Thank you for the emails. My brother in Brooklyn
also sent me the
information the other day on the last book. I guess that is the end
of an era of printing in Brooklyn
. We have a giant addition going on
here in south Africa
. We're getting one of those new presses like
Wallkill is getting that turns 90,000 mags an hour and does all the
trimming, packing,labeling, etc so that they're not touched until
they are shipped out. We will also get a book binder. Up til now
Japan has supplied our books in the lower part of Africa
.
We left Sunday for a two month trip. It won't be quite so hectic
as the last one. We just do three countries, Moszambique
,Malawi
&
Zambia. All three have big programs so there is a lot of work to
do.
Mozambique
has built 364 KH in the last four years. They need
another 223. We will set them up so they finish in about two
years. Then they just need 25 a year to keep up with growth.
Malawi
has built 742 KH in the last four years under this program
and they need 134. They built 132 last year, so we want to start
reducing the work so that they go gradually into the mode of
keeping up with growth of 40 KH per year.
Zambia
has the record for the most KH built in the world under
this program. They have done 1095 KHs in the last four years under
the program and need 325 more. It will be the same with them, we'll
start reducing the work so that they gradually reduce. They could
build all 325 in a little over a year if we kept up our pace. But
we don't want to build them all and then have to send everyone home
and then have to set up again when more halls are needed. It's
better to reduce gradually and curve down to where we are just
keeping up with the growth.
Both Zambia
and Malawi
also have Assembly Halls to build.
Zambia has asked for 240 now. We have to discuss that when I'm there.
Malawi wants 49. The reason is that when the brothers have to travel
a long distance, they can't afford it, so they just send one member
of the family. When we set up an assembly hall for the circuit, they
can stay with in walking distance (if it's less than 4 hours or so)
and the whole family attends.
Teaching Committee prefers it that way. But we have to see how we can
build something super simple and cheap but at the same time get them
the assembly site that they need. So, like I say, there is a lot to
do on this visit.
We were just in Malawi
a few weeks ago for another project we were
working on there. I'll send a couple of pics of halls on lake Malawi.
It is a really pretty lake. We have built seven halls along the lake
where there are no roads. We sent the materials in by boat, the name
of the boat is Utewete (
for in God's service) and the brothers
and sisters carried the things up the mountain. The one I'm sending
pictures of was 2000 ft up from the lake and about a mile in. They
(mostly the sisters) carried the materials up on their heads, and a
good portion of them with babies on their backs. In
they carry
the babies kinda on their side so that it can nurse easy. So it is
pretty classic to see a sister with materials on her head and a baby
strapped to her side nursing away.
The brothers say it took around 300 trips up the mountain so we
figured at 2000 ft each that is the equivalent of carrying materials
up the side of Mt Everest more than 20 times.
