Multiple Publishing Houses Worldwide, Part 3: The Work Expands

Zimbabwe/South Africa

In this post we continue our most favorable report on how the Lord has recently opened the door for the establishment of original SRod publishing houses in the African countries of Zimbabwe and South Africa according to the inspired counsel found in Testimonies Vol. 7, pp. 138-50.

Over the years upa7.org had received over 100 requests from countries in Africa for any number of things. Probably the most requested items were the Shepherd’s Rod books, Vols. 1 and 2, the SRod study charts, and the SRod tract literature. This is a very difficult need to address since the cost of shipping any quantities of said items from the U.S. to countries in Africa is quite prohibitive. We did some estimates and the shipping costs usually exceeded the actual printing costs of tracts by 3-5 orders of magnitude. Even the least expensive M-bag option which is limited to 70 lbs. costs on the order of $300+ to ship and can take up to six months to arrive! It seems obvious that the best way to get around this severe obstacle would be to print the literature locally. So why is it that none of the established GADSDA’s in the U.S. have been able to figure out how to solve this problem and the flock remained starved for meat in due season for so many years? Why do we say starved as we have been literally told from the mouths of many brethren in Zimbabwe and South Africa, “we give them our tithes and all they give us are stones”? Well over the years groups in various locations received at best a few hundred copies of the SRod tracts, perhaps 10-15 different ones. Bear in mind that there are 75 individual tracts in the SRod series and from our personal observation almost no one had a complete set of printed tracts for their own study, even after having been in the message for over a decade. In addition, to meet the needs of sharing literature with the church there was an acute need to produce not hundreds, not thousands, but millions of tracts to reach the millions of SDA’s on the great continent of Africa.

So how were these brethren studying the Rod message? Largely by reading it on their cell phones! Prior to the advent of this technology in the past few years brethren were left with only a few fragments to read for themselves. Can you imagine having to read the entire SRod on a small cell phone screen? As it turns out we discovered that most brethren have not read the entire SRod message nor any quantity of the SOP books. Most were familiar with key statements and references stored on their cell phone apps, but almost none had hard copies of the books and tracts to read from cover to cover, not letting a line, or even a word escape their attention (Tract 4, p. 7).

Upon arriving to South Africa in the spring of 2019 I was appraised of the current situation on the ground. Over the past several years ministers and bible workers from the various Associations in the U.S. had been focusing time and resources to recruiting and proselytizing Davidians from competing groups to join their group. The 2019 annual report coming out of the Bashan group revealed that considerable efforts were committed to their campaign to unite all Davidians under Bashan so that there can be a more effective outreach to the church. A summary report of this activity is provided here and a prior post on this website exposing the utter impossibility of the current Bashan program under the direction of their leader and porter/president Trevor Bingham. Even as I was preparing to return to the States it was reported that Mt. Dale was sending two ministers to travel around the country to attempt to keep members from leaving their group. As I was told, there were South African members who submitted large sums of tithe monies and this seemed to be a large motivation for the sudden uptick in interest in South Africa. In contrast, although there was a lot of commotion on a  Facebook discussion group over the separation of the Mt. Dale group in Zimbabwe, no ministers were send there to try to win back members because the amount of tithe revenue from the poor country was negligible compared to more wealthy countries such as South Africa, Kenya, and Zambia. I was told that in the past Mt. Dale sent a minister to Zimbabwe to entertain a few studies and then collect their tithe monies and bring them back the U.S. No effort was ever extended to teach these brethren how to organize amongst themselves and publish their own literature rather than to rely on the meager and wholly inadequate literature coming from the states. As one brother put it succinctly, “we gave them (Mt. Dale) all of our money and they gave us in return nothing but a stone.”

Upon arriving to Zimbabwe I meet a group of over 30 Davidians who he meet with each evening to share the history of the storehouse from Genesis to Revelation along with several presentations documenting the alterations in the original SRod message that had taken place since 1955. Also, studies were given focusing on the corrupted New Codes and the unauthorized leadership structures that had arisen in the states and why there was so much confusion over doctrines and which group, if any, was following the original SRod message. There was considerable discussion along these lines as some members were still being influenced by Mt. Dale apologists with their nonsense arguments why DSDA’s today need a headquarters/camp in the United States. The key that broke the gridlock on this situation was the reality that we were able to establish the printing of the original SRod tracts right there in Bulawayo in  a private home and produce dozens upon dozens of tracts each day and bring them to the meetings each evening for distribution to the eager brethren who had long been thirsting and hungering for their own copies of the Rod tracts.

As it turns out these brethren had been trying for some time to print the tracts and had even gone so far as to save up their limited resources and buy a used copy machine to need their needs. Although they were able to produce a few tracts they were of poor quality and the wrong size since they were using print files based on U.S. legal sized paper which were not compatible with the metric A4 paper available in Africa. Upon inspecting the situation, I soon discovered that the copier they had purchased was not capable of doing the critical duplex or double-sided printing. This created a minor crisis as the economic situation in Zimbabwe was of such uncertainty that is was impossible to simply go to town and buy a new laser printer, there weren’t any available!. It seemed as if the printing would not be able to go forward, so the leaders got together and prayed for God’s intervention. And indeed, a miracle was accomplished in answer to their earnest prayers.

The technician for the business that sold the brethren the existing copy machine came out and I explained to him what was needed to accomplish the task. Fortunately the technician was quite knowledgeable the on the technical details and after communicating with the owner of the company was able to negotiate a deal where the Zimbabwe brethren could exchange their existing copy machine for an upgraded model that would do the necessary duplex printing. The only issue was the new used machine would require extra money far more than they had on hand or would be able to acquire. The owner of the business after discovering that there was an American present who was helping this group set up a printing house quickly came up with an unprecedented proposal. If we would promise to arrange for the transfer of exactly $1000 USD, he would allow the exchange and that we could secure possession of the new machine that day since they had the needed model on the floor of their business. I did not have these funds in my possession but promised that I would wire them as soon as I returned to the states. Amazingly the owner agreed, and the door was opened to get the proper printer setup. Fortunately, the technician had the necessary knowledge to work through the various coding protocols that was beyond my expertise to get the system connected to a laptop and able to print from PDF files. Fortunately, I had previously converted many print files from US legal to A4 sized paper, so everything was set to move forward. The next day we were all praising God as I was able to quickly train three brethren how to print, fold, staple, and cut the tracts to proper size. That very day almost a 100 tracts were produced and distributed to the brethren that evening who were amazed at such a rapid development thanking God for His abundant showers of blessings for providing the long desired meat in due season as the leaves of autumn for their own studies and soon for sharing with their brethren throughout the local SDA churches.

Two of the brethren who had been involved in the establishment of the printing house In Zimbabwe were trained how to print because they were returning to South Africa in hopes of establishing the printing work there. Although the economic situation is better in South Africa the small group there was comprised almost entirely of immigrants from neighboring countries who were limited financially so the efforts took some more time to get things in proper order so that God could open the doors. Nonetheless after a delay of a few months a suitable facility was located to house the printing equipment. The local brethren were able to gather sufficient funds to purchase the laptop computer and cutting tools but lacked funds to secure an appropriate laser printer that would handle the capacity of 50 ppm and have a sufficient duty cycle to print over 10,000 tracts. Once all the requirements for setting up a print room were meet upa7.org stepped in and sent the needed funds to secure the printer, extra toner, and a supply of paper to get the process going. Within short order the local organizer was able to print tracts and begin distribution to the needy brethren in this group, though small and unnoticed by the world but not forgotten by the most high God in heaven who answered their long and earnest prayers for a supply of meat in due season to supply their own needs and to share with their beloved brethren in the local SDA churches.