Dear Friends and Fellow Laborers, Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong met King Bhumibol Adulyadej the first time in 1971. At that time, the king told him about a new project to educate the ethnic hill tribes that inhabited the highland border region of northern Thailand. These hill tribes grew opium and sold it to Chinese middle-men as their only cash crop. The king wanted to teach them to grow other crops, such as peaches and vegetables, to replace the opium they grew. This would be more profitable for the hill tribes and much less destructive to the upland forests and humanity as a whole. The king also wanted to give their children an education but had very few trained teachers.