Teens & children, this means you can keep pictures of your parents, brothers & sisters. Photos in your PR album may also be kept. We likewise ask that no one exchange or circulate photos or pics with anyone in other Homes. If you have certain photos that you feel are of historical value to the whole Family, please send these in to your NO office, which will pass them on to the Family archives. Thanks!
We realise that this is a sacrifice on the part of all, as we all like to keep mementos & reminders of those we dearly love & with whom we have worked closely over the years. (2Tim. 2:3) Nevertheless, improved security requires sacrifices on our parts as we forsake our own personal wants or desires in order to safeguard & protect our precious Family. "A wise man forseeth the evil & hideth himself (or his photo), but the simple (ignorant) pass on and are punished!"—Pro. 22:3.
B. Since the developing of photos can be rather costly, we'd suggest that taking pictures should be limited to those pictures that have a purpose, such as for PR photo albums or for your supporters & backers etc., or to keep a record of your children's growth to prove that they are indeed your children, as sometimes embassies require photos for passport purposes, as well as pictures of your children's schooling, & so forth.
C. We should try to avoid sending photos to our System relatives if we can, especially to questionable parents, who might either use such photos to find a way to "rescue" us or our children or even unwittingly allow your photo to be published in one of our enemies' newsletters or publications.
D. Like photos, our Family videos could also pose a serious security threat to the Family. We realise this will also be a sacrifice for those of you with personal copies of some of your favourite Family videos, but we'd like to ask that ALL non-GP videos showing Family Members be sent to your NVL immediately. The future fate of these is yet to be determined, but those of historical value may be preserved for posterity in a safe place, D.V., & those that are erased will be returned to you blank for re-recording if you wish. TYSM for your cooperation! (This does not include the GAP Videos or "Acts of the Revolution" series.)
E. We would also like to request that Homes no longer send DO newsletters between Homes. Not only are such DO, inter-Home newsletters potentially dangerous as they reveal the latest news & plans of action in a given area or part of the World, which, as already mentioned, could fall into the wrong hands, but their preparation can also be quite time-consuming. Of course, Homes on far-flung mission fields do depend heavily on the support that their local DO newsletters generate, so we ask that you continue to give generously to these faithful missionaries, as you always have, even though they won't be sending you a DO newsletter in response. They will continue to acknowledge receipt of your gift & send you a thank-you letter or a GP newsletter in appreciation for your giving, but will no longer be able to send you personal newsletters that share details of their present pushes or specifics about the local work that might inadvertently fall into the wrong hands. We must change with the times & we do hope that you, our precious Family, do not mind forgoing the "luxury" of DO newsletters in favor of the "necessity" of improved security for our worldwide Family.
Thank you again for your cooperation in these important security matters! We pray that you understand the need to tighten up at this time for the safety & protection of our Family. We know that if we do our part, the Lord will certainly do His, & that He will honour our efforts by continuing to preserve our ministry & place of service. We really love & pray for you.
3. COPYING GN ARTICLES
Dear Family,
GBY! A number of you have asked if it's possible to photocopy certain articles from the GN for outside friends & contacts, such as the "Global Crash" article in a recent GN. (See GN 441, pg-3) The answer is yes! In future DO GNs we will put a note at the top of the article if it's OK to reproduce it. DFO GNs are of course all reproducible. After going through the GNs for the past 2 years, we've compiled the following list of articles which can be copied for friends, to give you an idea of the types of articles we're referring to:
* "A Corrupt Tree Cannot Bring forth Good Fruit!" — News compilation on the evils of System education (GN 401)
* Press Release about Jimmy Bakker (GN 406)
* Compiled Facts on Abortion/Views on Abortion—By James Dobson (GN 408)
* A Global Crash! (GN 441)
GBY! WLY & pray these will be a blessing as you minister to your friends & contacts.
4. HELP NEEDED!
Dear Family,
GBY! "The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few!" At the moment WS has a tremendous "harvest" of pubs in the works, but we've found that our labourers at various Creations Units are few in comparison to the work involved. We have a lengthy list of pubs which we're trying to get out to you, our precious Family, as quickly as possible. -- And we have an even longer list of new pubs which we'd like to work on—new GNs, FSMs, books & tapes which would be a wonderful blessing to the Family & the field—but our Units around the World just aren't able to handle them all!
So we wanted to appeal for faithful, willing, sold-out Family Members with a burden to help us get out the pubs, the "Words of Life" to a wailing World. We'd especially like to hear from those of you with any secretarial or office or editorial talents, but we're willing to consider anyone with a burden to work on the Words behind the scenes. Or work behind the scenes as support staff to make it possible for others to work on the Words!
Although "a man's talents make room for him," we also consider your burden & willingness to learn new things in a new place with new people equally important. In other words, if your only talent at the moment is in witnessing, but you've always had a burning desire to help work on the pubs, then you may be just the one we're looking for! So don't disqualify yourself just because you don't have any office-type talents or experience.
Most of our WS Units are fairly small, so we may not be able to take large families al-though we will prayerfully consider every application, no matter how large the Family, & again, a lot depends on your talents, skills & burden for the job, as well as your love for the Lord & the Words. And of course, as Dad has said, "You must have a very agreeable & adaptable personality & a deep spiritual dedication to be able to live in a selah unit with little or no fellowship with either the outside World or even other Homes or Members of the Family! It's a very confining & sacrificial life, & it's not for everybody, so be sure that that's what you want!" (1078:75)
If you feel the Lord is calling you, please fill out the enclosed questionnaire & send it to your RO with your next TRF, who will forward it to us. Please include recent close-up portrait shots of yourself, your mate & your family (if you have one). Thanks! We may not be able to lake all who apply, but we know the Lord has His perfect place for each of you, as there's certainly no unemployment in the Family. WLY!
5.VALUING OUR VIDEOS!
Dear Family,
GBY! Thank you for the tremendously inspiring Video reactions & testimonies you've sent us! It's thrilling to read how our Videos are touching hearts & changing lives, & how the people who receive them are so thankful for them! Every month we receive wonderful reactions that you've sent us from your satisfied customers, comments like: "My daughter plays them so much she's wearing them out!" "My 2-year-old is addicted to them!" "I think your message is worth more than gold!" "My daughter has one, & as soon as she watched it she wanted more!" "My children won't go to sleep without watching your videos at night!"— These are just a few of hundreds of testimonies we've received!
So the people who buy our Videos really value them, & we want to encourage iyou to value them too by getting a good price for them—not just the average price for other Videos on your field. Our Videos are worth far more than the "average"—they're priceless!— As so many of the viewers testify!
We feel a reasonable donation to ask for our Videos would be $30 each, & we believe the Lord can supply it, even on the poorest of fields. In Brazil, for example, where the economy is literally crashing & the currency is devalued virtually every week, the Family averages at least $35 per Tape—& often gets out six-packs for up to $300! How much more should the Lord be able to supply in the rich Northern & Western fields, where the people have a lot more to spend!—Yet we've heard that in some rich countries, like the U.S., some of our Family only ask for $20 per Video.
We've also heard testimonies of Homes who'd only been asking $20 for the Videos — and are experiencing financial difficulties in their Home, we might add —who began asking for$30 instead, & not only are they now averaging this amount per Video, but they've pulled themselves out of their financial dilemma! PTL! So please don't fail the Lord & yourselves by underselling the Videos! If you really believe our Videos are priceless, worth more than a System video of the same length, then you'll radiate that enthusiasm, & the people you talk to will see it & they'll believe it too! As Dad has often said, if you're sold on your product, then you can sell it to others!
Following are a few statements that Mama made about our Audio Tapes which can be applied to our Video Tapes just as well:
"You need to get out there & be a salesman! It's not enough to say, 'We have Tapes to sell, could you please give us a little donation?' Why don't we go out like Dad says, with the attitude of, 'We've got something that you need & you want! We're not begging you, you should be begging us! We have something special that nobody else has & if you want it badly enough, we'll let you have it! You should be begging us for it! What we have is tremendous! We're unique, we're different, we've got something that everybody wants, & if you'll listen to it, you'll want it too!—And it's worth paying something for! You go out to a restaurant & spend more than this on a nice meal or you go out & buy a nice something-or-other, but this Tape is much more valuable! You'd be way ahead if you'd forego one meal out & buy one of these Tapes instead!" (Maria #47:6)
"You have to remember that one of the fundamental principles of salesmanship is to make people see how good your product is for them, because people's question in buying anything is always, 'Why should I buy this?—What will it do for me?' Tell them, 'These are tremendously valuable Tapes, the kind that you could never get in the shops, & therefore of course they're more expensive (if they bring up the fact that you're charging more than they'd have to pay for cassettes in the stores), they're more valuable, they can even help you with a better life!'" (Maria #48:7) So please, dear Family, we encourage you all to value our Videos by asking $30 (or more) for them when possible, & see if the Lord won't "open the windows of Heaven, & pour you out such a blessing that there shall not be room enough to hold it!"—Mal.3:10. GBY! WLY! (—AMEN!—P.)
