The Seemingly Improbability of the Next Twenty Years

(According to IBM the knowledge gained in the next twenty years will be X21(st power far more than gained since creation of the universe.)

Knowledge Doubling Curve

Buckminster Fuller created the “Knowledge Doubling Curve”; he noticed that until 1900 human knowledge doubled approximately every century. By the end of World War II knowledge was doubling every 25 years. Today things are not as simple as different types of knowledge have different rates of growth. For example, nanotechnology knowledge is doubling every two years and clinical knowledge every 18 months. But on average human knowledge is doubling every 13 months.  According to IBM, the build out of the “internet of things” will lead to the doubling of knowledge every 12 hours.

  In September of 1952 I entered the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology as a freshman in evolutionary metaphysical geology. The text books that I bought over the next several years are still in my library. They have been obsoleted time and again in the sixty-three years since. At the same time I started under Dr, C. C. Crawford, my senior minister, to be his youth leader and associate minister to the city of Socorro. The Bible I used in 1952 is still a valuable tool, complete and though the language has been updated a couple of times since, it is still the accurate Word of God.

  During the next twenty years, we may find and explore new archeological digs. We may uncover more ancient manuscripts of the texts of the Bible as we have it. We may even find a couple of the lost books of the Apostle Paul to add to our knowledge of the first Century Christians. We will not discover striking new information about God that has been hidden. We will not double or increase our knowledge of God by X let alone X to the 21^st power.

  However, our knowledge of the atom, the dark matter, the universe as God created it, especially the galaxies far in outer space will multiply exponentially; we will increase our knowledge of how to accommodate ourselves to a world for which we were not created.  We will obsolete most of our tools of today with far more modern high speed tools that will increase our ability to make our lives more comfortable and move at greater speed than ever before. Our Space Port in Southern New Mexico will be the hub of intercontinental flights that have us moving to Asia, Africa and Europe in a few sub-orbital hours in every direction. We will see every continental air line hubbing out of the Space Port to every major city in the United States.  We will be able to feed the 16 Billion earthlings with nourishing and fast growing food that will be plentiful. We will drive cars with hydrogen engines that will exhaust pure water to help replenish our drying out planet. For us to imagine 2035 it would be like a deep jungle Amazon native imagining living in downtown New York today. Yet, if I live out my genealogical age average, I will see 2035 in my 101^st year of life on this planet; the Lord willing I will be excited to be there.

  Of concern to me is a church that is having a hard time as a whole in the United States of moving from the 1960s to 2015, how are they going to make it to 2035?  If the ministers of today are not reading or sourcing at least 6 books a year and spending at least a dozen hours a week Goggling information, they are falling behind. I have a 1,000 plus book library and it is obsolete today. The information that is piling on Google is coming to my desk at again exponential speed. I serve on mission boards with men, good men that have not had a new Christian thought about methods, not the message, since the 1960s. One of the things we have regained is the knowledge that the Holy Spirit did not die and go back to heaven in 96AD; He is alive and well on planet earth today, and still bringing resurrection power to Christians today. He is also, alive and well in the field of evangelism, especially among the Muslim throngs. An idea not worth examining is an idea not worth having. I believe our Christian churches need to examine a whole lot of ideological precepts that we have about youth, aged, evangelism, fellowship, missions and about the “strangers-sojourners” among us. We need to open the Bible and reread the Prophets from Isaiah to Malachi. Jesus made it plain in his discourses that to know him, to know history of God’s people, the prophecy of the age of the Gentiles, the “woes of Jacob” the reign of the messianic descendent of King David, and the eternal heaven; you needed to know the Prophets. Our Bible Colleges are not giving more than a tip-of-the-hat to the prophets. Thus most of our preachers are still following the unexamined old world theology of the Presbyterian/Anglican church of the 1600^th century brought over on the ship from Glasgow with Alexander Campbell. No one human can examine everything. Remember, exegetical Bible study could get you jailed or burned at the stake in 1790 AD Europe.

  Therefore with all of that said, I want to futuristically look at the next twenty years and the little backward country of Guatemala. In Guatemala’s up and down history, in the mid 19^th century they applied for statehood in the United States of America. We were heading into the Civil War and the balance of free and slave states was critical and since Guatemala wanted to come in as a free state, they were turned down. Going into the 20^th century Guatemala became a Banana republic and a military dictatorship with at the end of the century thirty years of civil war, then severe poverty and finally An infant republic with democratic rule.  Today, Guatemala is looking for a bright 21^st century of development.

  The one thing that I discovered is that the native intelligence of the people is well above average for the world. The ambition level is way above average. The desire to work and better themselves is off the chart, and what Lori has proved at Morning Glory, is if you give them a little bit of direction, hope of a bright future, and clear instructions and demonstration of what you want, they can function on a par with any first world country. To prepare for this century Guatemala has constructed a “concrete canal” (Super highway) from the Caribbean to the Pacific Ocean that runs right through San Raymundo. Since the big ships today are too large for the Panama Canal, these ship can off cargo in trucking contains on the east coast and in 12 hours be loading on to Pacific bound ships on the west coast bypassing the long trip around Tierra del Fuego.  The corporation taxes and the manufacturing taxes are right for growth. The problem is 91% of adults are illiterate. How do you build a billion dollar factory with million dollar machines and hire a man or woman that can not read or write to run it; thus the acceleration of the 1961 New Iberian Plan.

  It is important to review what is happening across the “pond.” In my 50 years of earning my living as a “tent maker” while giving Christianity away, I worked with or for most of the major European Motorcar companies. I know bit about their history and modis operendi. Today, VW that owns Audi, Porsche, Rolls Royce, Bentley and other companies and is spending billions to build factories in Brazil and Mexico because of the tax advantage and an educated work force.  Volvo has moved headquarters and production direction to China, Jaguar to India, and BMW and Benz are following. The French corporation Peugeot is the company that I am centering on for the nest few paragraphs along with the demographics of age, racial, political and religious concentration of the 29 nations of east and west Europe.

  The winter demographics of Europe is that the native Europeans in the 29 nations of East and West Europe, are birth replacing themselves at the rate of .7 births per family. That is with a sustaining rate of birth for a civilization being 2.3 births per family. Thus the native races of “Christian” Europe is a dying civilization. The birth rate of the Muslim families that often have four wives all with government health insurance is 7.2 live births per family. Thus it is easy to see that demographically/democratically, Europe is going Muslim by at least 2050. That is German Counselor Merkiel’s estimate.

  Add to the demographic winter in European births, over 100,000 refuges from North Africa, nearly 100% Muslim are coming into Europe every year, you have a strong shift of political, religious and cultural positions. With the shift in religious/politics the companies of “old” Europe are looking and moving west. The oldest of these companies goes back almost 400 years to the Frills de Peugeot and the making the steel wire corsets for the King Arthur’s courtesan’s ware. Also chastity belts for the women of the Knights of the Round Table era. The Peugeot families are all old time French Protestant Huguenots that reach back to the Protestant Reformation to the time of Calvin.  They have had to fight for their existence since the beginning in Roman Catholic France and the constant resurgence of the Holy Roman Empire.  The Edict of Nantez in 1665 lead to the massacre of Vassy and the St. Bartholomew day massacre that saw 20,000 to 30,000 Huguenots hung, killed with the sword or the guillotine in one weekend. While in the Loire Valley of central France, Melba and I saw in the Chateau where Leonardo da Vinci had his studio there was a painting showing hundreds of Huguenots hanging over the castle walls. The Huguenots attracted the elite and the industrial class, the Andre Puegeot family among them. Today the Peugeot empire includes Micheliem tires, Christian Dior Fabrics and designs, Citroen, Talbot, Peugeot, Chrysler Europe auto industry.  For centuries the Peugeot family opened each day at the factory with 30 minutes of Bible instruction and prayer. In the 1990s there were not enough Frenchmen and women to work in their many factories and Peugeot had to hire North Africans from French Algeria and a Battle began over a half hour a day to read the Qur’an and prayer or 5 times a day to have time off to pray. The conflict began that had Paris burning a couple of years ago and continued this year with the massacre at Charlie.

  The Peugeot family has always been devoutly patriotic and very Christian. In 1939 when the Nazi masses swarmed over France, Peugeot burned their factories to the ground, burned all the rolling stock they could not take with them, and move across the lake into Switzerland and fought against Vichi France and supported de Gaul and the French Resistance. Today Peugeot is facing a new invasion of France, the Muslim radical take over of all of old Europe. They are moving west as are all of Europe business/manufacturing world. In partnership with their China Company, Dongfend PC, they are building their fourth factory in China and are in negotiations with India for a new factory there. This is the story all Across Europe and the old world industry that sees the demise of Europe as western history has known it for nearly two millennia.

   In the Western Hemisphere the Brazilian world is taking the lead. In America, our major beer companies, Hunts and Kraft and so much more are owned by Brazilian companies. The Largest auto plant in the world, Auto Latina, is in Southern Brazil jointly owned by Ford and VW. The industrial world knows there are a Billion new customers growing up and developing economically south of the tropic of Cancer and industry is moving that way. We, in San Raymundo Guatemala are right in the middle of that territory and situated to become an industrial center for Central America and Northern South America. Morning Glory is right where God wanted her and is central to the development and expansion of Christian industry and financial and Christian cultural growth. Morning Glory and Miss Lori has lead the way and shown the way of allowing the people of the school to own the school by investing sweat, blood, blisters and long hours to make it a home town “Hecho en Guatemala” family. Here is our plan for changing the whole culture of Guatemala to a Christian industrial society where Christ is King and an educated family has replaced civil war and killing as the norm of the culture.

  With the approval of our Trustees that are getting recognized in Texas as a stand alone body, as well as in New Mexico as a dba of Agape Christian Church, we are starting this fall to raise $100,000.00 to build a sister building to the last one built for the Bible Institute and a dance, music and drama center for Morning Glory. This is on land that we already own; also to purchase the final piece of land available in our tract (the outlined property at the top of the drawing). This will finish for now the building on the Morning Glory Property and have Morning Glory at a manageable size and with very usable facilities. This will give us an office for Queno as Chaplain of Guatemala and minister of Strong Tower Christian Church, and trainer of ministers for our Chain of Pearls group of Christian Churches that will circle San Raymundo; also an office for an assistant minister under Queno and director of our Bible Institute that is in the works. Also, I know you are aware that Queno is our designer and contractor on all our buildings. He is a man of many talents.

  One thing we have noticed is the lack of Bible education locally for ministers. Our proposed Bible Institute will be a 24 month accredited Bible school to teach the basics of the Bible. You will hear Ted Smith tonight as our speaker for the evening, tell of this school that is designed for those that have just a basic primary education to make them proficient in the Word of God. This is going to be open to all denominations and will give Morning Glory another foothold into the community.

  My vision into the next two decades is to realize that NIMA must expand our ability to attract new partners in our work, For the current plan of just asking more and more of the same small group of supporters is a plan for failure. So today at the organizational meeting of our New board of Trustees. A considerable amount of time was spent on how to attract and develop a much larger group of supporters and a group of backers that have bought into our dreams. This is where we are slowly moving out of Herb’s expertise and into Dean’s field of expertise. You will see some dramatic changes in the coming years.

  The next few years will see a million dollar fund raising program that will include the purchase of 5 acres or more of land for an area blessing, and a benefit to our Morning Glory school, our community and the growth of Guatemala as a nation. We are planning a 1200 seat auditorium for conventions, the community to use and for emergency preparedness in times of storm, earthquake, problems, a safe place for families to gather. This would also be for conventions, concerts and a center for the whole community of San Ray. This building is for Queno, it is his dream and the next logical step for NIMA to undertake especially with Dean Pinney at the helm, the hasmat, emergency preparedness czar of NIMA. There must be parking room for the busses for programs and cars that will become a basic part of all families in Guatemala over the next two decades just as in America. The traffic on the narrow streets of San Raymundo is terrific compared to ten years ago; it is just a picture of what is coming. We are looking to raise a million dollars for this project.

  On this same property, away from the Morning Glory property a short or medium distance, we will build beside the auditorium two more of the buildings just like we just finished on the campus and this will be our Adult Christian Institute where the adult population can get an education in reading, writing, basic math, computers, Christianity, and skills that will get them employed in what we will help develop the industrialization of Guatemala. We realize that this trade school may have to have many classes at night to accommodated hard working men and women that want to improve their place in life.

  We will offer a kind of educational loan fund that will be paid back when they go to work upon graduation. We can use our secondary students to get earned education credits by using them as teachers for the adult institute as well as earning money. We can us our Bible School graduates in teaching the Christian Bible classes. We will partner with industry as to the shop time trade and craft skills that we teach to the second year students.

  At the same time we are training a work force of industrious and skilled workers, we will be working with industry and business around the world, from the east and the west, to bring manufacturing and industrial development to Central America and a virgin population of newly trained workers and a market place of millions of new families.

  This Christian education will feed our Chain of Pearls Christian Churches with new prospects and at the same time with the prompting of Queno and Herb will be a whole new generation of “tent maker” Christians taught in the word of God that can take the church on south on the Pan American Highway into the rest of Central America, South America and continue the growth of the New Iberian Empire for Jesus as we reach toward the tip of South America with trained Christian workers that can earn a living with their hands and preach and teach the word of God.

  I do not know what tomorrow holds, I do know who holds tomorrow, and I know that these are visions that God has placed in my head and heart. Right now we are involved in selecting the right men and women for the jobs at hand, and training those that will be their replacements in years to come. When God is in control there is little room for worry and fretting; just obey God and leave the results to Him. We need to listen in the quiet hours of the early morning, and he will direct our paths, just as Solomon wrote so long ago: “In his heart man plans his course, but the Lord determines  his steps” (Proverbs 16:9).

  If the Lord wills, this is the direction that we will be heading for the next couple decades.

Love//Herb