Multiple Publishing Houses Worldwide, Part 1: Some History and Background

We at upa7.org are praising God and giving thanks to the great things He has done to help starving brethren in locations around the world establish publishing houses so that they can print their own original SRod tract literature to feed their long thirsting souls and spread like the leaves of autumn to the lost sheep in the house of Israel. Our long hoped for dream for over a decade has become a reality within the past 18 months in three far reaching locations around the world as will be reported in the next three posts, this is Part 1. We continue to pray and labor that this dramatic development in the advance of the SRod message will snowball into an avalanche of publishing houses worldwide to reach more than 20 million Seventh-day Adventists, most of whom reside outside of United States. In this report we would like to begin with some history and background as to how all of this came about the providential leading of the Lord and laying claim to His steadfast promises despite some dire circumstances and robust opposition from professed friends of the faith.

Philippines 2003-2006

In 2003 my wife and I as members of the Mt. Dale General Association of Davidian Seventh-day Adventists (GADSDA) traveled to the central Philippines to introduce the Rod message to an island that had not been reached in many years. Initially considerable interest in the message was generated and upwards of 50 brethren were attending studies and investigating the message. Early on one of the serious deficiencies that was noted was that most all of these brethren were not familiar or even heard of the books of the Spirit of Prophecy (SOP) that we shared statements from, most especially the nine volume Testimonies, TM, EW, GW, etc. Only a very few of the brethren with regular paying jobs had copies of Ellen White books for their own study and these where the more common titles such as SC, DA, and maybe GC. This situation highlighted the severe lack of spiritual food in this part of the world, after much travel and searching it was discovered that most of the more important SOP books were only available in Manila or the nearby Adventist University of the Philippines (AUP) in Silang Cavite but the cost was full retail in US dollars (about $16 per book at the time) which would amount to a full 2-3 months wages for a poor farmer or laborer just to acquire one book! Imagine if you had to pay $2000 or more for a set of 9 volume Testimonies. To say that the situation was dire with the poor people were being starved for spiritual food is an understatement.

In an attempt to meet this dire need I put together a compilation entitled “Meat in Due Season” of over 400 pages which provided a collection of most all of the SOP statements used to give SRod charts studies and related topics along with study outlines and other useful reference material. Many Davidians in the US have acquired copies of this volume over the years and have found it to be a very useful tool for Bible Workers to bring in their travels without have to carry a heavy brief of books with them. This volume became one of the major ways that brethren had to supplement their studies of the Rod message since the necessary SOP books where in short supply. Over the next three years efforts were made to gather up SOP books from the US and bring them back to the Philippines.

Upon return in a follow up mission trip a small group of believers consisting of three families were organized into a group for the purpose to establishing members in the message and reaching out to share the message in nearby churches. One dire need was Rod tract literature to share with the brethren. At the time we were totally dependent on the limited amount of literature that we were able to bring with us that was published in Mt. Dale, USA. This literature was quickly exhausted and the need for more was acute. It became obvious that the most expedient manner to meet this need was to publish the Rod tracts locally and thereby save much time and expenses having rely upon literature to be shipped from the U.S. Myself and another brother began to explore how this might be accomplished but were hindered by lack of technical knowledge, equipment, and quality artwork to accomplish the task. At one point the leadership at Mt. Dale was approached with this great need and the reply back was a terse, “the Executive Council says no”. On top of this egregious indifference to the needs of these Filipino brethren the Mt. Dale leadership even so far as to suggest that they assign one of their paid Bible Workers, a Filipina native who did not even speak the local dialect, to come take over administration of the group!

About this time (2005) the situation at the Mt. Dale headquarters in the U.S. had reached a boiling point and a split between two competing factions took place. After this debacle the following year (2006) after returning to the States I attempted to contact the Mt. Dale leadership that remained to talk about the dire situation of the much needed SRod literature in the Philippines. Despite many attempts, even taking two days from work to travel to Mt. Dale during their annual session to speak with the newly voted leader (vice president) about the situation was meet with sore disappointment. Upon arrival on a Thursday morning at 8 am I was greeted with a brief hi, hello, and then goodbye as all the brethren jumped into their vehicles and departed for a day trip of sightseeing at the Bronx Zoo. Perplexed I stood looking at heaven wondering what to do. The Lord soon gave me a clear impression, “they have all left for the zoo and have no interest in the work abroad, so leave them alone. Go from here, I have an important work for you to do.” So, I left the grounds of Mt. Dale not knowing where the Lord would lead next to solve this great problem of no sufficient supplies of SRod literature in the Philippines, and as it would come to be discovered later, a problem that turns out to be worldwide.

upa7.org arises out of necessity

Later that year (2006) my wife returned from the Philippines and admonished me that we had to start publishing the Rod literature for ourselves to meet the needs in the Philippines. Despite initial unbelief and struggles I finally heeded my wife’s counsel and got down on his knees and asked the Lord to show me the way despite not having any money, experience, or knowledge to go about this great task. And then the divine hand of providence began to open doors and miracles happened one after another. Starting with a simple laptop computer, some layout software a brother in South Carolina had convinced me to buy years before, and a cheap laser printer within one day a crude prototype of Tract No. 2 was produced and the concept was established as viable. Over the next year and a half I traveled far and wide across the United States to search out and locate copies of original SRod tract literature to digitally scan initially, the artwork, and then later the entire tracts, so that content could be incorporated into the production of original SRod tracts from the most simple means without having to resort to conventional offset duplication and the expensive equipment needed. With nothing more than a laptop computer, a laser printer, and some basic cutting tools a fully original facsimile copy of the original SRod tract literature could now be produced anywhere, even from a bedroom or a closet.

Multiple publishing houses worldwide

“And in a large degree through our publishing houses is to be accomplished the work of that other angel who comes down from heaven with great power and who lightens the earth with his glory.” — Testimonies Vol. 7, p. 140.3

This unprecedented development in printing the original SRod literature opened the door for publication in multiple locations around the world according to the divine mandate specified in Testimonies Vol. 7, p. 140. Such grand news was too good to keep to ourselves, so we were impressed to go all out and launch a website and make this amazing discovery available to starving Davidians worldwide. After quitting my day job and committing full time to this work I sought out schooling in website development and graphic design so that this project advance to the next level. God opened the door for miracle money on the tune of over $250,000 to be provided to support this endeavor. On August 17, 2008 the website upa7.org was launched and the Davidian world was notified by email. This created an immense tidal wave of inquiry and the phones rang off the hooks for two straight days as folks from all over called wanting to know who we were and how did this amazing project come about. Despite the initial interest in this new development it resulted in a lot of trouble and controversy over the next several years as professed Davidian brethren from other groups and associations proceeded to steal the content from the upa7.org websites without permission and claim them as their own without giving credit to who credit is due. Unfortunately, this vile trend continues to this day.

Despite these setbacks and struggles we continued to receive requests from brethren in foreign fields, especially Africa who seemed desperate for the printed literature of the SRod message and routinely sought out copies of the original SRod study charts and the books SRod Vols. 1 and 2. To each request we send a DVD which contained the print files for the SRod tracts, printing instructions, scans of the original tracts, study outlines, and a number of important historical documents related to the history of the Rod message.* We encouraged these brethren to get a simple printer and start printing their own literature so that they did not have to depend upon the unreliable and sporadic sources of literature coming from the U.S. However, we never were able to confirm if any of this content was being used to print tracts. Turns out, unknown to us until later after we made trips to these countries, that several brethren had attempted to print the tracts but were unable to succeed in producing large quantities due to the different sizes of paper, proper equipment, and other technical issues.

*(Anyone can still request one of these free DVD’s today by emailing your request to: upa5453@gmail.com)

Meanwhile, upa7.org continued to produce blog content and videos documenting the history of the movement of God’s storehouse over the ages up to the present day along with the detailed analysis of why the situation today amongst professed Davidians is such a complicated mess with so many groups, factions, and confusion at every corner with every one seeming to compete as to who has the truth and why everyone else was wrong, etc. Into the cacophony of voices upa7.org began a series of video presentations that laid down a criterion for how to identify God’s storehouse on earth today and how to understand why so many completing voices vying for the same title could not all be correct. A You Tube Channel named “Universal Publishing Association” was established where now over 30 presentations are hosted which cover most of the current day controversies amongst Davidians such as, where is God’s storehouse today?, are the alleged Davidian Associations today actually following the SRod message?, where do we return our tithes?, what should Davidians being doing today?, etc. These presentations began to create shockwaves throughout the field as we soon began to get inquiries and requests for help from brethren in foreign fields who had long been neglected by the major GADSDA’s headquartered in the United States. And this is where the story gets interesting, stay tuned for Part 2.