July 26, 1957  
July 26, 1957 - Brethren & Co-Workers Letter
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Herbert W Armstrong 

The WORLD TOMORROW
A WORLDWIDE BROADCAST

HERBERT W. ARMSTRONG

Proclaim to the World the GOOD NEWS OF THE WORLD TOMORROW

BOX 111, Pasadena, California

Publishing: The PLAIN TRUTH a Magazine of UNDERSTANDING

July 26, 1957

Dear Co-Workers with Christ:

   Here I am, just loaded with news, and again PAST DUE with this letter. I returned from my rest and fast on the Oregon Coast to find not only the crisis we were in, but matters needing my personal attention piled so high I wonder when I'll get caught up.

   I'm overjoyed that I can report we have weathered this crisis — SO FAR, though this work faces a very serious need at the moment! We still could be put off the air, unless we meet this need.

   As I wrote in my last letter, dear Co-Workers, We CANNOT EVER LET DOWN — not for a single day! God has not called us to travel a soft and easy road in His work — but the road of FAITH, beset by constant trials and tests and crises.

   God did not intend life to be free from having to meet these things. We here at the headquarters of God's great work have not only the load and responsibility of the work to carry, but our own personal trials as well. Right now we are grieved and sobered by the sudden accidental death of the wife of one of our ministers, Dr. C. Paul Meredith, Director of the Ambassador College Bible Correspondence Course. This tragedy occurred at a time when Dr. Meredith is somewhere in the Middle-East or in India, half way around the earth, and there has been no way that we could locate or reach him with the terrible news. He and Mr. Herman L. Hoeh, Executive Editor of The PLAIN TRUTH, are on a tour of historic research into these lands for the summer. They had written us that we would be unable to communicate with them until they return to Europe, some two weeks hence. This is going to be a terrible blow, and an irreplaceable loss to Dr. Meredith, and I wish all you Co-Workers would join us here in praying for him. His wife was a great help to him in his very important work.

   Yet regardless of trials, tests, or personal loss, WE MUST ALL KEEP RIGHT ON WITH THE WORK OF GOD, more intensively than ever. Complete happiness, with NO sorrows or griefs, will soon be ours for ALL ETERNITY, in the glorious KINGDOM OF GOD. Meanwhile, we must keep on getting this GOOD NEWS to more and more millions of people, all around the world! You have YOUR part — each of us has a vital and important part!

   A month ago we were seriously threatened with being thrown off the air on ALL United States stations. I learned, after my last letter to you, that the stations were very jittery over what had happened on the part of our advertising agency. Altho we had been paying our advertising agent within two weeks after broad- casts — and the money was not due the stations from the agent until the tenth of the following month. We found, on sending telegrams to all the stations, that the stations had not been paid for three or four months.

   We are forced, of course, to make a change-over to a new advertising agency. I had to guarantee that the stations would get their money, even tho we had already paid it once. When I returned from Oregon, my rest and fast cut short by this emergency, things were in a very shaky condition.

   However, when I called the various radio station managers on long distance telephone, they all seemed completely reassured on hearing my voice, and receiving my assurances. We sent them photo- graphic proof that we had paid for the broadcasts, photographing both the agency's statements. and our cancelled checks in payment. Several expressed regret I had been personally so much inconvenienced. The manager of WLS even said he hoped to make up some of this to me by arranging an EARLIER TIME on WLS!

   Co-Workers, PLEASE pray that this will be arranged! WLS is the most important single station on earth for us — IF we can only have a good time on it. The present time of 11:30 to midnight is ENTIRELY TOO LATE for most of the people to stay up and listen every night. If this station will clear a good time, around 8 or 9 in the evening, we can now start putting these FULL PAGE messages or printed sermons in their farm paper the "Prairie Farmer." It reaches nearly every farmer, and most of the people in smaller towns and cities, in all of Minnesota and southern Wisconsin. Hundreds of you Co-Workers will want to subscribe to it if these big full page messages are published. We plan to put them in EVERY ISSUE — twice a month!

   Three of our biggest stations have insisted that I personally sign the new contracts from our new agency, holding us financially responsible, as well as the agency. If in the future our agency did not pay, we would have to, even tho we had already paid our agency. But I have demanded WEEKLY certification of payment to the station from our new agency, so if this ever happened again, we would know it before we would ever pay for a second week. I am taking no chances this time.

   Well, dear Co-Workers, you see how God does pull us thru these emergencies, and even cause them to greatly BENEFIT the work instead of harming it! Isn't it WONDERFUL the way God protects us? This is HIS WORK!

   But in meeting this emergency we had to drain our reserve all the way down. We were paying our former agency two weeks after the broadcast had been on the air. We have now had to pay right up to the minute, and in some cases even two weeks in advance. This took extra money — many thousands of dollars. Thank God, we were able to meet it!

   But it left us in a MIGHTY TIGHT SQUEEZE, and WITHOUT ANY RESERVES. We now have to pay WEEKLY, and right on the dot. Any week we lack the money, WE'LL BE PUT OFF THE AIR. This is, in a way, an even more serious situation than a month ago.

   As I write, the income has been dropping down, way below quota the past three or four days! SO THIS IS A NEW EMERGENCY MORE SERIOUS THAN EVER! We approach the tail end of the month when our Co-Workers seem to lag, and the income drops alarmingly below the quota to pay for these broadcasts.

   For thirty days now I have had to CALL A VITAL HALT on all repairs and work on our new properties. We have OUTGROWN our present facilities. We cannot move into our new classroom building, Ambassador Hall unless we spend several thousand dollars making changes to bring it up to building codes, as well as a new large two-story office building that has come to us, but cannot use it until it is brought up to codes. We are going to just have to let these buildings lie dormant for a few months, until we get the work of God in better financial condition, and on a safe footing so we won't be thrown off the air! Right now we are "skating on mighty thin ice"! It is a perilous situation!

   Co-Workers! I KNOW you'll PRAY over this, as I am doing, and make the needed sacrifice; ask that sufficient funds will keep coming in to KEEP US ON THE AIR every week! Let's all try to SEND IN A LITTLE MORE EACH WEEK OR MONTH THAN WE HAVE BEEN DOING! God bless you for it! God has never failed us — and I know He won't let you fail Him!

With deep love and gratitude,
Herbert W. Armstrong

Publication Date: July 26, 1957
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