Announcements
◼ Literature offer for December: The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived. Alternative offers are: The Bible—God’s Word or Man’s?, My Book of Bible Stories, or You Can Live Forever in Paradise on Earth. January: Any 192-page book published prior to 1988 may be offered. Congregations that do not have older 192-page books may offer Mankind’s Search for God. February: The new book Draw Close to Jehovah will be featured. March: Knowledge That Leads to Everlasting Life. A special effort will be made to start home Bible studies.
◼ The branch facilities in Brooklyn, Patterson, and Wallkill, New York, will be closed on the following Saturdays: March 8, 2003 (Gilead graduation); May 10, 2003 (spring cleaning); September 13, 2003 (Gilead graduation); and October 4, 2003 (annual meeting of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania). There will be no arrangements for tours or for congregations to pick up literature on those dates.
◼ The Memorial invitations for 2003 in the primary language of each congregation will soon be sent to your congregation. If other languages are spoken in your territory and you would like a supply of invitations in those languages, these should be requested immediately on a Literature Request Form (S-14). Memorial invitations are available in Albanian, Arabic, Armenian, Cambodian, Chinese, Chinese (Simplified), Croatian, Dutch, East Armenian, English, French, Greek, Gujarati, Hmong, Iloko, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, Macedonian, Marshallese, Papiamento (Curaçao), Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi (Gurmukhi), Romanian, Russian, Samoan, Spanish, Tagalog, and Vietnamese. Please request only those languages needed for your territory.
◼ Please note that the Memorial for the year 2004 will be on Sunday, April 4, after sundown. This advance notice is given so that brothers may make necessary reservations or contracts for available halls when there are several congregations using the Kingdom Hall and other facilities must be found. The elders should have an agreement with the management ensuring that there will be no disturbances from other activities in the building so that the Memorial observance can proceed in a peaceful and orderly manner. Because of the importance of the occasion, in assigning a Memorial speaker, the body of elders should select one of the more qualified elders instead of simply taking turns or using the same brother every year. If there is a capable elder of the anointed who can give the talk, he should be selected.
◼ All baptized publishers present at the Service Meeting the week of January 6 may obtain the Advance Medical Directive/Release card and the Identity Card for their children.