Last week we used up the remaining 18,000 PT newspaper inserts (a sample of which we included in the August 14 Pastor General's Report) in the Palm Springs Desert Sun, a newspaper whose readership is perhaps among the most affluent and influential in the nation. The response should prove to be very interesting, especially when compared with San Diego and Sacramento, the other test cities in which we used this promotion.
You may remember that the insert is up front about what we are trying to do and is not hiding behind a news magazine approach. It is open about our message, the Church and the Bible. We have found that this approach is best in the long run. It gives us a lower initial response, but a much better quality of reader; one who knows what to expect from The PLAIN TRUTH.
This is the time of year when we look at what we've achieved over the past 12 months. A lot of water has gone under the bridge, as they say. We've had our problems, but we've worked to overcome them. The enemies of God's Church tried hard to disrupt the Work early this year, but with God's help we didn't miss a beat in publishing. We were closed down and locked out twice, but somehow we made up the time by coming in at night and working doubly hard when we got the doors opened up again. The magazines kept rolling off the presses around the world. Publishing of the gospel was not disrupted. For this we should be very thankful.
Some interesting figures for the past year are that we printed over 30 million magazines, booklets and mailings, worldwide, amounting to over 1,500 tons of paper. When converted back to trees this would amount to over 70 acres of forest — a totally incredible fact when you consider all this was given away free. Next year's trees are growing somewhere in the forests, waiting to serve us in this great commission!