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Letter to the Brethren: May 2, 2024

Letter to the Brethren: May 2, 2024

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Dear Brethren and Co-Workers in Christ:

Greetings from the Five Cities region of California.

The Days of Unleavened Bread for 2024 are past. The Last Day of Unleavened Bread went well here, as well as from places we received reports from around the world.

In last week’s Letter to the Brethren, you may have noticed that we listed all of our current video platforms in the “Suggested Sabbath Day Services” section. That is intended to be a permanent feature of these weekly letters.

There are several reasons for that, but the main ones are:

  1. In case the weekly letter does not reach you, you still should have the last one which has the video channel links.
  2. In case one or more of the platforms removes us (or is otherwise down), you hopefully should have several other immediate platform options.

We have been censored in the past by both YouTube (which remains popular) and Vimeo (which we may one day drop), and by providing a regular list, hopefully you will be able to access our video sermons and sermonettes without interruption. Videos are one avenue for proclamation and teaching that we use.

As far as other teachings and proclamation matters go, we received another 20 translations of our English booklet titled The Gospel of the Kingdom of God to help prepare for the short work of Romans 9:28.

Internet Reach

Years back, we used to look at Alexa rankings to see global website reach. However, Alexa.com changed and now it is much easier to determine reach through similarweb.com.

We used to also have statistical programs at our websites, but they bogged down the servers too much (probably because of translation related issues) that we removed them.

(Pixabay’s AI generated world internet photo)

So, anyway, in the first time ever,  I looked at reach using similarweb.com. According to Similar Web, last month we had the following number of visits to the following listed websites:

  • COGwriter.com               105,000
  • Cdlidd.es                               7,800
  • CCOG.org                             6,700
  • BibleNewsProphecy.net    4,100

As far as overall world popularity, Similar Web reported that COGwriter.com was the 416,776 most popular website in the world. There are reportedly over 1,000,000,000 websites in the world (e.g. https://themeisle.com/blog/how-many-websites-are-there/#gref) which are less popular than www.cogwriter.com. So, despite “shadow banning” from Google (which has hurt that site’s accessibility), COGwriter remains popular.

So, we do have reach over the internet (radio too-see Continuing Church of God Multimedia page).

Plus, when we used to track statistics internally, we were able to prove that we had reached over 200 nations and territories–actually all of them that we were aware of–including North Korea which two of my former COG associations had not reached.

Now, let me add that with our Google campaign, we also made 5,600,000 impressions on computers and smart phones last month. This is a lot, but this is down because of Google policy changes that I am scheduled to speak with a Google representative about tomorrow.

That said, we still do have a worldwide reach over the internet as well as on radio.

Famine and Hunger Up

The United Nations reported that famine and hunger were up.

Part of the reason has been difficult weather in eastern Africa. South Sudan, Malawi, Mozambique, and Kenya are part of eastern Africa, and we have provided some assistance there for food. The UN also mentioned hunger in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where we have members and have also provided assistance.

In addition to financial assistance for food, Pastor Radson Mulozowa reported that the project to grow sunflowers we have assisted with is bearing fruit.

Kisii Report

Here is a report about growth and needs in Kisii in Kenya:


Photo from Last Day of Unleavened Bread in Kisii

I send my warmest regards to you and yours in the name of our lord Jesus Christ. Yes, I received three members who were in the living church of God for a long time and have confirmed that they will be worshipping with us every Sabbath.   Please pray for me and the work here in Kisii. I have also those who were coming from far distances every Sabbath. They are still very active. I have a challenge of transportation to and fro. Feeding them every Sabbath too is a big challenge for me. But I thank God because he has a good plan for me and those who worship with us. I shared this with Evans Ochieng one time when he visited and witnessed me doing that. … But our God we worship has everything sufficient for us.  I praise God and thank him too because my enemies were saying negative things to the church. They even said that my wife and I were only worshipping. But look! Many people have come in the name of our lord Jesus Christ. Even those who spoke against us are now in the church worshipping our God. What amazing! Others came out of Catholic church and some from SDA. This is the work of God and mine is just only to witness our lord Jesus Christ. It is my humble prayer that if God opens up away that I can get rid of the challenges that I mention above everything will be fine. As also looking forward to FOT our rooms are not done. There’s need to do finishing up and put the bedings ready. All these things are waiting to be accomplished on time.    It is my humble prayer that my God to give me wisdom, understanding and knowledge on how I can serve him better. Increase my faith in this challenging world. May his kingdom come!    Thanks and God bless.   Yours fellow disciple of the Christ,      Ezekiel Ombaso Oanda.

Ezekiel is in my prayers and we are looking at assisting with the transportation matter.

Rwanda and Burundi

Moise sent the following from Rwanda:

Dear Pastor Dr Bob , greetings from Rwanda and Congo. I’m happy to inform you that the Feast of unleavened bread we have finished well.

I am happy again to share with you the good news of this family from Burundi country near the border of Rwanda who wants to join CCOG. After exiting in SDA church we continued to discuss the beliefs of CCOG , so now with his colleagues as small group they want to join the CCOG .Attached, you see photo of Norbert Ntahiraja with his wife and another photo on his Facebook where he started to promoting CCOG.

Prayers for them.Best Regards,Moise

We have received inquiries from Burundi before and it is nice to see something seemingly take root there.

Suggested Sabbath Day ServicesHere is a suggested Sabbath day service for our scattered brethren and other interested people:

Note: If you have a slow internet connection, you can watch these by starting the video, then below it (and towards the right) look for an outline of a gear–if you click on that, it will allow the YouTube video to be played with lower video quality, but at least it will not stop often–you can select a quality as low as 144p. If your internet connection is still too slow (as my home one is) and/or you prefer audio messages to audio-visuals ones, go to the YouTube link for the message, click on SHOW MORE related to the description. You will then see something that says, “Download MP3.” Below that is a link to an MP3 file. Most computers (and even some mobile telephones) will allow MP3 files to be downloaded and played. This is an option we have made available (but we are also looking into ways to improve that as well)–and, of course, we have written article options. Some people have found that if their internet connections are not fast enough, that they can simply listen to the messages that are found at the Bible News Prophecy online radio channel.

IN CASE YOU DO NOT RECEIVE A ‘LETTER TO THE BRETHREN’ FOR ANY WEEK, REMEMBER THAT THERE ARE MANY SERMON MESSAGES ON THE ContinuingCOG channel AND MANY SERMONETTE MESSAGES ON THE Bible News Prophecy channel. There are also some messages at the CCOGAfrica channel. There are also messages in the Spanish language at the CDLIDDSermones  channel.

In case one or more of our video channels are unavailable, down, restricted, or ?, understand that we are on multiple platforms.

For sermons in English:

ContinuingCOG YouTube channel. Dr. Thiel has produced video sermons for this channel.

Also available at BitChute COGTube https://www.bitchute.com/channel/cogtube/

For sermonettes in English:

Bible News Prophecy YouTube channel BibleNewsProphecy https://www.youtube.com/user/BibleNewsProphecy.

Bitchute Prophecy https://www.bitchute.com/channel/prophecy/,

Vimeo at Bible News Prophecy https://vimeo.com/channels/biblenewsprophecy

Brighteon Bible News Prophecy https://www.brighteon.com/channel/ccogbnp.

Rumble https://rumble.com/c/biblenewsprophecy.

DailyMotion https://www.dailymotion.com/dm_e24c8ac0050c5e7445cd5573711869c6/videos

For animations in English:

CCOG Animations YouTube channel.

Also available at BitChute COGAnimations https://www.bitchute.com/channel/coganimations/

Sermons and sermonettes in Spanish:

CDLIDDSermones channel.

African videos:

CCOGAfricaYouTube channel.

Also available at BitChute COGAfrica https://www.bitchute.com/channel/cogafrica/

Audio messages:

Bible News Prophecy radio. This is an audio version of the Bible News Prophecy videos on one of our internet stations as well as our radio broadcasts in English. The BibleNewsProphecy.net website also has information about our international radio presence for Europe, Asia, and North America. That page is also available as a mobile app.

Bible News Prophecy International radio. This has links to our non-English language online radio station as well as materials in multiple languages.

There is also additional information at the Continuing Church of God Multimedia page.

World News Items

We have seen many pro-Palestinian protests at universities, particularly in the USA (see Anti-Israel protests continue, but various faculty members object to police being sent in). Police have been called in to clear some of the protesters and to try to prevent violence (see also Columbia, UCLA, Texas, Arizona university clashes: There is a generation that is pure in its own eyes). Many protesters are not actually connected to the universities, but look to be professional agitators (see Most NYU arrested protesters were not students–could the Biden Administration Gaza plan cause terrorism within the USA?). The Bible warns that, “There shall be terror within” (Deuteronomy 32:25).

Speaking of terror, there was a report about domestic violence in Australia which concerned many there (see Domestic violence: A ‘national crisis’ in Australia and elsewhere). Spouses are to love on another and such violence should not happen (see again, Domestic violence: A ‘national crisis’ in Australia and elsewhere).

French President Macron proposed his nation’s nuclear arsenal to protect Europe. He also indicated this was necessary to show that Europe is not a “vassal state” to the USA (see Macron: Europe needs our nukes to show it is not a vassal of the US). Europe is in the process of arming and will one day turn against the USA and conquer it (cf. Daniel 11:39).

Concluding Comments

Joshua told the children of Israel:

14 “Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the Lord! 15 And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:13-15)

Brethren, consider that even though the children of Israel had seen miracles. including the walls of Jericho tumbling down, Joshua was inspired to warn them not to be affected by pagan ways.

We, too, need to not go back to pagan ways that we once were part of.

So, hopefully, you and house will serve the Lord.

Sincerely,

Bob Thiel
Pastor and Overseer