Nobody seems to have noticed this point made in the 2003 Yearbook...
***yb03pp.221-223Philippines***
AdjustmentsinViewpointsonMeetingSchedulesSome congregations, whether having their own Kingdom Hall or not, are located in remote areas. Brothers have to walk two, four, or even more hours over rough terrain to get to the meeting place. As a result, there are areas where it is impractical to come together more than once a week to a central place for meetings. Consequently, many of these congregations had all their meetings on one day except for the Congregation Book Study. Brothers came prepared to share in four meetings. They brought food for lunch. In this way, the long distance to the meeting place needed to be traversed only once a week, with other activity, such as the field ministry, being carried on in the local area on other days.
During the 1980’s, this practice began to spread to not-so-remote congregations, even those in city areas. Perhaps economic hardship caused some to think of ways to save money. Fewer days with meetings meant less travel and less expense. Other brothers became overly concerned with convenience, perhaps using time on other days for personal pursuits, such as education or secular work.
More and more congregations began to have four of their meetings on one day, and some congregations, even all five meetings! However, this meant that congregations in the Philippines were drifting further and further from the way things are done by most of Jehovah’s people throughout the world, who have meetings on three different days during the week. The brothers had become somewhat out of balance in this regard. During the visit of the zone overseer in 1991, this matter was called to his attention. In turn, the Governing Body was consulted. They responded by saying: "We do not believe this is a good practice unless there are extreme extenuating circumstances." This information was conveyed to the brothers, first in the cities and then in the rural areas.
It was pointed out that besides conforming to the established worldwide arrangement for meetings, the congregations would spiritually benefit more from having separate meetings than from trying to cram all the material into three and a half to four hours. Young children and newly interested ones had found such a schedule difficult. Elders could prepare higher quality talks when preparing for one or two meetings rather than for many.
What was the response of the congregations to this counsel? The vast majority responded positively, quickly making adjustments to have midweek meetings. Now, with the exception of the very remote congregations, most congregations enjoy a more balanced spiritual program each week.
Interesting that the GB has now flip-flopped on this too... What will the poor Philippine bros think????
