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Dear Brethren, Friends and Family, 

The spirit of togetherness and love is something that we experience every year during the Feast of Tabernacles, which was shared and expressed once again this year. 

Even though, due to sickness and diverse frailties, our numbers in the USA were less than in previous years with around 30 in personal attendance, the great outpouring of brotherly kindness and great joy was present. Some participated by viewing our live services over the internet, and communicated with each other over the chat line. This year at the Feast in Tempe, Arizona, we did a fair number of things together, including a game night, a walk at a Desert Botanical Garden, glow-in-the-dark 3D mini golf, talks around the fire pit on the 11th floor, and a dinner with everyone. We enjoyed inspiring and heart-warming special music, including a quartet presentation in German (“Alles Leben strömt aus Dir”) and a choir presentation in English (“Heros and Dreamers”). The overarching messages at the Feast focused on our soon-coming future and what we can do daily to stay strong as we move forward. There was a focus on love for fellow brethren and the need to stay connected. Overall, it was a great Feast physically and spiritually.

Continue reading "Letter to the Brethren – November 22, 2024"

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Dear Members and Friends:

On August 2, I received an emotional phone call from my older brother that his wife had died at the hospital after she had broken her hip. It was not until a little over a week later that he called again and I was able to get the details as to what had actually happened. She was taking treatments for cancer at the hospital that day and after the treatments, while still in the hospital, she felt nauseated, fell and broke her hip. They took her to the ICU and were in the process of assessing exactly how to proceed when she died. My brother was in the hallway at the time, talking to his daughter.

After I had started writing this letter, news reached us that our beloved Margaret Adair had died of a sudden massive heart attack on August 23. She had been taken to the hospital by ambulance, and they tried, unsuccessfully, to resuscitate her twice. Norbert and Johanna Link were able to see her just before the ambulance took her, but while waiting outside the emergency room together with Margaret’s son, daughter-in-law and her two grandchildren, the doctor came out and told them the shocking and unexpected news. Margaret will be buried in Ireland next to her late husband, Evangelist Colin Adair. Brian Gale will be conducting the funeral service in Belfast. Later, we will be having a memorial service in California. More details will be forthcoming.

Continue reading "Letter to the Brethren – September 9, 2024"

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Dear Brethren and Friends, 

Living in Colorado, I frequently see air quality alerts in the weather app on my phone. The source of air quality problems varies throughout the year, depending on what is happening in the environment. Normally these alerts indicate that the air pollution originates from automobile emissions, pollen, ozone, or smoke, among other things. They all affect the quality of the air in ways that can make it hard for people to breathe, especially for those who are sensitive to contamination in the air.

Most of the time, the degradation of air quality is imperceptible through our senses. We cannot see or smell the problems in the air, unless there’s heavy smoke from nearby forest fires. However, quality problems are there, and they affect anyone who breathes.

Continue reading "Letter to the Brethren – July 23, 2024"

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Dear Brethren and Friends,

Continually doing the Work of God by effectively preaching the Gospel and feeding the flock is our ongoing goal. However, a few questions have come up in addition to this purpose. What sets us apart from all the rest? How do our efforts differ from other Church of God groups? Are we that much different? 

We have consistently expressed the importance of unity in our organization, especially during our annual conferences when doctrinal topics are addressed, as well as other methods to continue and improve our efforts in continuing the Work for the very goal of speeding up the return of Jesus Christ to establish His Kingdom on earth. The work that we do NOW will benefit all of mankind when they will later have the opportunity to understand what their potential is, what we in the Church understand now. Our purpose is not to make this current world a better place, for the only One who could do that is Jesus Christ when He returns. Until that happens, we have a specific job to do. 

Continue reading "Letter to the Brethren – June 12, 2024"

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Dear Brethren,

We recently observed Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread, and one lesson from that time continues to firmly resonate with me. It is succinctly summarized in 2 Corinthians 13:5:

“Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified” [margin: “do not stand the test”].

What does it mean to have Jesus Christ in us? For one thing, it means that we have eternal life—begotten (not yet born) of God by His Holy Spirit. As Romans 8:9-11 explains, we have both the Spirit of the Father and of Christ:

“But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit [which] dwells in you.”

Continue reading "Letter to the Brethren – May 13, 2024"

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Dear Members and Friends,

There is an interesting psychological concept that is quite well recognised and it should be a part of our lives. It is delayed gratification, or deferred gratification. It is the resistance to the temptation of an immediate pleasure in the hope of obtaining a valuable and long-lasting reward in the long-term. In other words, delayed gratification describes the process that the person undergoes when he or she resists the temptation of an immediate reward in preference for a later reward that is more favourable. Generally, delayed gratification is associated with resisting a smaller but more immediate reward, in order to receive a larger or more enduring reward later. A growing body of literature has linked the ability to delay gratification to a host of other positive outcomes, including academic success, physical health, psychological health, and social competence.

Continue reading "Letter to the Brethren – March 15, 2024"

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Dear Members and Friends,

According to the Gregorian calendar which is used in the USA and the Western world, the month of February is the shortest month of the year. Every month in the modern calendar consists of at least 30 days, except for this month. February only has 28 days and 29 on a leap year which happens to be this year, 2024. Why is the most widely used calendar in the world so inconsistent in the lengths of its months? And why is February the only month with the fewest number of days? 

According to Britannica.com, “The Gregorian calendar’s oldest ancestor, the first Roman calendar, had a glaring difference in structure from its later variants: it consisted of 10 months rather than 12. In order to fully sync the calendar with the lunar year, the Roman king Numa Pompilius added January and February to the original 10 months. The previous calendar had had 6 months of 30 days and 4 months of 31, for a total of 304 days. However, Numa wanted to avoid having even numbers in his calendar, as Roman superstition at the time held that even numbers were unlucky. He subtracted a day from each of the 30-day months to make them 29. The lunar year consists of 355 days (354.367 to be exact, but calling it 354 would have made the whole year unlucky!), which meant that he now had 56 days left to work with. In the end, at least 1 month out of the 12 needed to contain an even number of days. This is because of a simple mathematical fact: the sum of any even amount (12 months) of odd numbers will always equal an even number—and he wanted the total to be odd. So Numa chose February, a month that would be host to Roman rituals honoring the dead, as the unlucky month to consist of 28 days.

Continue reading "Letter to the Brethren – February 20, 2024"