The ramifications of the United Church of God and the Church of God A Worldwide Association debacle is still causing ripples. UCG members in many areas are still not happy with how things went down and the deception that still trickles out from Cincinnati.
Apostle Malm is reporting how the Brazilian UCG members had refused to go to a site UCG had transferred them all to without their input. UCG had a feast site set aside for Maloca de Moscou. Then after the Portuguese church groups in Portugal defected to COGWA, UCG made the decision to move the people assigned to Maloca de Moscou to Boa Vista, Brazil.
Many of the Brazilian members are part of loyal tribes and when the leaders said "NO, we won't go" they won't go! UCG started back peddling as fast as they could. They knew if they didn't then the tribes would all defect to COGWA.
UCG honchos, after "much prayer and counseling," decided to move the feast site back to it's original location. When dollar signs fly out the window, you can guarantee that UCG will be spinning it's wheels to recover.
UCG NEWS: After losing their Portugal congregation by refusing to allow them to use God’s Biblical Calendar for Feast observance, Jorge de Campos has focused his efforts towards the Brazil UCG outreach.
See UCG report on the recent trip of de Campos to Brazil.
This report mentions that the Brazil Feast site has been moved from the announced Boa Vista Feast site, at the Hotel Barrudada in Boa Vista, with most of the messages in English, back to the village of Maloca de Moscou.
However, UCG is trying to keep secret the fact that the 2 of the 4 heads of families have refused to travel to Boa Vista, and as tribal elders would have been obeyed by all the other people in this close knit Indian tribe, so UCG was forced to change the site back to Maloca de Moscou, or lose its remaining Portuguese speaking brethren. This years fall Feast will now be held in the church’s newly built hall and conducted in Portuguese.
The Brazil UCG was split in two early last year with half going to COGWA and half remaining with UCG. Jorge came as close as a whisker to losing the UCG half to COGWA over this incident. The tribe is deeply disaffected by the present situation and desiring reunion and reconciliation within itself, its members will stick together and will not let UCG split them further.
The tribe is very close knit and is very unhappy over the split between the two groups. When UCG started acting in a high handed manner and insisting on making these very poor brethren travel to the big city from their aboriginal community, so that the visiting speaker and maybe some foreigners could live and enjoy the Feast in luxury, it was just too much; and UCG had to quickly recant or lose nearly the whole of the Brazilian brethren to COGWA. There are a few others scattered in Brazil but this one community represents most of the UCG brethren there.
One must remember that these are poor folk living together in an isolated subsistence community and that the idea of forcing them to travel to a modern luxury hotel was very unwise decision at the best.
"...so that the visiting speaker and maybe some foreigners could live and enjoy the Feast in luxury..."
ReplyDeleteSometimes I've wondered if that's exactly how Armstrong meant for "the Feast" to be celebrated ie so he and his stooges could take lavish holidays once a year all at church members' expense while many members lost their jobs because they couldn't take time off from work or made to feel guilty if they couldn't afford to "go to the Feast". And where exactly does it say in the Bible we should "go" to celebrate "the Feast" or any other feast for that matter except the city of Jerusalem?