Branch Letter

Dear Kingdom Publishers:

You will be interested in some of the details of Brother Knorr’s recent trip to the Far East.

In Japan he arranged to purchase two more rotary presses-one for Japan, the other for the Philippines. Some bookbinding machinery was also ordered for the Brooklyn factory. Before leaving for South Korea he went over plans to purchase more property and enlarge the Bethel home and factory in Numazu.

Like Japan, South Korea is also seeing tremendous expansion in the Kingdom work. So, on this trip, plans were finalized for a three-story addition to the Bethel home in Seoul. From there, Brother Knorr went on to the island of Okinawa for the dedication of a new branch home.

Short stops were then made in Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Vietnam and the Philippines, where similar expansion problems were handled. Hong Kong has especially enjoyed a fine increase during the past year. The Philippine Bethel family was overjoyed to learn that they were getting another rotary press. They even volunteered to take on the printing of the Chinese magazines when they get it.

A few days after Brother Knorr returned to Brooklyn he announced that six more German-built rotary presses were on order (two for our German factory and four for Watchtower Farm), plus about two and a half million dollars’ worth of bindery machinery. This will raise the capacity for book production in Germany to 11,000,000 and in Brooklyn to 60,000,000 a year during regular daytime working hours!

Other news concerns our brothers in war-torn Cyprus. We have learned that the brothers in the branch, and 350 to 400 other brothers, had to abandon their homes and take refuge in the Greek-held part of the island. Later, a few brothers, at great risk, returned to the branch building when the Turks were only 100 meters away, and were able to rescue some important records, files and literature. These were transferred to the missionary home in Limassol.

As far as is known, no brothers on Cyprus have lost their lives due to the fighting, but ten brothers living in the Turkish area are yet to be heard from. The branch in Greece has been instructed to ship whatever they can in the way of bedding, foodstuffs and money to aid our brothers on Cyprus.

We send warm love to all of you.

Your brothers,

BROOKLYN BRANCH OFFICE