Herbert W Armstrong

On Friday, May 17, Mr. Armstrong met with Otto von Habsburg, who brought along his youngest son. At least one hour of the meeting was recorded on video tape by our television crew.

On the Sabbath, Mr. Armstrong spoke to over 530 brethren from all over the German-speaking area in the Cherubim Hall of Munich's Hotel Vierjahreszeiten (Four Seasons). He began by commenting on the Church choir's special music "Let There Be Peace On Earth," then proceeded to give a very encouraging sermon reassuring us that we have the truth and that world peace will come soon. Mr. Armstrong also whetted everyone's appetite by outlining for us his new book, MYSTERY OF THE AGES. The German audience was also thrilled to hear him speak a few words of German he had learned some 70 years ago. That evening Mr. Armstrong hosted a dinner for all the German ministers and their wives. Mr. and Mrs. Ellis La Ravia, Mr. and Mrs. Aaron Dean and the copilot, Mr. Larry Dietrich, who is a local elder in Long Beach, were also present.

On Sunday, Mr. Armstrong made an unscheduled visit to Nuremberg before flying on to Paris. In Nuremberg Mr. Armstrong visited the site of Hitler's giant rallies, while the film crew recorded the scenes for future television broadcasts on prophecy.

In Paris my wife and I joined Mr. Armstrong and then flew with him to Prague, Czechoslovakia. This was Mr. Armstrong's first visit to Czechoslovakia. He had recently been invited by Jaroslav Gebert, manager for foreign travel and conventions in the official government tourist agency CEDOK [pronounced CHE-dok]. In Prague Mr. Armstrong was given a private boat trip on the Vltava River (Moldau) and an extensive sightseeing tour of the city. Mr. Armstrong also visited Konopiste Castle, about 40 kilometers outside of Prague. The last residents of Konopiste were Francis Ferdinand and his wife Sophia of the Habsburg line. It was Francis Ferdinand and his wife who were assassinated at Sarajevo in 1914, triggering World War I.

During his stay, Mr. Armstrong met with Vaclav Pleskot, president of CEDOK, who gave a dinner for Mr. Armstrong and his party. Mr. Pleskot was formerly ambassador to France and Algeria, and is active in sports and environmental affairs. He was mainly responsible for making volleyball an official Olympic sport. Mr. Pleskot thoroughly enjoyed looking through the ENVOY and asked for permission to visit our Festival in Brno this autumn. Mr. Gebert remarked that he felt this was only the beginning of many such visits by Mr. Armstrong to Czechoslovakia.

May saw the arrival of nine Ambassador College students from the Pasadena and Big Sandy campuses for the German Summer Program. Four of the students are on the family program and the other five are on the office program. Those taking part in the family program have the opportunity to stay with a German family, assist in the local church area, and gain exposure to the German language. Those on the office program will become familiar with the work in the office, the German culture and the language. The summer program is very valuable in developing future manpower for the work of the Church in the German-speaking area.

On Sunday, May 26, Pentecost services were held in five locations in the German-speaking area. Overall attendance was 781. There was no increase in the overall offering due to the large offering we had last year.

It is always very encouraging and exciting for us to have visitors from Headquarters. In May we also had a visit from Mr. Ron Kelly and Mr. Gene Hogberg, who were here for the Economic Summit in Bonn. While in Europe, they also went to Bitburg and Strasbourg for President Reagan's headline making visits there. We are now looking forward to the group of Ambassador College students, headed by Mr. Richard Paige and accompanied by Mr. Larry Salyer and his family, who will all be visiting Bonn on their way to the Jerusalem Dig. We will also receive visits by Mr. Ralph Helge and his wife and then Mr. Roger Lippross, Don Patrick and Peggy Warkentin from Publishing Services in Pasadena to install our new Bedford electronic pagination system in the middle of June.

Besides all of the above-mentioned activity, our Mail Processing Department was kept very busy with responses from the 100,000 second renewals that were sent out this month to our PT readership.

To conclude a full and busy month, May was our first month for a pilot program for PLAIN TRUTH newsstand distribution, which was headed by Wade Franssen, assistant to office manager John Karlson. Newsstands were set up in three locations in Bonn, which will be monitored during the next several weeks.

From Mr. Stan Bass: Mr. Leroy Neff, treasurer and evangelist in God's Church, visited the Caribbean region during the Days of Unleavened Bread. After spending Passover in Miami, Mr. Neff and his wife Maxine went to Kingston, Jamaica. There Mr. Charles Fleming, pastor of the Kingston congregation, and I met the Neffs.

In Jamaica, Mr. Neff spoke to the local church on the first day of Unleavened Bread. This marked the beginning of a trip that would take the Neffs to the regional office in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and provide speaking opportunities in the churches in Puerto Rico, Barbados, Trinidad and the French congregation in Martinique. In Barbados, Mr. Neff and I participated in the ordination of Mr. Charles Lowe to the rank of local church elder. While in San Juan, Mr. and Mrs. Neff visited the recently leased facilities of the regional office.

At each of the stops in the region, Mr. Neff updated the brethren on the then recent visit of Queen Sirikit to the campus in Pasadena, and showed the brethren a picture of the golden peacock that Her Majesty gave to Mr. Armstrong. And in each church area, the Neffs had the opportunity to have dinner with the ministers and other employees of the Church.

Nine ministers and wives of the Caribbean region, including local church elder Edward Straughan, met in San Juan for a Ministerial Conference, April 29 through May 2. I was able to bring them up to date on the subjects that were covered at the Regional Directors Conference in January. Everyone enjoyed the opportunities for fellowship during the conference.

We are all excited about the addition of a new television station in the region: Aruba TV station TeleAruba. Viewers of TeleAruba have already responded well, with about 10 letters per week for our first two programs. Most of the letters contain encouraging comments and express an overall desire to continue watching. We have also received one visit request and a stated desire of Church membership from another viewer. It should be interesting to see how things develop over the next few months.

With the addition of a new TV station, we found it necessary to drop a radio station. This is generally in line with our policy to take television wherever possible and phase out radio stations that are not drawing much response. We have been on Radio Antilles for some twenty years, and it did much to build God's Church in the Caribbean during the middle sixties, but has now outgrown its usefulness.

In recent weeks the regional office has received a marked increase in visit requests from exotic islands across the Caribbean. To date we have two from Aruba, and one each from Tortola, St. Croix, Antigua, St. John and Dominica. We look forward to planning a tour in order to visit these scattered islands.

Over the past year the growth of PLAIN TRUTH circulation in this region has been very encouraging. We now have 72,600 subscribers region-wide, which represents a 28% increase over the 1984 figure. This growth has been due in large part to rapid growth in the subscriber list for four Caribbean islands. Puerto Rico has 3,340 English language subscribers, a 22% increase over last year; Trinidad has 15,363 subscribers, a 24% increase; Guyana 16,515 subscribers, a 31% increase; and Jamaica, 24,503 subscribers, a 32% increase. (It is interesting to note that there are no promotional campaigns in Guyana, yet its growth is still considerable.) In addition, some 3,000 more issues are distributed every month on newsstands. This means that The PLAIN TRUTH goes to 1 in every 122 persons in our Caribbean mailing area. The region certainly is receiving a witness.

— Joseph Tkach, Ministerial Services