In 1987, Lyman Swingle, a member of the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses, spoke to 63,580 people gathered in the Plaza Monumental bullring in Valencia, Venezuela. Many had traveled by bus all night to hear him. Addressing the large crowd, Brother Swingle said: “You are no longer a small branch. Now you are a medium-size branch. And by the looks of it, some day soon you will be in the ‘100,000-publishers club’!”

Back in 1987, Venezuela had over 38,000 publishers​—Jehovah’s Witnesses who were active proclaimers of the good news of the Kingdom. At that time, only eight countries had more than 100,000 publishers.

The worldwide growth of Jehovah’s Witnesses has been impressive. Following World War I, only a few thousand were publicly announcing Jehovah’s Kingdom. That changed. The 1943 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses stated: “The combined report for 1942, though incomplete, due to lack of communications, is a blessed one . . . , for it shows that throughout all the world there are now upward of 106,000 publishers reporting as engaging in the work [of preaching the good news].” Even amid the turmoil of World War II, many people responded positively to Bible truth. In 1950, the United States alone surpassed 100,000 publishers.

The next country to reach 100,000 publishers was Nigeria in 1974.

The following year the number of publishers in both Brazil and Germany surpassed 100,000. Such growth on four continents testified to the universal appeal of Bible truth.

Throughout the earth, the numbers of those who embraced the good news continued to grow. This was in harmony with what the Bible foretold: “The little one will become a thousand and the small one a mighty nation. I myself, Jehovah, will speed it up in its own time.”​—Isaiah 60:22.

According to the report for the 2014 service year, there are 24 countries with more than 100,000 Witnesses each. That includes Venezuela, which reached that milestone in 2007. Worldwide, there are 115,416 congregations of Jehovah’s Witnesses and 8,201,545 publishers.