I have only briefly mentioned areas where the left behind can retreat to when the antichrist’s gestapo comes a-hunting. Since I was born, raised and lived my entire life in the wonderful State of Missouri, I know the Ozarks. So I have mentioned other areas only in passing, and from the comments I do get from readers.
My wife, on the other hand, was born and raised her first 26 years of life in the Philippines, and you can really get lost in the many jungle islands over there.
Just before Christmas I got a wonderful email from James and Mary who are both lifelong residents of West Virginia. Bill pointed out the many natural resources readily available to left behinders who might retreat into that area when the time comes.
So I will print portions of their email for all of you, left behind or not, to digest and consider:
“We have both lived in West Virginia all of our lives. The state is rugged, mountainous and unforgiving at times, but it is home.
“We have watched for years as our children and families leave for the promise of a better life.
“Our state’s population has had a steady decline curve for the last 20 years or more. The coal industry is gone as well as all the businesses that supported it, and with nothing to replace it. The population is gone as well. Nature is taking back all the deserted industrial companies and the ghost towns that have been left behind.
“That being said, this state is a Bible-belt state, predominantly Pentecostal or non-denominational. After the rapture I don’t think there will be much of a population left behind either.
“Just think of the possibilities of a nearly empty state with mazes of deep underground tunnels called abandoned coal mines – a state with plentiful resources such as fresh spring water, plentiful game, plenty of ground cover by the forests, and plenty of fruit and nut trees growing wild in nature.
“As a boy I would stay gone for days eating and drinking off the land. We have wild apple, pear, peach and paw-paw trees (a fruit similar to a green banana or plantain). We have fields of wild blackberry and raspberry bushes, and the occasional strawberry plant.
“We have wild mushrooms and ramps (a cross between a green onion and garlic). We have walnut, chestnut and hazelnut trees. We have medicinal plants such as wild ginseng, yellowroot (sulfa drug is made from this plant), birch bark (aspirin is made from this), bloodroot, sassafras (root beer is flavored with this), peppermint, spearmint and too many other herbs to mention.
“I hope you get my drift. West Virginia would be a ready-made place for an underground group of believers. After the rapture I don’t know if an exodus would be feasible or possible if martial law was declared (which I believe would be their only option).”
The Holy Spirit is working overtime with me as I try to author a suitable series of articles concerning those left behind in the tribulation period. And I’m sure this same Holy Spirit had a hand in pointing James and Mary in my direction. Ain’t God great or what?
I would hope that my inbox will soon be full of emails from you readers with similar reports of retreat areas in other states and countries so I can pass it on to Rapture Ready’s vast readership and followers. You may be a “crazy uncle” in your own household and neighborhood, but your contributions to this series might save someone halfway around the world. And remember that a saved soul is a saved soul.
Besides being a valuable item to print off and leave in your “left behind box,” this is also good information to store in your grey matter to pass on to Christian brothers and sisters (who will hopefully also pass it on), plus use in your witness to those who appear ripe to be left behind.
The remainder of this edition I would like to devote to bits & pieces of information I want to get out to the readership without delay. Since none of us know when the rapture will be, I’d sure hate to have a whole stack of notes by my computer that never got circulated. I’d like to leave this planet with a clean desk.
First, many of us often discuss the 666 mark of the beast (Revelation 13: 17-18). The popular belief, so far, is that it might be a tattoo in the hand or forehead. Others believe it might be a computer chip injected under the skin of the hand or forehead. Both of those theories require the person to voluntarily put forth their hand or forehead to allow the evil ones to do their thing.
Many believe, as I do, that the evil ones can’t force it on a person. If they hold a person down on a table and force the tattoo, computer chip, etc., on them, it doesn’t count as “accepting the mark.” It seems logical to me but I don’t know any scripture that supports that theory.
But a new theory is very likely. A prophecy speaker made this observation recently on his end-time program that EVERYONE is already equipped to use the mark in a buy or sell situation. The evil ones need not do a thing.
He states that we all have fingerprints (in the hand) and eye retina (in the forehead), which in today’s technology can identify a person and allow them to perform normal functions like unlock doors, get a candy bar from a machine, unlock and start a car’s engine, etc. It wouldn’t take much doing to expand that technology to include the credit card industry, the banking system, etc. That will make it much easier for antichrist’s gestapo to deceive and trick a person out of their salvation to heaven. All they need to do is dangle a Big Mac under the hungry victim’s nose and that left behinder will condemn themselves when they pay for it.
Secondly, many of us are looking for sources of gear, supplies, etc., to stockpile for the left behind. And those left behind need to do some shopping on their own while they still can. You can find a lot of valuable items at your local Army Surplus Store. The military designs lightweight and sturdy stuff especially for the foot troops who have to lug it all around in all types of terrain and weather, I just wish they would have lightened up that B.A.R. (Browning Automatic Rifle) I lugged around for over a year!
Thirdly, there are many ways to make wilderness water drinkable and avoid the intestinal uproar that usually comes with bad water. Boiling is considered one of the best methods; but boiling water requires gathering wood, starting a fire, bringing the water to a boil, allowing time for it to cool and then drinking the flat-tasting water. Aerating helps and is easy to do. Take your container of cooled water and an empty container of equal size. Pour it back and forth several times, which puts oxygen back into the flat-tasting water.
But boiling water is time consuming and the open fire can give away your location to the antichrist’s gestapo. A much easier way was the way we did it in the Marines. The squad leaders would have a bottle of iodine with an eyedropper. We would fill our canteens out of the nearby creek or stream. Then we’d line up, canteen caps off, and the squad leader would put two or so drops of iodine into each canteen. The drops would no sooner hit the water when all kinds of little dead critters would come to the surface. We’d then pour off about an inch of water at the canteen’s top to get rid of the dead critter’s carcasses.
But stash away a large amount of iodine, as you will need to use it for its intended purpose, tending open cuts and wounds.
Fourthly, I want to again express what a great spiritual job Alice Childs has done with her Tribulation Chronicles posted regularly in the New Articles section of this Rapture Ready website (www.raptureready.com). She has done an excellent job of “touching all the bases,” and her 10th Chronicle is a must for your left-behind box.
But that is really too late, as this sobering piece needs to be read and consumed before the rapture by those lukewarm folks (Revelation 3: 16) who haven’t yet gotten their spiritual life together to where it should be. If they would read this Chronicle alone, I feel many might make the correct decision to change directions without hesitation to a Biblical pathway to heaven.
You should print off her entire series and not be concerned about the sheer volume of her work. Those left behind will have a lot of time for individual reading, and this series would make an excellent topic for the group’s Bible study. It’s a great way to learn the Bible from one who knows the Bible.
Finally, it has taken me some time to find the following manuals, reasons being I don’t have a “left behind BOX.” I do have a “left behind ROOM.” I am now 78 years old and have been wheelchair-bound for three years. So I don’t climb around on cabinets and shelves like I used to. I now have to wait until my kids or grandkids come to visit so they can do the climbing and searching for me. What better way to spend the winter holidays!
By far the best survival guide I have come across is entitled “Nuclear War Survival Skills” and is subtitled “Lifesaving Nuclear Facts and Self-Help Instructions.” It is authored by Cresson H. Kearny and published by the U.S. Department of Energy through the Oregon Institute of Science and Energy. My copy is the 1987 updated and expanded edition, but they updated it again in 2001. It is 282 pages, measures 12” x 10” to over an inch thick, plus it is illustrated. I googled it and it is available through Amazon and eBay.
It contains much more than just nuclear survival. A brief short list on the contents includes medical treatments without a doctor, a variety of self-made shelters, water purification, food sources, etc., and too much more to mention.
Another excellent survival manual is entitled “Aircrew Survival” and is a product of the United States Air Force (Air Force pamphlet #36-2246). It measures 5” x 7”and contains 121 illustrated pages. Each page is printed on thick waterproof and weatherproof heavy card stock, so it is easy to carry with you and will stand up against the elements. The size makes it easy to carry in a clothing pocket. It is designed for airplane flight crews that crash behind enemy lines, and shows how to survive.
Both of these survival manuals should be in a set because there is very little duplication of information in them.
Dick Ainsworth
PO Box 156
New Franklin, MO 65274