Working Well with other Groups

Well, today I wanted to talk about something that's been very near and dear to us. And, of course, it applies, and the subject does apply, to what God is doing based upon the meaning of this Holy Day, the Feast of Trumpets. On this Feast of Trumpets, there were various trumpets blown, not just one trumpet, but various kinds of trumpets that were blown. The most prominent one was the shofar trumpet that was blown as a warning. It was blown with a very eerie sound.

It was a ram's horn. It's a plaintive, foreboding sound, a very ugly, eerie sound that was frightening. You probably heard that sound at the Bend Feast site. We had someone there that, outside the door, that blew a shofar horn. And, you know, it was just kind of very interesting to see how that worked. But then there were also other trumpets blown. There were silver trumpets blown. Now, these were blown in all the Holy Days, so these weren't just only for the Feast of Trumpets.

But there were the shofar, then there were the two silver trumpets that were blown that were signaling big events, heralding events. The introduction of kings. The silver trumpets were blown when a new king was inaugurated in Israel. New administrations in the government of Judah began on the first day of the seventh month.

No matter when the king started his reign, if he took over after someone who had died and he took over, his rule, his reign didn't begin until the Feast of Trumpets, until the first day of the seventh month, the first day of the civil year. The first day of the sacred year is the first of Abib, which is in the spring. We start with the Passover, Days of Love and Bread. But in the fall of the year, we had the beginning of the civil year. And on this day was a blowing of these silver trumpets.

The heralding of events. The various assemblies that were to be called. These trumpets are a type of a picture of heavenly trumpets that will sound at the return of Jesus Christ. 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 13. Number of New Testament references all the way through the book of Revelation, in the book of Corinthians, about at the last trump we will arise, and that's when Jesus Christ will return. But also that is specified in the passage that I will want to read. It was in 1 Thessalonians 4 and verse 15.

This is talking about the resurrection. This is the context, which is also covered in 1 Corinthians 15. For this we say to you, 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 15, By the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. This is the silver trumpet, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

So there's this trumpet component to the resurrection on this day of the Feast of Trumpets. But also, both the shofar and with the silver trumpets, there is a component in the meaning of those trumpets of doing the work of God, of the proclamation of God's Word. And we have those components in the way Jesus Christ specified.

In Matthew 24, for example, this commemoration of the preaching of the Gospel. In Matthew 24, Matthew 24, verse 14, common passages to us, because there are a number of passages about the kingdom of God being preached from Mark 1, verse 14, and also from what we read here.

Matthew 24, verse 14, this Gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all nations, and then the end will come. So the Gospel will come, and the end will come, and that end, when it does come, it will be the return of Jesus Christ with the sound of trumpets. But the actual work in itself is a kind of a message of proclamation, announcement, and warning. All these elements are there. And in that sense, the Feast of Trumpets commemorates the preaching of the Gospel and going into all the world. Mark 1, verse 14, which is the keynote address that Jesus Christ sounded in doing the work, which very succinctly, Mark 1, verse 14, He came to Galilee preaching the Gospel of the kingdom of God, the very beginning of His work, His ministry, and saying, here's what Christ said, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand.

Repent and believe the Gospel. In the repentance, there was a component again of warning, a component of announcing, and a component of change. Repent and believe the Gospel. And then, of course, our work is to go into all the world, Matthew 28, 19, make disciples of all nations, and then to baptize them.

So this Feast of Trumpets is a commemoration of doing the work of God. God does what He wills in doing His work. My question to you, too, this afternoon is, are we the only ones doing the work of God? Is the United Church of God with its 7,000 households in the United States the only ones who are doing the work? And will the day come in our lifetime when there will be such a huge proclamation that everyone will say, those are the people that did the work of God?

Are we the true Church of God? The answer is, of course we are. We are the true Church of God. And we could look at ourselves and say, look, God, we have followed you, we have followed you through thick and thin, through different administrations, through good times, through challenging times. But are we the only ones doing the work of God? I have two illustrations, one from the Old Testament and the New Testament, that should tell the story about God's mind and how He is doing His work and what His plan and what His thoughts are.

First one is in 1 Kings chapter 19. First Kings chapter 19, much of the chapter, speaks about the work of Elijah. And every time I read it, it seems to make the point much more clear about the fact that we are doing God's work, but do we understand what God is doing and do we understand His will? First Kings chapter 19 and verse 1. I'll read the whole thing, the 18 verses, because they tell the narrative of the story very, very clearly.

Ahab and Jezebel, Ahab was the king and Jezebel was his very prominent wife, a very, very wicked, evil, conniving woman. Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and what Elijah did was slew the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel, where the city of Haifa is today. How he had executed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a message to Elijah saying, So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life as one of the life of those by tomorrow about this time. He said, I'm not going to rest until I see you dead. And when Elijah saw this, he arose and ran for his life and went to Beersheba.

That's quite a distance from northern Israel all the way down to the southern border. Beersheba was considered the border of Israel as he went into the Negev desert.

But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, verse 4, and came and sat down under a broom tree, and he prayed that he might die, and said, It is enough! Now, Lord, take my life, for I am no better than my father's. He says, Look, look what we've done. Look at the great proclamation we've had. And look how it's turned out. Look how it's turned out for me. We could say the same thing ourselves. Look at all the things that we did on big-time TV. Look at the things that we did around the world. And look where we are now. As he lay and slept under a broom tree, suddenly an angel touched him, and he said to him, Arise and eat. This is the first recorded connection with God and Elijah. And when he looked, there by his head was a cake baked on coals and a jar of water. So he ate and drank and lay down again. And the angel of the Lord came back the second time and touched him and said, Arise and eat, because the journey is too great for you. He said, Hey, come on, let's rest up, get something to eat, because we've got some more traveling to do. So he, Elijah, arose and ate and drank and went in the strength of that food, forty days and forty nights as far as Horeb, the mountain of God. He went to Horeb.

And there he went into a cave and spent the night in that place, and behold, the word of the Lord came to him. This is the first time that God himself is speaking to Elijah. After forty days of thinking, of Elijah praying, fasting, literally, and thinking. And the voice says to Elijah, What are you doing here, Elijah?

So he said, I have been very zealous for the Lord God of hosts, for the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, torn down your altars, and killed your prophets with a sword. I alone am left, and they seek to take my life. He's feeling sorry. He had done some great works. He pretty much destroyed the ministry in the north, but now they want to kill him, and he feels, all alone, abandoned.

Then God says, in verse 11, Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord. And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains, and broke the rocks and pieces before the Lord. But the Lord was not in the wind. A lot of drama here, natural occurrences. And after the wind, an earthquake. But the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, a fire. But the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, a still, small voice. Maybe it's not in the big things, not in the big noise, that God does his work. Maybe it's through the still, small voice. So it was, in verse 13, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And suddenly a voice came to him and said, What are you doing here, Elijah? God is not answering his questions directly, but he's working with him.

And Elijah says the same thing that he said before, I have been very zealous for the Lord God of hosts, because the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, torn down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they seek to take my life. What does this mean, God? A couple of things. He had done great things, and now he's on the run, and also he's alone. He doesn't seem to have a big following. He's just all alone. Then the Lord said to him, God's answered to him, he said, Look, there's more things I want you to do. Go return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus. Go back north, Damascus to Syria. Anoint Haziel as king over Syria. And you shall anoint Jehu, the son of Nimschia, as king over Israel. I want to have you coronate one of the next kings of Israel. And also I want you to choose your successor. And Elisha, the son of Shapeth, of Abel, Mahala, shall anoint prophet in your place.

And it shall be that whoever escapes the sword of Haziel, Jehu will kill. And whoever escapes the sword of Jehu, Elisha will kill. I'm going to have you supported like you haven't ever known before. And by the way, by the way, by the way, by the way, verse 18, I have reserved seven thousand in Israel, all whose knees have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him. Elijah, I'm going to answer that question about your being alone. No, there's seven thousand others. We don't know who those seven thousand were, whether they were groups, individuals, whoever. But there are seven thousand others who have not bowed their knees to Baal. So don't think that you're the only one. Don't think that you're the exclusive one for me. Just because I have been talking to you and doing great things to you, don't think that you're the only one.

This is a New Testament example that also illustrates this. And this is a story about Jesus Christ referring to him as being the chief shepherd and about the sheep that he was the shepherd over.

Verse 7 of John chapter 10. Most assured, they say to you, I am the door to the sheep. One thing that's established is that nobody can come to eternal life to God the Father unless they go through the doorway of Jesus Christ. All whoever came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. Oh, there's all kinds of people that represent themselves as Christ. They come into the sheep pen. Some jumped over the fence. Some came out of time. Some tried to come in for reasons that were not valid.

All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. True sheep don't hear false prophets. One reason why you're here is because you're hearing the voice of Jesus Christ through the Word of God. I am the door. Verse 9. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved. The only way to salvation is through the true Jesus Christ, not through fake ones that jump over the fence, who claim to be the shepherd, not the ones who are the thieves and robbers who are there for the wrong reasons, who want to abuse and exploit the sheep.

I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he'll be saved, and we'll go in and out and find pasture. The thief, though, does not come except to steal, kill, and to destroy. And we have those kinds of people. We've had those kinds of people among us, even in the ministry, that have abused the brethren, the sheep. But Jesus Christ says, I have come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly.

I am the good shepherd. Verse 11. A good shepherd gives life to the sheep, but a hireling, one who is a minister for the wrong reasons, a shepherd for the wrong reasons, he is not the shepherd. He does not own the sheep. He doesn't care. He just wants to get paid. He sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. And we certainly have that. The hireling flees because he doesn't care about the sheep. I, verse 14, am the good shepherd, and I know my sheep, and I am known by my own. As the Father knows me, even so I know the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep, which Jesus Christ did, so that we could be put under grace.

You know, if it wasn't for the fact that, if it wasn't for the law, we would not have grace.

If there was no law, there would be no need for grace. And if it wasn't for Jesus Christ's sacrifice, there would be no grace. That's one of the topics that's covered in the grace booklet.

I am the good shepherd.

Verse 16, but here's the big verse, similar to the 7,000 verse that we read in 1 Kings. And other sheep, not other doorways, and not others, but other sheep I have, which are not of this fold.

Jesus Christ speaking about the ones he was working with, who were his fold right there. But he's got other sheep that the apostles didn't seem to know about. They weren't the only exclusive ones. He doesn't say too much about them, just as God had not said too much about the others that he was working with in Israel. Someday I'd like to have those mysteries explained.

But others, sheep I have, which are not of this fold, them also I must bring, and they will hear my voice. And there will be one flock and one shepherd. All these folds, different places, will become part of one of the super flock, of which Jesus Christ is the chief shepherd. So are there other sheep in this world? And this is something that has come to our attention in the past several years. I have been working with Sabbatarians in different places in the world, namely starting in Ukraine in 1991, where we have found people that had been keeping God's laws, keeping the Sabbath, understanding the nature of God, not keeping the Roman holidays, understanding what the Holy Spirit was, understanding what happens after death, understanding the kingdom of God. There are other people who came to these understandings as well. And we have had a relationship with them. We've talked to them. I've spoken in their churches. They have come and spoken in our churches. What about other groups that we have worked with? Well, the last several years, the last three or four years, we have had a relationship with three, I would say, unusual groups in the world outside the United States. I could talk about others even in the U.S. But I want to talk about the ones outside of us and focus on the ones in Angola, because we were just there and came back almost to the day two months ago from Angola. There were people in Argentina that are called the United Church of God. We have a relationship with them where we have combined feasts, combined camps, combined efforts, exchanges of ministers in Chile and Argentina. These are Spanish-speaking people. Also, we have an amazing group in eastern India, in Misuram. That's a whole story that would take me a long time to explain about how these people came to us. But these are people, too, that want a relationship with us. They don't want anything from us. They don't want money. They don't want anything. They just want to be able to have a relationship. They have adopted and accepted 20 fundamental beliefs. They observe the Feast of Tabernacles. They observe everything that we do, as far as I know, as far as our senior pastor there knows. And so, very much want to be part of the greater United Church of God. And then also, we have the people in Angola, which there are thousands of these people, more than 5,000 people, who keep the same traditions and who keep the same practices and the same directions as we do.

We're developing a process of how to relate to them. People say, oh, they'll become part of us. Let them come in. We'll merge with them and be one Church. It's not that easy. There are so many cultural differences. There are so many economic differences. And there are so many things that just can't be done just like now. But there could be partnerships where we could work with people that have adopted and accepted what we believe, who we can work with over a period of time and then see kind of where it all goes. These could be the other folds in other places, part of the greater shepherd, the greater flock, that Jesus Christ is the doorkeeper to. We would like to have a gradual working with these people. And when I have traveled, my wife has traveled to all these three groups in the last year and a half. To India, to Argentina, Chile, and also now to Angola. And we have a relationship that's been building up, first of all, with a program partnership where we work with humanitarian issues. We're helping out material ways. We're helping out with educational programs. We're sending youth corps over there. We're sending young people to work in these areas. We also have another. We have an advanced partnership of public proclamation. We have worked with this in all three areas, notably in Argentina but in Angola, where these people really want to preach the gospel. The difficulty there is, there's 5,000 of them, but they're Portuguese speaking. And we have virtually no one in the United Church of God here who speak Portuguese. In fact, if you don't have anybody who speaks Portuguese, let me know. And we'll try to get them converted as quickly as we could. We desperately need somebody who can help us in the Portuguese language. Right now we have a super person, George de Campos, who has translated all of our booklets into the Portuguese language. He puts out the Portuguese Beyond Today magazine. He travels to Brazil, which contains 80% of all Portuguese-speaking people are in Brazil. Portugal itself has 10 million people. Brazil has 200 million people. But 80% of all Portuguese-speaking people are in Brazil. And the language that we use is Brazilian Portuguese for our magazine, because that's the big number that understand Portuguese. But now we're able to share our literature with them. And this next issue of Beyond Today magazine, we've been shipping it to Angola, but we've been shipping PDFs and they're printing it in their own country and printing it for one-tenth the cost. We ship them the PDFs of our booklets and our magazine, and they're doing their own printing and own distribution of our literature. But it's a combined effort of publication of literature and also in producing things like a radio program. They have a radio program in Angola and any other proclamation effort. And also, then, we're moving on further to a further even closer relationship of an organizational partnership. The first one is program partnership, second is a public proclamation partnership, and the third one is an organizational partnership of joint seminars, youth camps, joint Sabbath and Holy Day services, exchanges of ministers speaking to those congregations, exchange of training programs. We're holding a training session for ministers in the Philippines this December, and we're bringing in other ministers to be part of that program from Asia as well, at least one to come to that, who is not part of our credentialed ministry, but we're bringing him in to train him to help him in the training process.

So that's what we have in this. Now, my wife and I just returned, as I said here, from Angola into a most interesting visit.

There are 5,000 people scattered throughout all of Angola, people who have been formed as a church during a very, very nasty civil war that killed 500,000 people. In the midst of this, between two cities of Hwambo, which is 2.5 million now, and Luanda, which is a city of 5 million people, in that civil war, 500,000 people died. In the midst of that, a church was formed. Can you believe that? These are people who have endured war, poverty, betrayal, and now persecution, as I will explain. These people have felt very much alone. And even though there's 5,000 of them, they said, are we the only ones? They have cried out to God in saying, are we alone? Yet they have remained faithful from 1983 to currently in working with us. We were there for four days. My wife and I, although George DeCampos has traveled there a number of times, we conducted Sabbath services, Bible studies, meetings with their leadership, with their National Council. My wife and Kathy DeCampos conducted a women's seminar. We had a leadership program for half a day. And we also met with their school leaders. They have also established primary schools for 1,000 children in the city of Luanda. They also have a local radio program once a week. We were really amazed as to all that they have been able to put together with no coaching, financing, advice from us, and yet they believe the same things that we do.

On the Sabbath, when we were there, 1,873 people came to services.

It's the biggest crowd that I have spoken to in the United Church of God. Almost 2,000 people, pushing 2,000 people, came. There are 15 congregations in the city of Luanda itself, and each one has a church building. These are things that they have done for themselves. Now, how do these people come to where they're at? I'd like to give you a few factors here about the work in Angola, just a little bit of a background, because I'll be showing slides. I wanted to give this background first before I more than quickly go through the slides, because I really want you to understand first the background. Angola is a country twice the size of Texas, on the western side of southern Africa. Those of you who have been around for 30-40 years might remember the Angolan War. It was in the news all the time. The Cubans, the Russians, the South Africans, the Americans, they're fighting a war there. It was a war that the South Africans called the Vietnam of South Africa. Many, many of their young men died. What was interesting, too, that back at that time, there were young men who became part of this church in Angola who were fighting on the communist side, and we had South African brethren who had their sons fighting on the South African side, and they were fighting each other. I mean, at that time, not knowing. This was very, very interesting.

In 1950, Angola was a colony of the Portuguese, the country that was very, very prosperous in minerals that only the rich gained from, but the people there are very poor. It's a country that's rich in oil in the North and diamonds in the South. In 1950, they started a war of independence from Portugal that lasted 25 years. But finally, in 1975, they gained their independence. But they went from the frying pan into the fire, in that, in the victory, two factions were vying as to who would control the country, and the worst war ensued that lasted 27 years until 2002. And in that war, it was a proxy between the Russians and Cubans on one side supporting the communist Luanda government, which is still in power to this very day, and the others, which were supported by South Africans and Americans. And this proxy war was fought for 27 years. 500,000 people died. 77,000 people became amputees as a result of stepping on landmines. It's a landmine capital, so to speak, of the world.

The church in Angola was formed in 1983 as a Sabbath-keeping church by two individuals. You'll see pictures of one of them who is still the leader, Paulino Fio. In 1995, they became affiliated with the World Wide Church of God. I was still working at the World Wide Church of God in church administration at that time, and I remember just a few months before I had to resign because of the things that put all of us here.

The subject and the story of Angola broke, and we were all very, very happy. Here are people who are keeping the same things we are. We didn't think that what would happen with the World Wide Church of God would happen as quickly as it did. But in 1995, they were able to adopt the name World Wide Church of God. The way that happened was they saw that we had literature in the Portuguese language, and they saw that we had an office in South Africa.

That time, information moved very slowly. There was no internet. There was very little contact that way. I still remember when TELX came in and thought, oh, this is ultimate in communication. And so, in 1993, they sent a delegation of ministers from Angola to South Africa to meet with our people because they saw what we observed. They already were keeping the Sabbath. They were already keeping many of the practices that we do, and they went down to Namibia, got as far south as Namibia, ran out of money, and couldn't continue further.

But then, in 1995, they did make contact with George de Campos, who at that time was a deacon, and he was one who spoke Portuguese. Well, nothing much happened for about a year or so until, from Pasadena, a couple of people were sent over to Angola, and that's when, in 1995, they said, we want to become part of the World Wide Church of God. The World Wide Church of God says, okay, and so the name was changed to World Wide Church of God. Then, in 1997, just two years later, the World Wide Church of God wrote them a memo saying, by the way, we no longer keep the Sabbath.

People said, what? We've been keeping it since 1983. We joined up with you because of your keeping the Sabbath. They could not believe this. We don't accept this at all. And so things just kind of went nowhere for a number of years, until in 2002, from Pasadena, two officials were sent, not going to name them to protect them, to protect the guilty.

And they told them that they must shut down, that some of the buildings that were owned evidently by the World Wide Church of God would be shut down and locked if they didn't accept Sunday keeping and drop the Sabbath. What these people said, guess what? They quoted Revelation 3 to them. Christ has the keys to our buildings, that the doors that we walk through, no man can shut. And basically, they continued on and proceeded from the year 2003, having lost their confidence in the World Wide Church of God.

However, they still called themselves World Wide Church of God. A few more years passed by and Pasadena sent, no, another individual came to pasture them from Pasadena on his own.

And he registered an NGO, a non-governed organization, at that time in 2005, that the people really didn't work with too well. He was Portuguese speaking, but nothing much really happened with that. And so they kind of discarded him after a number of years. But here, all the things that are happening, a war is going on, what they're trying to ally with, they want is truth, and they have all this chaos and discouragement. This is very discouraging. We've gone through discouragement, but some people have gone through equal discouragement.

Then, they also tried to tie in with some groups from Brazil that were Portuguese speaking, but nothing really worked. Nothing really seemed to fit. Until 2013, they came across on the Internet, one of the young people found the United Church of God, and saw the vast wealth of material that we had online. And they said, look, I can't believe this. And there's George de Campos again, right in the middle of it all. And George de Campos traveled there a number of times, and really a very, very bonding experience has taken place since that time, since 2013.

In 2017, a number of their ministers were able to come to a ministerial training program in South Africa that we held for a week, with Daris McNeely and Steve Myers going down there to train ministers from South Africa. But also, we included a number of their pastors from Angola. George went down there and did translation for them. So we have had a very warm relationship, and I want to read part of a letter, I want to read part of a letter that was sent by our Council of Elders in shoring up this relationship of partnership with them.

It was written by Robin Weber, who at that time was chairman of the Council of Elders, and I want to read it to you. Your unique story and spiritual journey commencing in 1983 to follow God's word in faithful obedience is truly inspiring and reminds us that our Heavenly Father calls those whom He will call, where He will call them and when He will call them, John 1644, to follow Jesus Christ. It gives cause to rejoice when we consider how great and loving our God truly is. It is one thing to take a stand, but it is clearly inspiring to see people remain standing in God's ageless truths, no matter what, as you have done.

You have shared your collective story as a people, and we have been pleased to share with you the Internet information and literature that we have to explain the gospel of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God. Wherever God's Spirit directs any future communication or relationship among our two organizations, please know that we approach the membership of the World Wide Church of God, which we call them, in Angola with deep respect and mutual esteem towards our Heavenly Father for what He has brought forth in all of our lives.

It is by His grace, mercy, and divine revelation alone that we are able to serve Him. When they got this letter, these people were overjoyed at the relationship that we have commenced in more of an official way in March 2016. One of the difficulties that has occurred here at a recent time is that the New Government, which is the Communist... They have multiple parties, but it seems the Communists always win the elections in Luanda.

The New Government has taken a tough stand against religion, and they said that any group that is less than 100,000 needs to disband. Only churches that have 100,000 or more can exist. Of course, while they have 5-6,000 people, they're still way below the threshold.

They have frozen bank accounts of churches that are less than 100,000, including our church. We had sent some money over there to do some building and construction and so forth to help with their needs. They dropped the bar down to 60,000, but that's still far more. Churches in Angola have combined with each other different churches say, Hey, you join with us. We'll be one organization so that we can break this 60,000 barrier. Who are we going to join with? Are we going to join with the Methodists or any other church like that? They wanted to get away from health and wealth gospels that were coming in. They wanted to get out of any people who were faith healers and anything from the West who were coming in as small organizations. They wanted to get rid of those and basically stay with the major denominations. So that's still up in the air. And our churches actually have been shut down for a small period of time. The government came in and basically locked them up. So you can't function anymore. The government came in here and just locked this hall up or locked other places up and said, you cannot function, you cannot meet, you're not registered, you don't have a right to have meetings. That's what they told the people that we work with there.

Now, just a couple weeks ago, maybe three or four weeks ago, the government unfroze the bank accounts. But just for a short time, they said you can make one withdrawal. Well, guess how much they withdrew? They took the whole amount out and now are able and transferred it into local accounts. So with that as a backdrop, I wanted to now show some photos of what we had seen because now you can see what the people look like and even hear some of their music. So if we could kind of move this podium over so that we can shine this on the screen.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It was a very short journey, but we sure did a lot. We spent four solid days with the people.

Here's our route. We traveled from the U.S. to Germany and then down to Angola. Here's where Angola is, right next to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, right next to Zambia where we work, and just north of Namibia. We traveled. We left on a Wednesday morning and didn't arrive in Angola until Wednesday, until Friday morning, two nights on planes and in airports. And they told us that when we arrived on Friday morning to please dress up because they wanted to have the whole church meet us and get a group picture. So as we went through customs, it was difficult to get to Angola. It's not a country that says, hey, you all come, come be tourists, whatever. You had to buy your plane tickets first and then apply for a visa. Then you had to send in proof that you have a job, that you work, that you have a place of residence, that you're going to come back to the U.S. It almost sounded like immigration to the U.S. going to a poor country like Angola. And they gave us, finally, we got our visas, but it was difficult. Almost two weeks before the trip, I said to George, George, are you sure we want to go? Are you sure you want to take us? This is so difficult in getting this. No, he says we've got to go there. So here's Kathy and Bev. This is after being up for two solid nights, and little girls welcomed them with flowers in a very, very receptive way. The women's choir sang. It was a very, very lively moment. Here's Paulino Fio. He's the one who formed the First Church. You might say he's the Herbert Armstrong of that period, if I can just maybe use that kind of analogy. He and another partner had done that. His other partner had left, but Paulino and his wife Sophia, a man of great integrity, and we really appreciated the time that we spent with him. We spent a lot of time. I couldn't understand a word of Portuguese, but it had to be all done through George. Girls Choir greeted us. We went to the church hall. They had about 100, 150, 150 people that greeted us when we arrived on Friday morning. It was a program. One of the people there is Philberto Casoma. He had lost his leg in the Civil War. He was fighting on the communist side. He was ambushed. He stepped on a landmine ambushed by the South African-American forces and lost his leg. One thing he asked us was, can you get me some new crutches? So we got him some new crutches. He sent the picture that you see on the right-hand side. There's us in the reception area the first day that we arrived, George, Kathy, and Bev. Then they wanted this picture of all of us there on the day that we arrived. Looked pretty bleary-eyed, but we were so excited about this. Here's another pastor from Huame, which is the other big city in Angola, which was the opposite of Luanda, where the Civil War was fought. His name is Augusto and one of the pastors. They have about 40 pastors in the church there throughout the country. Many of them came to the visit that we had because we had a ministerial training session with them. They wanted certain subjects covered about ethics, which we did. There were quite a few ministers who had a lot of questions.

I got that other slide of the sequence, but this is Philberto Casoma, the one who was the MPT. He's the business manager for the church there. Some of these people, about five or six of them, I've become Facebook friends with, and we use Facebook translator to communicate.

I'm surprised as to how many things we can get across, but at least we have some kind words that we can share with them. In fact, they know I'm talking about Angola this weekend, and they already commented back and put likes on my Facebook page. They operate schools, primary schools, and this particular one is just across the courtyard from where the church building is.

This is called Living Waters School. They have three schools they operate, Living Waters and New Hope. They provide a service of providing school for 1,000 children. A hundred of them are their own Church of God children and 900 for the community. The government is way overstretched as far as providing schools where children have to apply to attend government schools.

The government is more than happy to have anybody else who can do education. One thing we found in touring the school is that the church calendar or the school calendar has a piece of tabernacles off for everybody. It has all the Holy Days and so forth. They are in control, and they really do respect the work that we have done.

The little girls all compete with one another for hairdos. It's one thing that is the hairdo capital of the world for little children. Here are some of those. Can we focus that a little better or is that too hard to do? Huh? Forget it. Then, on Friday afternoon, the day is not over with. The day, remember, began Wednesday morning when we left Cincinnati. This is Friday afternoon. We had a board meeting with their national board. We got acquainted with them. Here's a group picture. This person here is in charge of their ministry. This is the local pastor, Abilino Bumba. He has serious diabetes. This is Agusto from Huambe.

This person was a very interesting person. Like I told you, he was among the first who started the delegation from Angola to South Africa in 1993, who ran out of money in Namibia. He was there. He gave us a history. There's Paolo Lino himself and Philberto, and of course, George and me. This was a Sabbath like no other that I've experienced.

Here's George and Kathy. The ground was milling with hundreds of people. Children are beautiful. They're so innocent and beautiful and lovely. Their nature is so well behaved. And their hairdos. People came an hour before church as they were assembling, and they sang songs.

They sang songs for a whole hour. When services began, here we are to the right of the podium. The podium is right about here. We sat to the right, and George, we were always handcuffed to him and wanted to learn anything that was going on. Here we are. There's a gallery here for pastors and deacons, I guess. I'm not sure what it was, but it was sort of the notable people.

And then the people were here. Then there was a whole area here that I couldn't photograph this shot. George here is translating. Translation, translation. I've done Russian translation. I do it for like two hours, and my mind is shot. Here George is going all day long. He's conducting business. He's translating in real time. He's taking in what people say in one language and saying it out at the same time, virtually, as he's hearing it, and then goes back the other way, just truly an amazing person.

They had many choirs that sang. They had combined service. Like I said, there are 15 congregations in Luanda itself, and they had several choirs that sang. Here, as you see here, they all had their own...the ones who had the uniforms were more the choirs. And this is a panoramic shot of part of the group here. And of course there's another section right about here that is not in the picture.

Okay, now, this next picture, hopefully the sound will work. Let me explain when we get the sound. The first is them singing songs which are United Church of God songs. You'll recognize them very much. They sang songs...they sang Dwight Armstrong songs better than we do. And they sang Mark Graham songs. They wanted so much to be like us. Then the next song, just a little snippets of it, is a song that they composed.

It's called Elijah in the 7000. And that was written for the benefit of us. And the song is about how we thought we were the only ones. We were looking for Elijah's 7000 and now we have found them. And they sang that to us. And the third song is special music that my wife and Kathy were involved in. Although they don't have the African moves like the others do. But I think you'll still find it very interesting. Okay, let's see how this moves.

This is before services.

This is before services.

This is before services.

This is before services.

We'll be moving fast.

Let's go! Let's go! Let's go! You're a genius! Let's go! Let's go! Come on! You're a genius! Let's go! Let's go! Come on! Let's go! Okay. Maybe the choir here could adopt some of those moves. They'd make a livelier service. Okay. So now we move ahead. After the service, all the new people were brought up to the front and were recognized to the entire congregation and were given copies of our literature and Beyond Today magazine. And there seemed like three families or three or four families that had come up. Then we were interviewed by the press, by radio and television, and they came there for the morning service.

Here's a country that's shutting us down, and they have the press come in, and they're asking me questions. Do you have a message for the Angolan people? I said, yes, repent, believe the Gospel. The Kingdom of God is at hand. Anyway, here's George answering questions for the press. They also came on Sunday.

A Christian radio station came and interviewed us on Sunday. So here's all the people milling around. 1800-plus people milling around on the Sabbath. The weather was very nice. It's actually this time of the year is wintertime, and the temperatures were in the 70s, so it was quite comfortable. They were so afraid that it would rain or that they'd be so hot, they were ready to put even tarp over us, you know, over the whole area, but there seemed to be no need for it.

This is Makai, Pastor Makai, in the South, who is the pastor of the province where there's famine right now. I think I've mentioned this. I'm not sure which congregation has mentioned this, but there's a band of drought, and they've had two years of drought, and now the brethren have lost their crops this third year. There's 200 people down there in those churches in the South, and when people have no income, 60% unemployment, 60-70% unemployment was no disposable income, and the only way they survive is through subsistence farming, and when that's gone, when their food is gone, they die.

I mean, that's when you hear about African famines. That's what happens. Just all their resources are gone, and so we have provided some money for them to buy maize and to buy other food. But he's the pastor from the South, and he came up way from the South a day and a half bus ride to meet with us. Children always just love to be in photos, not hard to get pictures of kids.

You just point at one, and they all kind of come into the picture. But they just are so, so wonderful, so innocent, so friendly. And of course, their hairdos are just amazing. I was really impressed very much by their young people who are taking action on their own from the churches in Luanda to care for their brethren way in the South.

Here, people already are poor, and they're collecting money for food and for maize and for other products to ship down to the South. And they created these t-shirts or these outfits. This is called Project Solidario for the Kunene Province in the South. And during the feast, they're going to collect money to help those people. But also Life Nits is helping them as well. Here's some of them. There's a lot of young people. The demographics are children and a lot of young people in the church.

Here's a selfie. Sorry about that. With a couple of the Angolans. And this is the leader's family. His son was very active. His name is Esau. And there's George Cathy. Esau's wife. Sophie, his wife. And there's Bev Cathy and Sophia, who is the wife of Paolino, the leader.

That's in front of our hotel. Our hotel was about a mile, mile and a half from where all activity was. And so in these four days, we traveled very little. From the hotel to the churchyard where all the services were held back and forth. So we wasted very, very little time in transportation. Sunday. The day began with a Q&A session. 200 people came into the church hall. And many questions were asked. I went to the history of the church and are working together. And one man came to the front with a question. He said, pointed at me, how do we know you're not going to change doctrine on us?

He was very, very passionate. He said, how do we know now that you're not going to do the same to us as others have done? And I try to assure him that we have established 20 fundamentals of belief that cannot be changed. We have a process in place to safeguard the abuse of leadership and making sure that nothing is done by one person as had been done before. We're just basically through one person or through oligarchy, major changes were made overnight without any input really from the brethren. He had a lot of other questions about how our church is organized.

They were very, very curious about what the United Church was about. Then, the women's seminar, Bev and Kathy conducted it for two and a half hours. Of course, George had to do all the translation. And there were 200 women for that. That was about the capacity of the church hall. And it was filled up with the ladies. Here they are speaking. And women came up with questions up to the front.

And they had a lot of questions about children, about home economics, about working in their families. Just a lot of... What I found was there are many similar questions about life and family that are similar with them as with us. Then the women set a big send-off to us as they left.

They traveled from... some of them from quite some distances for this women's seminar. They were so excited to be there. Saying goodbye to us. Here's Paulino and Philberto, the leader on the left and the one who is the amputee, the business manager. We really got close with them.

And I just wish, like, everything that I could speak and communicate in this common language. And here's, again, that person who was among the very, very first in 1993 to travel to South Africa. Never got there. But he was there as pastor of one of the congregations. Monday, this is our last day, we went to...

We said, we want to take you to an outlying church. We traveled 15 minutes to the next church over. And they operate the Living Waters Church. No, the Hope... Something to do with Hope... A church. And Hope School. And that was a bigger school.

And here's the director of the school on the right, Carlos, with his name. And that's one of the schoolteachers on the left. They're both members of the church. And again, the school operates under our church calendar. And they have total say as to how the days are to be... what days are to be taken off. Here are the rooms, the school rooms. I believe they had seven classrooms. And some of the classrooms were as many as 70 children. They were trying to bring them down to about 50, but they were... A lot of children. A lot of children. But they were so well behaved. We walked into those rooms, and the children would sit there and just very quietly, respectfully greet us. In some cases, the teachers would say, please all stand up, and they would stand up and greet us. Now you have permission to sit down. They all sit down just very, very obediently. It was just wonderful to see these children.

Again, it has never had enough of hairdos. Then they showed us the classes that they taught.

And this is their church building. This is at that Hope School. And this was the church building connected with it. There's George and Carlos. And another one of the school administrators in the far... in the corner there. I asked them if they had any computers. They had one laptop that was used to keep track of records for the entire school. One laptop. Then finally, before we left, we had a final lunch there with the church leaders right next to the church hall. The room isn't finished because the money was frozen. But now the money has been unfrozen, they're going to finish this new administration building for the church.

And we had a meeting with their national council again. We talked about their needs, things that they needed, and things that we could help them with in preaching the gospel, some of the needs of the brethren, so forth. They have, again, 5,000 people in their church. But they are so wanting to be a part of us. And they are so devoted, and there's just a real special spirit of bonding that we really sensed, these people. This is the pastor of a local church there, Avelino Bumba. He has a 15-minute weekly radio program. There's of course Paul Leno, that's Philberto, and George, who took a lot of notes.

And here's Bev giving some money to Pastor Mackay in the South for food. And finally, we leave the church grounds, and people are saying goodbye to us on Monday afternoon. Then, before, on our way to the airport, they wanted to take us to another building that they're constructing. It's interesting, the government is giving them land to build churches, and also the government is telling them that they're going to shut them down. None of it makes any sense at all. But it was another administration, two years ago, that had given them this property. It's like homesteading. And they say, you need to build a building, a wall, the building has to be of concrete, masonry, and so forth, a substantial building. And if you can build it within four years, it's yours. If you don't do it in four years, we take it back from you. So they had this done in two years, where they surrounded this whole one-acre plot with concrete blocks. And in Africa, you have to put walls up. Bev and I have learned that with everything that we have done in Malawi and Zab. If you don't put walls up, it'll be broken into and stolen and destroyed. That's just the way it is. And half the cost of construction, of everything that we do, is security. Walls and security. And then if you want electricity, you have to get a generator, or you have to do solar. And we're going much more into solar power, because in Zambia right now, people are without power half the day. They have 10-hour rolling blackouts, and you're without power. Our church is there. And so we're saying goodbye to all the people there. We're literally just on our way to the airport. And George and I, here we are in Frankfurt. We're bonding with one another, as you see here. And taking our last leg of our flight to the United States. And here's Bev and Kathy, who have become very, very good friends on this trip. So anyway, I wanted to show you, give you, that's it for the slides, the story of working with the Angolans.