December 18, 1953. Co-Worker Letter. HWA Asks for $500-$5000 Loans.

When we were born with no possession.
The love received was our concession.
No worries, no fears, no troubles, no fuss.
In mother’s arms we put our trust.

But as we grew, we looked and craved,
and all too soon became enslaved.
The more we saw, the more we wanted.
Our quest for more became undaunted.

Our thirst for more could not be quenched.
The more we grasped, the tighter we clenched.
We scampered and gathered and gathered to hoard.
Possessions became our master and lord.

And when we’re old with our treasures all heaped,
a sad example of what greed has reaped.
Our fists still clenched in a grasping motion,
till at our death, when our hands are opened.
-Greed by Irwin Mercer

Dec. 18, 1953

Dear Co-Workers in Christ:

I must now report to you the most important situation you and I have ever faced together. I must RUSH this emergency letter to you—there is not time for many words.

You and I have been called together, by God, to the most important mission of our time on earth—a most SPECIAL mission, actually foretold in Bible prophecy—the very WORK OF GOD for this time or world-crisis.

And this most important work on earth now is in the very midst of the most severe trial and test we have ever faced—the gravest, most important CRISIS we have ever had to meet. So far we are weathering this crisis—but once again the alarming drop off in mail the past six days has driven me constantly to my knees before God, that His glorious and all-important work may survive!

Here is what has happened: first, let me say we did receive an encouraging response from my last urgent letter for just one week. I can’t explain to you the heartfelt GRATITUDE I felt, and all of us here at the headquarters office. Words can’t properly THANK YOU, dear Co-Workers—but God will bless you in ways that can’t be measured in money—and, I pray, bless you financially also. But after that one week of good response, the financial support for God’s work suddenly seemed to drop way down, and now again the situation is ALARMING—and I have to ask you to go to God in prayer with me, and pour out your heart EARNESTLY, and believingly, that God will hear and move on the minds and hearts of more co-workers to respond generously and continuously.

But here is the all-important fact of the situation.

Read carefully! I must make PLAIN the situation. Based on the 1950 census, there were in the whole United States 150 million people (it is about 160 million today). But 84 MILLION OF THESE PEOPLE—56%—more than HALF OF ALL THE PEOPLE IN THE UNITED STATES, are living in states and sections of the country that COULD NOT HEAR the broadcast of God’s Message, except the scattered few that heard it on station XERF.

By that I mean that there was no listener reception from XEG and XELO in these states and sections in which more than HALF of all the people live. The greatest density of population, where people are more crowded, exists in the north Atlantic states, New England, and across the great middle-west to and including Illinois and Wisconsin. And THIS is the portion of the United States WE WERE NOT REACHING!

Then suddenly GOD OPENED THE DOOR for us to go on one of the great major net-works—ABC, transcontinental. If we have to stop on ABC, WE CANNOT GET BACK ON!

WE ORDERED THEIR BEST AND STRONGEST STATIONS IN THOSE DENSELY-POPULATED STATES WE WERE NOT REACHING. We ordered but few or NO stations in those states where we already have heavy listening audiences over XEG and XELO. For example, we are not using any net-work stations in Texas, Louisiana, or Mississippi, and, so far, only one in Arkansas, one in Alabama—none as yet in Oklahoma, altho Oklahoma’s super-power 50,000-watt station KRMG in Tulsa will begin broadcasting the program, I have been notified, in two or three weeks. Last Sunday the powerful KCMO, Kansas City, began airing the program at 11:30 A.M. Sundays, and WIL, St. Louis, at 9:30 A.M.

All told, we ordered about 115 stations. But only about 76 stations accepted the program the first two weeks. Since then more and more have been accepting it, until now more than 90 stations are broadcasting our program. We still do not have enough stations in Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan, but as time goes along stations will be added in this territory. So, with the addition of this great net-work, WE ARE REACHING THREE TIME AS MANY PEOPLE AS BEFORE—now for the first time, actually covering, with GOOD listener reception, nearly every section of the United States.

Naturally, very few of these new listeners to the net- work have become co-workers as yet—but already a few are beginning to join our loyal co-worker family. But week by week the requests for literature and The PLAIN TRUTH magazine are increasing. And from 20 years’ experience we know that in three to six months these NEW LISTENERS will be sending in enough money voluntarily to pay for half or more of the COST of this great net- work—and inside a year, there will be enough NEW co-workers with us to pay for all of it.

OUR PROBLEM, right now, is to HOLD ON to this net-work broadcast UNTIL these new co-workers have joined us! Then they will help us make it possible to carry the Gospel JESUS PREACHED to ALL PARTS OF THE WORLD! GOD OPENED THE DOOR of this great net- work. I have been DESPERATELY hanging on. I have to tell you, dear Co-Workers, it has been a struggle. It has taken FAITH! I have had to fight off temptation to weaken and quit. I NEED YOUR ENCOURAGEMENT AND YOUR EARNEST PREVAILING PRAYERS! There have been moments when it seemed we just couldn’t go on another week. So far we are just barely squeezing through—but it is such a TIGHT SQUEEZE that it is almost more than I can carry. If ever I needed your support, your prayers, your encouragement and your financial help, it is NOW!

We just have to keep enough money coming in EVERY WEEK— especially the last two weeks of every month which are so hard to get through! This need is SO DESPERATE that now for the first time in four or five years, I have to ask all who could LOAN to God’s work amounts of $500 on up to $5,000, to do so at once. I had felt we would never borrow money again—it is so hard to pay back. But to save this net-work broadcast, and to tide it over another two or three months until it brings us NEW Co-Workers to join you and me in this work, the situation is so DESPERATE, I have to ask even for loans, if you cannot feel free to GIVE such sums for God’s work. Brethren and Co-Workers, you can’t know how it hurts me to have to ask this—and STILL I pray, and ask you to JOIN me in praying, that God will somehow provide enough money week by week thru those whose hearts He has made willing, so that we shall not have to borrow.

And now finally, dear Co-Workers, please take this at once to heart, and to a private place of PRAYER. We must not falter. GOD WILL GIVE US STRENGTH AND COURAGE AND FAITH to GO ON! This is not our work—it is GOD’S! But He lays on each one of us His own part in God’s work, and now we must do our very utmost. And KEEP ON DOING IT WEEK BY WEEK!

God bless all of you. I know you’ll stand with me in this grave emergency. And Oh, how I pray that soon we may all hear Jesus’ own voice saying to us, when He comes. “WELL DONE, THOU GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANT!” God bless and guide you!

In Jesus’ precious name

Herbert W. Armstrong