Herbert W Armstrong

Advertising continued to be a main thrust for adding new subscribers to the German PLAIN TRUTH (KLAR & WAHR). During 1984 we added a total of 65,000 new subscribers. It was in 1984 that we began advertising in a big way. Between 1980 and 1984 we have added a total of 375,000 new subscribers to The PLAIN TRUTH list for the German-speaking area. In December of 1984 we ran an ad (a flyer attached to a travel magazine) in most of the German trains. This campaign is expected to bring us 10,000 new subscribers at a cost of about $1.50 each.

Our PLAIN TRUTH list stood at just around the 100,000 mark at the end of 1984. Our income for the year showed an increase of 11.5% over 1983. Our financial base is made up of approximately 5,000 people: 500 members, 1,760 co-workers and 2,770 donors.

Our GOOD NEWS list almost doubled during 1984 to just under 24,000. We received 250,000 pieces of mail, which is six percent more than in 1983. During 1984 we sent out 230,000 pieces of mail, which is 63% more than the year before. During 1984 4,500 students were enrolled in the Bible correspondence course and our Personal Correspondence Department reports an increase of 67% more letters answered than in 1983.

We have a total of 14 congregations in the German-speaking area with attendance at about 800.

The 1984 Feast of Tabernacles was held in Bonndorf, West Germany (in the Black Forest) with 960 in attendance and in Brno, Czechoslovakia with 275 (including 15 from East Germany) in attendance. 1985 will see a new Feast site for 140 people opened at Krakow, Poland.

At the beginning of January, 1985, we completed another very successful session of our annual YOU Wintercamp. This was the sixth year the youth from all over Europe (including some overseas guests) came together for 11 days of alpine and cross-country skiing, toboganning, Austrian curling, ice skating, youth Bible studies and much more. Seventy youths were present at the camp in the beautiful Alps of Saalbach, Austria. Wintercamp coordinator Wolfgang Thomsen commented that this was a fantastic opportunity for the youth to get together, since the Feast of Tabernacles is the only other time for the young people to have close contact with one another. Due to financial constraints and long traveling distances, the youth are not able to meet together very often.

January brought good news for one of our young Church members here in Germany. Robert Geis, a member in the Darmstadt Church, was awarded conscientious objector status by a German Administrative Court after having been turned down twice previously by his local draft board. Until new legislation that was recently passed, when applying for conscientious objector status, the defendant was virtually pitted against the State of Germany, having to answer many difficult and sometimes tricky questions. Robert had applied before the new law and therefore was asked such questions as how he found the Church, its typical doctrines, how he became a member, and then on to more intense questions such as why did ancient Israel fight wars, why was the death penalty instituted in ancient Israel, how does one explain the "eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth" scripture, what would you do if you saw someone being attacked and the only way to save the person would be to kill the attacker? etc. Mr. Alfred Hellemann, associate pastor of the Darmstadt, Dusseldorf and Bonn congregations, commented that God's inspiration was evident in Robert's successful answering of these questions.

At the end of January, Office Manager John Karlson, his wife and my wife and I flew to Pasadena for the Regional Directors Conference. We found the conference very beneficial and unifying. With the evident unity further solidifying, we can expect great growth in God's work in the months and years ahead.

— Joe Tkach, Ministerial Services