BACK TO THE BEGINNING!
DO 2551 9/89
--We've Done It Before & We Can Do It Again!
1. I'm pretty persuaded that if anything big is going to happen soon, it's probably going to be the Economic Crash! The whole thing is just hanging on bare threads right now! More & more economists are coming out & saying it's likely to happen, & the more honest ones are saying flat-out that it can't help but happen!
2. It's wonderful to be aware that it's going to happen so we can be prepared, & I think we've done a fairly good job of getting ready for whatever is going to happen. But where do you think we're the most vulnerable when the Crash actually happens? (Fam: Probably economically, because people's income will be way way down, & therefore the Family's income will be way down.)--And that means WS' income will drop as well.
3. But we have to survive for the sake of the Family, so we're doing the best we can to repair & prepare so that the whole ship doesn't sink! I believe the Lord is going to keep the Family going somehow! There may not be much income coming in, & if the Family is living on a survival dribble, our WS income will be greatly reduced & we will have to live on a survival dribble too. That's one reason I'm suggesting that we get any supplies & equipment that we need now, because we won't be able to get them later.
4. The present state of poor Latin America is a good dandy bad example of what's going to happen to the rest of the World! And the way our Latin Family is still managing & even prospering should be a very good example of how to survive it! They ought to be sharing all the advice they can right now, so the rest of the Family can make similar preparations.
INFLATION!
5. Well, I lived through the Great Depression with a family of 12-25 most of the time & an income of only about $10 a week, & we survived! Of course, the prices were very low then too. That's what I'm wondering: What are the ACs going to do about that this time? They seem to have figured out how to use inflation to really crush a country now, like they're crushing the Latin Americans.
6. There was no such thing as inflation during the Great Depression, the prices were totally deflated & they got down to where even the poorest people could pay them. I remember seeing ads in magazines that said, "Take our retirement plan & some day when you're old & retired, you can live like a king on $100 a month!" The trouble is, by the time those people got that old, they couldn't even exist on $100 a month! So it doesn't always work that way. Inflation wiped out the value of their money.
7. I'm wondering if they're going to figure out some way to keep inflation up even though people have less money. Maybe they'll just keep the prices high whether people can pay for things or not, like they're doing in South America.--Just jack up the prices & let'm starve!
ESSENTIAL SKILLS BEING PRESERVED!
8. It might not be a bad idea for at least some of the Family to consider living out on farms where they can raise their own food. They can grow grains & vegetables & raise animals for meat. It wouldn't hurt to know how to do some of those things. The Lord has kept alive a lot of those old-fashioned skills that are going to be very essential in the Millennium, things like how to drive a team of horses or be a blacksmith. There are still places that specialise in making buggies, coaches & wagons.
9. They still have a lot of those old sailboats too. They train sailors on them nowadays, just to give'm a little idea of what sailing was like in the old days. So they still know how to sail & handle all that tackle & everything! The Lord is preserving a lot of those old skills that are going to be very important in the Millennium.
BACK TO THE BASICS OF NON-ELECTRONICS!
10. The way things are going we may even have to go back to the basics of using manual typewriters, carbon paper & onionskin paper to get out the Word! Every office ought to have at least one non-electric typewriter that doesn't need anything to operate it other than just a girl with 10 fingers, or even a boy with two fingers!
11. I'm sure thankful I learned touch typing in school. It sure has been a blessing, because I used to type all those prayer letters before Mama came along. I used to have to type stencils & run the mimeo machine, the works! But that's what got us started, way back in the pre-Mama days!
12. I think we should be prepared for the worst scenario! We may have to get back to non-electronics--typewriters that work without electricity & some sort of duplicating machine that works without electricity. How far back would you have to go to find some kind of printing press that works without electricity? You'd have to go to manual mimeograph machines.
13. On a mimeograph you can print about four GN-size pages if you use the long legal-sized paper, so it's possible to print the GNs that way. But if we don't have the hand-operated equipment it could be impossible! I think we ought to buy every single one of our printing centers some kind of printing or duplication equipment that is purely hand-operated, that needs no electricity.
14. I'm trusting that the System will continue to exist in one form or another, & if anything we'll still be able to use the postal system & transportation. If we have to go back to Paul's days of hand-carried couriers, we could do it, but I don't know that things are ever going to really get that bad to where we can't use the postal system. I'm sure they'd try to catch us, but to do so they'd have to open all the mail! They're never going to have enough time for that, they have enough trouble sorting mail without having to open it all!
DAD'S PRAYER LETTER MINISTRY!
15. We need to be perfectly, completely, independently self-operating, self-sustaining & self-sufficient! It's not enough for us to have food if we can't write or type or duplicate! Of course, we'd have to cut down drastically on our publications, probably to nothing but MO Letters & a little news, so that the printing centers could get it out even if they only had a mimeograph.
16. Each of our major printing centers would probably duplicate less copies than I did with my old prayer letters! Good night! I used to get out 2,000 copies of our 8-page prayer letter at least once a month, most of which I printed by hand!
17. Our mailing list got up to 2,000 after we left Valley Farms & joined the Soul Clinic & went to Miami etc. It was then that I realised that I'd rather have a lot of those little old ladies out there on a pension supporting me than one rich man, because there were a lot more people to pray for us, & they did, God bless'm!--And a lot more people to support us! Fred used to say, "I'd rather have 10,000 little widow ladies each send me in $1 a month, than one rich man giving me $10,000 a month!--Because for one thing, he's going to want to run the whole thing & tell me what to do with his $10,000!"
18. So it can be done! I've done it myself, personally! I typed out all the little letters on legal-sized paper & I put the pictures on, & when we could afford it, I'd take it down to the printer & have them make me sufficient copies. We had special "letter days" when we put the whole school to work folding, stuffing & stamping. Let me tell you, preparing 2,000 letters was quite a job! It took us about three or four days at the end of the every month to get'm out!
19. So we can do it! Like the old song from WW2: "We've done it before & we can do it again! We can do it again! We can do it again! We have done it before & we can do it again!" We got in a mountain of mail & good support from our prayer letters! Most of our students didn't have anything to give towards running the Soul Clinic school, so the prayer letter generated almost our entire support. Praise the Lord!
WHAT EVERY OFFICE SHOULD HAVE!
20. Well, I think we need to learn how to be without electricity, without all these fancy machines, & go back, shall we say, to the beginning?--Back to the beginnings, just like we used to do!
21. One thing we don't want to have to do is write our Letters by hand! Let's at least have some mechanical typewriters. They must still have'm. They don't have to have those electronic self-correcting things, just ordinary normal manual typewriters! We're going to have to be prepared to be purely mechanical instead of electronic, & we're going to have to have our publishing centers equipped with manual typewriters & some kind of manual printing or duplication equipment.
22. One of the cheapest, simplest things that almost anybody can use is the mimeo! If they've got hand-operated offset machines that you can make your own plates with, then of course that would be better, and every print center should have one! Just in case the System fails, electricity fails and the whole works fail, at least we can still get out the Word! We may have to go back to the beginnings, but we've done it before & we can do it again! Amen? OK! Let's make an itemised list of what our offices should have.
23. Number 1: A manual typewriter! The print centers & offices must have one.
24. Number 2: Some form of manual duplicator, either a mimeo or offset.
25. Number 3: Supplies: Legal-sized paper, along with legal-sized carbon paper. They'll need duplicator supplies as well. You'd better be well-supplied & stocked up with whatever supplies you need for the duplicator. (stencils, ink etc.)
26. Number 4: A mail box somewhere.--Of course, everyone should already have this.
27. Number 5: Legal-sized envelopes. It might be hard to get the legal-sized envelopes, so it would be good for the print centers to have some on hand. In that day our mailings will have to look like normal letter envelopes. There was a time we used to fold up the GN to fit in an ordinary personal-size envelope so it wouldn't even look like any kind of business letter, but just like a personal letter.
28. Number 6: Hand-operated generators, or you might look into solar power too. I think you can get battery chargers that are solar-operated & maybe there are transistor radios that are solar-operated. We need some form of generation to keep our radios & tape recorders going.
29. Number 7: Small transistor radios and tape recorders that don't use much battery juice. Tape recorders for both recording and listening, and radios to listen to the news.
SURVIVAL FOR OUR SPIRITUAL MINISTRY!
30. I hope I'm not scaring you! I've been through it before, so it doesn't scare me! I'm willing to do it any way we have to as long as we get out the Word, because that's our job, to feed the people! We've got to get out something to keep them inspired, encouraged, directed and in fellowship! Amen? Praise the Lord!
31. It's amazing! We're going back to the early beginnings & ways so that we need a whole new set of machinery & materials! We have pretty much tried to get everybody to prepare themselves for physical survival, but we need to prepare for our spiritual ministry's survival with this equipment. In the days that are coming I think we'll be severely handicapped if we don't have it. Our print centers will certainly need all of this, & we editorial & preparation offices will need a lot of it as well. We've got to be able to get back to where we can do it by hand, the hand-made process!
32. It's exciting to have a challenge like this!--And to know we can conquer it! Praise God? That's the way I felt in the Depression!--No matter what it was, if I needed it, I figured, well, somehow we're going to get it! Amen? GBY!
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family