PAST students of the Whole Life Ministries Bible School are invited to attend an important meeting on September 28, starting at 10:00 a.m.

WHILE thousands of Jamaicans will today be attending political rallies in Half-Way Tree and Spanish Town, others will be meeting at the Jamaica Grande Hotel in Ocho Rios to celebrate the good news of God's soon-coming Kingdom, which they say is the only solution to world's ills and crises.

Members of the Church of God, International (CGI) have been meeting at the Jamaica Grande since yesterday in observance of the Feast of Tabernacles, an eight-day festival normally celebrated by the Jews, but accepted by this group as binding on New Testament Christians today. Instructions for the Feast of Tabernacles are found in Leviticus 23.

Members of the church, founded by American Evangelist Garner Ted Armstrong, former preacher on the World Tomorrow broadcast and former Editor of The Plain Truth magazine, say this festival pictures the coming Kingdom of God which will usher in the prosperity, universal peace and happiness that mankind has been longing for. Members take off time from work and school to meet in resort areas like Ocho Rios for eight days where they picture the time of peace and universal brotherhood they say is coming soon.

Two of the church's leading ministers will be here for the Feast. Already in the island is Bill Watson, who is seen on CGI's Armour of God broadcast aired on satellite television. Mr. Watson regularly teaches on prophecy and will be updating the convention on prophetic events, including the threatened war with Iraq and the tensions in the Middle East as well as the rift between the United States and Europe. According to the church's teaching, troubles will increase in the Middle East and the United States and Europe are prophesied to have a ruptured relationship in the last days.

For years Herbert Armstrong taught that Britain would abandon the European Union and would back the United States against the rest of Europe. In fact, Armstrong predicted the fall of the Berlin Wall from the 1950s in many Plain Truth articles and wrote a booklet, at the height of the Cold War, "Why Russia Will Not Attack America", when almost all prophetic opinion said Russia was the Beast which would attack America. The church teaches that Europe will be America's thorn in the side and predicted from the 1950s that East and Western European would be united. The church sees the European Union as the Beast power.

The church's top theologian, Vance Stinson, will join the convention on Wednesday and is expected to deliver some powerful doctrinal presentations.

Services begin at 10 a.m., and will move to the Hibiscus Lodge Hotel from Monday and then back to the Jamaica Grande next Saturday for the final day of the convention. The public is invited.