Venezuela

GETTING to know Venezuela may seem like taking a world tour. What might you see? Perhaps an Indian hunting in the jungle with a spear. A well-dressed senora shopping in a luxurious boutique. Guests dancing to an African-style drumbeat at an evening fiesta. A small boy pulling his poncho around him against the cold mountain wind as he runs to round up his sheep. And more than 71,000 of Jehovah’s Witnesses​—young and old, from many backgrounds—​busy talking to others about the true God and his Kingdom.

The majority of Venezuelans find their roots in a mixture of Indian, Spanish, and African ancestries. Since the second world war, many European immigrants from Italy, Portugal, and Spain have become a notable part of the population. And an observer cannot help but be impressed by the number of young people everywhere.

Venezuela, situated on the north coast of South America, is indeed a land of remarkable contrasts. The 1,750 miles [2,800 km] of Caribbean coastline fanned by tropical breezes contrasts with snowcapped mountains and  lush jungles. There are not only vast plains called the llanos but also breathtakingly beautiful waterfalls, such as Cuquenán, with a single 2,000-foot [600 m] drop, and Salto Angel, or Angel Falls, the highest in the world, plunging 3,212 feet [979 m] from an underground river that originates in the rocky mesa above. The capital, Caracas, with some 4,000,000 inhabitants, is a modern metropolis with sophisticated shopping centers. A network of good roads connect it to the interior. But looking down at the prosperity of Caracas are hundreds of thousands of people who live in hillside squatter settlements.

The Religious Climate in Venezuela

The vast majority of Venezuelans are Roman Catholic, although the church no longer has the hold on people that it once did. The native Indians, while often nominally Catholic, have their own rites and superstitions, as do those of African descent. Witchcraft and spiritism are very popular here. Many people wear amulets to protect them against the evil eye. The María Lionza cult, which is similar to voodoo, is widespread. Also, evangelical religious groups are growing in numbers.

“Saints” and “virgins” play a large part in the lives of Venezuelan Catholics. Each area of the country has its own particular “saint” or “virgin.” Most homes have religious pictures. In some homes, above the front door, there is a cutting of a plant to ward off evil spirits, or a Bible on a table is left open to Psalm 91 in the belief that this will afford the household certain protection.

Often, next to the picture of their favorite “saint” is one of Simón Bolívar, who achieved independence from Spanish rule for Venezuela and four other South American countries. Attesting to the honor in which he is held, here in Venezuela you will find Simón Bolívar International Airport, Simón Bolívar University, Simón Bolívar Avenue, Bolívar City, and  Bolívar State. Also the currency is the bolivar. Every town in Venezuela has a central plaza, nearly always called Plaza Bolívar. Sayings attributed to him are often seen carefully painted on public walls.

Along with this, however, an outstanding characteristic of the Venezuelans is their deep respect for God and a professed belief in the Bible. Hardly ever is a person ridiculed for wanting to talk about spiritual things. This receptive attitude provided fertile soil for the planting of seeds of truth about Jehovah God and his purposes.

Women With Real Missionary Spirit

While much of the world was still trying to cope with conditions resulting from the first world war and while Adolf Hitler was stirring up trouble in Europe, two of Jehovah’s Witnesses living in Texas, U.S.A.​—a woman named Kate Goas and her daughter Marion—​decided they would like to do more to spread the message of peace contained in the Bible. They wrote to the Brooklyn, New York, headquarters of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society asking where they could best be used; they explained that they had a knowledge of Spanish. Their assignment? Venezuela.

They arrived by ship in 1936 and rented a room in the capital, Caracas, which back then had a population of 200,000. Already, over a decade earlier, some Bible Students​—as Jehovah’s Witnesses were then known—​had visited Venezuela and had distributed thousands of Bible tracts in the principal cities, but they did not remain in the country. However, Kate Goas and her daughter were not in Venezuela for just a brief visit. Though rather refined and delicate in appearance, Kate carried an enormous bag of literature and a phonograph as she called from door to door. She and her daughter systematically covered all of Caracas. This having been accomplished,  they moved into the interior of the country, traveling long distances by bus on dusty, unpaved roads. They preached in such places as Quiriquire, El Tigre, Ciudad Bolívar in the east, and Maracaibo in the west.

However, in July 1944 they had to return to the United States because Marion had contracted malaria. Kate Goas, in a letter to the Society dated August 2, 1944, wrote the following: “We have placed lots of literature . . . After witnessing practically throughout the Republic, we continue to find people that like our literature and read it each time we come round . . . Now, after a two-year constant witness in Caracas, seven persons, six sisters and one brother, have taken their stand for righteousness, having been baptized . . . These brethren are very happy in their Christian knowledge of Jehovah and his Kingdom . . . A good witness has indeed been given over and over again in all Caracas, and the content of the literature is well known . . . Yours for His Theocracy, Kate Goas.” The “one brother” here mentioned was young Rubén Araujo, about whom we will hear more later. (Incidentally, the seven who had been baptized by Sister Goas were rebaptized in 1946 by a brother, in harmony with the Bible pattern that shows baptisms being performed only by males who were in an approved relationship with Jehovah.)

Laying the Foundation for an Expanded Witness

At the time that Kate Goas wrote her letter to the Society, plans were being made in Brooklyn to send to Venezuela missionaries trained at the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead. Nathan Knorr and Fred Franz, at that time the president and the vice president of the Watch Tower Society, traveled to Latin America repeatedly to lay the groundwork for expanded missionary work there. They scheduled a visit to Venezuela for 1946. Three missionaries, graduates of Gilead School, had been assigned to Venezuela, but so far they had not received  their visas. Who would organize things for the president’s visit on April 9-12, 1946?

One of the three missionaries was sent ahead on a tourist visa. He arrived by air and stayed at the home of Jeanette Atkins, a hospitable person who had learned the truth from Kate Goas. But three weeks after his arrival, the missionary mysteriously disappeared. His landlady and friends checked with the police and the airlines, finally discovering that he had returned to the United States with a bad dose of homesickness!

Before that occurred, however, Brothers Knorr and Franz had a most beneficial visit with the group in Venezuela. Rubén Araujo recalls that on the very day of their arrival, a meeting was held in the patio of the home of Jeanette Atkins, where 22 people heard talks by the visiting brothers.

Among those present was Pedro Morales, who was all fired up with the good news. “In the late 1930’s,” he later said, “Kate Goas and her daughter placed the book Riches with me in the main market of Maracaibo. Years later, I began reading it, and it opened up the Bible for me. When I got to the part about marking deserving ones in the forehead, it was like fire! (Ezek. 9:4) This started me looking for people who had this literature. I found four people who had been receiving books from a Trinidadian. We met together to study Riches every night, using each one’s home in turn as a meeting place.”

When Pedro received an invitation to go to Caracas (a distance of about 430 miles [700 km]) for the meeting to be held during the visit of Brother Knorr, he and a friend determined to make the trip. But there were problems to be dealt with. Pedro continued: “My pregnant wife started to have birth pains, and my business needed my attention. What to do? I got a midwife to stay with my wife and left the candy business in the care of my three children, aged 14, 12, and 10. Then we left by bus for Caracas, a hard trip, two days on unpaved roads.”  What a joy it was for him to meet the Witnesses in Caracas! While there, he received a telegram from Maracaibo: “Wife well. Child better. Myself in the business. Justo Morales.” His own brother had arrived unexpectedly from Colombia and taken charge of things.

On the very first day of those special meetings in Caracas, Brother Franz spoke on “Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Crucible.” Then Brother Knorr continued the theme while Fred Franz interpreted. What an eye-opener this discussion was! It focused attention on what the Bible says Christians must expect at the hands of the world, and it gave details of the intense persecution that Jehovah’s Witnesses had experienced in Europe during World War II.

The next day a baptism took place at Los Chorros, in a water basin at the foot of a waterfall. Ten people got baptized that day, including Winston Blackwood (who had been contacted by Sister Goas in Quiriquire) and his son Eduardo, Horacio Mier y Terán and his younger brother Efraín, Pedro Morales, Gerardo Jessurun from Surinam (Suriname), Israel Francis, and José Mateus.

Pedro Morales and two other brothers from the west of the country were overjoyed when Brother Knorr said that the Society would send missionaries to Maracaibo as soon as the government would permit. Pedro himself became a regular pioneer and continued in that service until his death.

Love for Bible Truth Impelled Them

Before the arrival of the missionaries, the Society’s headquarters office in Brooklyn had been receiving reports from the tiny group formed by Sister Goas. There was just a handful of publishers, with very little literature. Books often had to be lent to interested people. The report sent in for March 1946 showed nine proclaimers of the good news in Venezuela, with  Josefina López looking after the group, since she was the most active one in the group.

Rubén Araujo recollects the sterling example set by Sister López: “I was a teenager at the time . . . Josefina López was a mother of four sons and two daughters and very enthusiastic about what she was learning from Sister Goas. Almost every day after school, I would go to her house and discuss with her the new things she was learning about the truth. Although a busy housewife, Sister López managed to go out preaching from house to house and to conduct Bible studies every day after lunch, after her husband and oldest boys went back to work in the afternoon. She was a good example to all of us and really had the pioneer spirit, averaging between 60 and 70 hours a month as a publisher. After more than 40 years, there are still living letters of recommendation on her behalf in Caracas.”

Another in the original group was Domitila Mier y Terán, a widow. She had always had an inclination toward spiritual things. Her father had a Bible that she loved to read, and when he died, she searched his house to find it. His Bible was the only inheritance she wanted. What she found was just a part of the Bible, the rest having been torn by misuse. Yet, she treasured even that portion and used it until she was later able to buy a complete new Bible for herself. One day a friend who had acquired the Society’s book Reconciliation brought it to Domitila, saying that as an avid Bible reader, Domitila would appreciate it more. In an earnest effort to locate the publishers of the book, Domitila visited the Adventists and other Protestant groups. Finally, to Domitila’s delight, Kate Goas called at her home, and immediately Domitila agreed to study the Bible with her. Two of her sons, baptized during the first visit of Brothers Knorr and Franz, later served as circuit overseers, and a third, Gonzalo, as a congregation elder. Yet another son, Guillermo, though present when Kate Goas first called  at their home, was not baptized until 1986.

“And How Long Are You Going to Stay?”

On June 2, 1946, shortly after Brother Knorr’s visit, the other two missionaries from the group assigned to Venezuela arrived. They were Donald Baxter and Walter Wan. Young Rubén Araujo was on hand to meet them in Caracas. Eyeing them dubiously, no doubt with the previous missionary’s experience still fresh in his mind, Rubén asked in his broken English: “And how long are you going to stay?”

Rubén had arranged for a Watchtower Study, and it was held the very day that the missionaries arrived. He tried to put into practice the instructions that Brother Franz had given him. He did the best he could, but it was a one-man study. Rubén read the question. Then he answered it. Then he read the paragraph. He remembered that the study was not to exceed one hour, so he obediently stopped on time even though he had covered only 17 paragraphs, which was not the whole lesson! Experience would come with time and patience.

 Today, reflecting on the sudden departure of the first missionary, Rubén Araujo adds: “A short time after that, the emptiness that he left was filled by the two new Gilead graduates. How happy we felt about this gift from Jehovah’s organization in the form of these missionaries to aid us in the Venezuelan Macedonia!” (Compare Acts 16:9, 10.) Previously, Brother Knorr had said to Brother Baxter: “Stay in that assignment, even if it kills you!” Well, it did not, and Brother Baxter still serves in Venezuela nearly 50 years later.

Getting Adjusted to New Surroundings

The first missionary home in Caracas was at 32 Bucares Avenue, in a section called El Cementerio. This is also where a branch office was opened on September 1, 1946, with Donald Baxter as branch servant. Living conditions were far from ideal. The road was unpaved, and there was no running water. Understandably, the missionaries were quite relieved in 1949 when the branch and missionary home moved from El Cementerio (the cemetery) to El Paraíso (paradise), a location with running water.

Brother Baxter recalls the missionaries’ “teething” problems with the language and their feelings of frustration. They were eager to use their Gilead training to help, but when they arrived they were unable to communicate. However, this temporary difficulty was more than offset by favorable results in the field. Regarding the first street witnessing that they did, Brother Baxter recalls: “We decided to go to the area in the center of town known as El Silencio and see what would happen. My partner, Walter Wan, stood on one corner and I on another. People were very curious; they had never seen anything like this before. We hardly had to say anything. The people actually lined up to obtain the magazines, and we placed all our magazines in 10 to 15 minutes. How different this was from what we were used to in the States!” Walter Wan said:  “On taking inventory, I found to my amazement that during four eventful days of praising Jehovah on the streets and in the marketplaces as had Jesus and the apostles, I had placed 178 books and Bibles.”

The first report sent by the branch to the headquarters office in Brooklyn, New York, showed a total of 19 publishers, including the two missionaries and four regular pioneers. Those pioneers were Eduardo Blackwood, Rubén Araujo, Efraín Mier y Terán, and Gerardo Jessurun. Eduardo Blackwood had begun to pioneer during the month of Brother Knorr’s visit, and the other three had enrolled soon afterward. Nine were preaching in the interior of the country. Winston and Eduardo Blackwood, who lived in El Tigre, were witnessing as far south as Ciudad Bolívar and as far east as the oil camps near Punta de Mata and Maturín. Pedro Morales and others were preaching in Maracaibo. On the east side of Lake Maracaibo in the oil camps of Cabimas and Lagunillas, Gerardo Jessurun, Nathaniel Walcott, and David Scott were preaching. Later they were joined by Hugo Taylor, who in 1995 was still serving as a special pioneer. All together, they were covering a vast area of the country. Brother Baxter and Brother Wan soon found out from personal experience what it was really like.

Setting Out to Visit All the Groups

During October and November 1947, the two missionaries traveled both to the far west and to the eastern part of the country to see what could be done to help the small groups. Their objective was to organize these groups into congregations. “We traveled by bus, which really was quite an experience in Venezuela,” recalled Brother Baxter with a smile as he thought about that memorable expedition. “The seats in the buses were small and close together, as most of the Venezuelans are small; so we two North Americans found there was hardly enough room for our legs. On top of the buses, it was  not uncommon to see beds, sewing machines, tables, chickens, turkeys, and bananas, along with the baggage of the travelers. If a passenger was going only a short distance, he would not bother to put his chickens or small articles on top but would bring them into the bus with him and pile them up in the aisle between the seats. The bus broke down, so for several hours, until another bus came along, we were stranded in a wilderness where only cacti and goats lived. After that we ran out of gas.”

At each of the four locations visited, they found a group of about ten who were meeting in someone’s front room. The missionaries showed them how to conduct meetings, how to report their activity regularly to the branch office, and how to obtain literature for their preaching activity.

While in El Tigre, Brother Baxter noticed that Alejandro Mitchell, one of the new brothers there, had taken quite literally the admonition at Matthew 10:27 to preach from the housetops. He had set up a loudspeaker on top of his house, and every day for half an hour or so he would read aloud selected portions from the book Children or The New World as well as from other Watch Tower literature. He did it with the volume turned up so loud that he could be heard for several blocks! Not surprisingly, this upset the neighbors. It was suggested to him that it might be better to preach from house to house and to abandon the loudspeaker.

The trip to visit the various small groups was very beneficial. During the two months of traveling, the brothers were able to baptize 16 people.

Missionaries Arrive in Maracaibo

Maracaibo, in the northwest part of the country, is the second-largest city in Venezuela. Two of its outstanding features are its heat and its high humidity. It is also Venezuela’s oil  capital. The new part of the city is a vivid contrast to the old town near the docks; that older part, with its narrow streets and colonial-style adobe houses, has hardly changed since the last century.

Six missionaries arrived in Maracaibo by cargo ship on December 25, 1948. They were loaded down with heavy winter clothing because they had just come from cold New York. In the group were Ragna Ingwaldsen, who had been baptized in 1918 and who still pioneers in California, Bernice Greisen (now “Bun” Henschel, a member of the Bethel family at the world headquarters), Charles and Maye Vaile, Esther Rydell (Ragna’s half sister), and Joyce McCully. They were welcomed into the small home of a couple newly associated with the Witnesses. Here the perspiring missionaries arranged their 15 trunks and 40 cartons of literature as best they could. Four slept in hammocks and two on beds made of book cartons until they found a house to rent for their missionary home.

Ragna recalls that the six of them looked very strange to the Maracuchos, as the inhabitants of Maracaibo are popularly called. Several of the missionaries were tall and blond. “Often when calling from house to house, we would have up to ten naked little children following us, listening to the strange way we spoke their language,” Ragna later said. “Not one of the six of us knew more than a dozen words in Spanish. But when they laughed at us, we would just laugh along with them.” When these missionaries arrived, there were only four publishers in Maracaibo. Early in 1995 there were 51 congregations with a total of 4,271 publishers.

His Prayer Was Heard

The couple that had kindly welcomed the six missionaries into their home were Benito and Victoria Rivero. Benito had received the book “The Kingdom Is at Hand” from  Juan Maldonado, a pioneer from Caracas. When Pedro Morales later called on Benito to offer a study, Benito was enthusiastic; not only did he study but he immediately began to attend the meetings of the small group. He also encouraged his wife to attend, telling her​—because she liked to sing—​that the songs they sang were very pretty. She would go with him, but she really did not understand all that was being said, so she would often fall asleep.

One night at home, thinking his wife was asleep, Benito prayed aloud to Jehovah and asked him to enlighten her. She overheard the prayer and was deeply moved by it. Following Benito’s death in 1955, Victoria became a regular pioneer and then a special pioneer.

 Reaching Rural Areas Around Maracaibo

Among those who embraced the truth in the Maracaibo area was the father of Rebeca (now Rebeca Barreto). She was only five years old when Gerardo Jessurun began studying the Bible with her father, who progressed to baptism in 1954. She holds wonderful memories of sharing in the preaching work as a young person. “We would hire a bus, and the whole congregation would travel out to the rural areas,” she recalls. “The countryfolk had little money but appreciated the literature. It was quite a sight at the end of the day to see the brothers and sisters pile onto the bus with eggs, squash, corn, and live chickens that had been given to them in exchange for literature.”

But not everyone was glad to see them. Sister Barreto recalls an incident that took place in the village of Mene de Mauroa. She says: “As we went from door to door, the local Catholic priest followed behind us, tearing up literature that people had accepted and telling them not to listen to Jehovah’s Witnesses. He stirred up a mob that included many young people and managed to get them into a furious mood so that they threw stones at us. Several brothers and sisters were hit.” The group of Witnesses ran to the prefecto of the town for help. Being kindly disposed toward the Witnesses, he told the priest that he would have to keep him in his office for a couple of hours ‘for his own protection against these preachers.’ The crowd, now without a leader, dispersed, and the Witnesses joyfully spent the next two hours, free of harassment, giving a thorough witness in the town.

More Help Arrives

The territory was vast, and additional help would be needed to care for it. More workers who had recently graduated from Gilead School arrived in September 1949 to share  in the spiritual harvest. They were willing, yes, eager to have a part, but that does not mean it was easy for them. When the lights of the port came into view through the porthole of her cabin on the ship Santa Rosa, Rachel Burnham felt that she had never been more relieved to see anything in her life. She had been seasick ever since the ship had left New York. Although it was three o’clock in the morning, she excitedly woke up the other three girls. Her sister Inez and the other girls, Dixie Dodd and her sister Ruby (now Baxter), had enjoyed the journey but were glad to be arriving in their new assignment.

On hand to greet them was a group that included Donald Baxter, Bill and Elsa Hanna (missionaries who had arrived the preceding year), and Gonzalo Mier y Terán. They boarded a bus to take them from the port to Caracas. The driver seemed to want to make the journey extra hair-raising for the newcomers, and he certainly succeeded. Around hairpin turns, one after another, he went, often along the edge of a precipice and at a rate that seemed much too fast! To this day the sisters still talk about that ride.

They were assigned to the branch and missionary home in El Paraíso. Rachel served faithfully in the missionary field until her death in 1981; Inez, in 1991. The others of that group are still loyally serving Jehovah.

As Dixie Dodd looks back on the first months in their assignment, she says: “We felt so homesick. But we couldn’t even have gone to the airport if we had wanted to. We didn’t have enough money!” Instead, they focused their attention on the fact that Jehovah’s organization had entrusted them with an assignment as missionaries in a foreign land. Eventually, they stopped dreaming about going home and applied themselves to the work.

 Misunderstood

For most of the new missionaries, the language was a problem​—at least for a while.

Dixie Dodd recalls that one of the first things they were told was to say “Mucho gusto” whenever they were introduced to someone. That very day they were taken along to a Congregation Book Study. En route on the bus, they repeated the expression again and again: “Mucho gusto. Mucho gusto.” “But when we were introduced,” says Dixie, “we’d forgotten it!” In time, however, they did remember.

Bill and Elsa Hanna, who served as missionaries from 1948 until 1954, long recalled some of their blunders. Once when Brother Hanna wanted to buy a dozen white eggs, he asked for huesos blancos (white bones) instead of huevos blancos. Another time, he wanted to buy a broom. Afraid that he had not been understood, he tried being more specific: “To sweep ‘el cielo’” (the sky), he said, instead of el suelo (the floor). With a touch of humor, the storekeeper replied: “What a lot of ambition you’ve got, Mister.”

When Bill’s wife, Elsa, went to the embassy, she asked them to remover (remove) her passport instead of to renovar (renew) it. “What did you do, Lady,” asked the secretary, “swallow it?”

Genee Rogers, a missionary who arrived in 1967, was a little discouraged at first when after each carefully rehearsed presentation, the householder would turn to her companion and ask: “¿Qué dijo?” (What did she say?) But Sister Rogers did not stop trying, and in some 28 years as a missionary, she has helped 40 people to learn the truth and progress to the point of water baptism.

Willard Anderson, who arrived from Gilead with his wife, Elaine, in November 1965, openly admits that language has never been his forte. Always ready to laugh at his  own mistakes, Willard says: “I studied Spanish in junior high school for six months until my teacher made me promise I would never take his class again!”

But with Jehovah’s spirit, perseverance, and a good sense of humor, the missionaries soon came to feel at home with their new language.

Even the Houses Have Names

It was not only the language that was different for the missionaries. They needed to use a different system for keeping track of homes where they wanted to call again. In the early days, many houses in Caracas did not have numbers. Each house owner chose a name for his house. The better-class homes are known as quintas and often are named after the lady of the house. For example, one’s address might be Quinta Clara. Often it is a combination of the children’s names: Quinta Carosi (Carmen, Rosa, Simon). The owner of the first branch and missionary home that the Society rented had already named his house Quinta Savtepaul (Saint Vincent de Paul), and as it was on a main road, it quickly became well known as the place where Jehovah’s Witnesses met.

In 1954 when a brand-new house was bought to serve as branch office and missionary home, it was up to the brothers to use their imagination and choose a suitable name. Bearing in mind Jesus’ admonition to “let your light shine before men,” the name Luz (Light) was chosen for the house. (Matt. 5:16) Although the branch office was later moved to larger premises, early in 1995 Quinta Luz was still home to 11 missionaries.

The center of Caracas has an address system all its own. If you ask the address of a certain business or apartment building, you may be told something like, “La Fe a Esperanza.” ‘“Faith to Hope”? But that doesn’t sound like an address!’  you may say. Ah, but in the center of Caracas each intersection has a name. So the address you are looking for is on the block between Faith and Hope.

From Venezuela to Gilead and Back

Over the years 136 Gilead-trained missionaries, including 7 who benefited from the Ministerial Training School course, have come to Venezuela from other lands​—from the United States, Canada, Germany, Sweden, New Zealand, England, Puerto Rico, Denmark, Uruguay, and Italy. Between 1969 and 1984, no new missionaries arrived in Venezuela from Gilead, as it proved impossible to obtain visas. However, during 1984 a concerted effort to obtain permission for two couples to come into the country met with success, and two more missionaries arrived in 1988. Six local Witnesses have also benefited from Gilead training.

When Brother Knorr visited in 1946, young Rubén Araujo asked whether he might qualify someday to attend Gilead. “Yes, if you improve your English” was the reply. “Needless to say, I was very happy,” says Rubén. “Three years later, in October 1949, I received a letter of invitation from Brother Knorr to attend the 15th class, scheduled to begin during the winter early in 1950.”

The other five brothers who attended Gilead from Venezuela are Eduardo Blackwood and Horacio Mier y Terán (both of whom got baptized in 1946 during Brother Knorr’s first visit), Teodoro Griesinger (about whom more will be said), Casimiro Zyto (who had emigrated from France and became a naturalized Venezuelan), and, more recently, Rafael Longa (who has been serving as a circuit overseer).

Some Were Searching, Others Were Not

Back in 1948, Víctor Mejías, in Caracas, was thinking about a better world. He sincerely thought it could be attained  by the efforts of men, and he was ready to do his part. Yet, he also had doubts.

That year, Josefina López, a very pleasant Witness, left the book “The Truth Shall Make You Free” with Víctor’s wife, Dilia. The title interested Víctor, so he started to read the book. He learned why humans by themselves can never produce a truly free world. Soon he and his wife were attending meetings with the Witnesses. He later said: “Although the ones attending were strangers, their faces were so friendly that this convinced me that they were different. I also remember being impressed when I saw Brother Knorr, the Society’s president, at an assembly at Club Las Fuentes in Caracas. He was so different from the religious leaders, heroes, and famous artists who all want to be seen by men. His humility and simple manner impressed me.” Soon Víctor too was  sharing with others the truth that can make people free​—yes, free even from sin and death. A few years ago, when looking back on the decades that he has devoted to sharing Bible truth with others, Brother Mejías said: “These years have been the happiest of my whole life.”

In 1950, the year that Víctor Mejías got baptized, another young man in Caracas, Teodoro Griesinger, asked Ronald  Pierce, who had recently begun his missionary service: “Explain to me the meaning of the number 666 in Revelation.” Teodoro had been left a large German Bible by his father and would read it from time to time. “It was not so much the past that interested me,” explains Teodoro, “but the future, things that were still to happen, mentioned in Revelation.” Satisfied with the explanation given by Brother Pierce, he agreed to Brother Pierce’s proposition to study the book “Let God Be True.” The book was in Spanish, Teodoro’s Bible was in German, and both teacher and student were speaking English. Progress was rapid. By 1951, Teodoro had enrolled as a pioneer, the following year he accepted an assignment as a special pioneer in Puerto La Cruz, in 1954 he graduated from Gilead School, and then he took up service as a circuit overseer in Venezuela.

At about the time that Ronald Pierce began to study with Teodoro Griesinger, a heavyset man, Nemecio Lozano, was living in an Indian village outside El Tigre in order to avoid the police. He was a bully and was handy with a knife. The chief of the Indians was afraid of him and did what he said, so, in effect, Lozano was chief. The Witnesses had been warned about him, but they preached to him anyway. He interrupted and said brusquely: “Look! I don’t want you to explain things to me. I want to read for myself.” But they had run out of literature. Well, he insisted on obtaining a brother’s personal copy of “The Truth Shall Make You Free”​—but only after he first made sure that none of the pages were missing! Would it really benefit someone like him?

Within a week he had read the book, had obtained some booklets to distribute, and had started out on his own to preach. When the Witnesses went back to see him, they anxiously asked him what he was telling the people. He replied: “You can have this booklet for the miserable sum of a medio”  (a local coin). They tactfully explained how he could express himself better.

To attend meetings in El Tigre, 19 miles [30 km] away, he rode a horse or a bicycle, and at times he walked. Gradually, he replaced his former ways with Christian qualities. Soon he was devoting so much time to preaching that the circuit overseer encouraged him to enroll as a pioneer. In 1955 he was sent out as a special pioneer, and he and his wife, Omaira, still serve in that capacity.

Maintaining Spiritual Purity

In the early days, the light of God’s Word did not always shine with sparkling clarity in every locality. Some who were associated with the study group in El Tigre had ideas that they had brought with them from the world. Rafael Hernández and his wife, who had contact with the truth as far back as 1947, remember when there was a brother in the group that met in El Tigre who would read meaning into his dreams. And for a while some thought that as long as a couple were faithful to each other, there was no need for the marriage to be legally registered. But gradually those ideas were replaced as a result of sound Bible instruction.

However, in the late 1940’s, one of the ten who got baptized in 1946 during Brother Knorr’s first visit to Venezuela began to promote his own teachings in an attempt to raise up a personal following. Leopoldo Farreras, today an elder in Ciudad Guayana, recalls what occurred. He had been principal altar boy (monaguillo) in the Roman Catholic Church but had left it at the age of 20 because of the blatant immorality of the clergy. Now he saw someone else improperly using authority. Despite lack of experience and his youthfulness at the time, Leopoldo steered a steady course through these troubled waters in El Tigre and proved loyal to Jehovah and his organization.

 A few years later, the wife of Leonard Cumberbatch, who is now an elder in El Tigre, began studying with Jehovah’s Witnesses. “My reaction was terrible,” Leonard admits. “We had always lived peacefully and lovingly together, but once she started studying the Bible, I became sarcastic. On one occasion she told me off for driving the car dangerously fast. I told her not to worry, that her God, Jehovah, would save her​—after all, she was going to live forever anyway. I didn’t slow down.

“I told her that the Witnesses were taking advantage of her, that I knew more about the Bible than they did, and that I wanted to talk to them. They accepted my challenge. It turned out to be an agreeable conversation. I failed to prove that they were teaching falsehoods, so I agreed to study the Bible with them. Five months after starting to study, I was baptized. I was named study conductor of a group in Anaco, as I had a car. Serving that group involved a round-trip of 100 miles [160 km]. Then I was asked to care for another group 19 miles [30 km] away. There are now congregations in these towns.”

El Tigre itself, located in the east of Venezuela, is an important trading center. It has also become an important center of true worship. Early in 1995, there were seven congregations of Jehovah’s Witnesses in El Tigre, with a total of over 730 publishers of the good news.

A Jeweler Stops Making Images

Southeast of El Tigre is Ciudad Bolívar, on the south bank of the Orinoco River. It is a busy place, with much river traffic. In 1947 one of Jehovah’s Witnesses called on María Charles in that city. María says: “I am a jeweler by trade, and I was sitting at work in my shop one day when Alejandro Mitchell came by with a cloth bag hanging over his shoulder.  I said: ‘What have you got there?’ He replied: ‘Ah, a special treasure.’ ‘Well, if it’s gold you’ve got, I’ll buy it,’ I said, ‘as that’s my business.’ He said that what he had was better than gold. ‘The only thing I know better than gold is the Bible,’ I said. Alejandro admitted that I was right and brought out a Bible and other literature.

“I loved to read but had never been able to understand the Bible, so I said to him: ‘I’ll buy the lot.’ That day I took 11 magazines from him as well as the books “The Kingdom Is at Hand,” Salvation, and a new Bible. So fascinated was I by what I read that I decided not to work in the jeweler’s shop for a week so that I could dedicate myself to my reading. When reading the book “The Kingdom Is at Hand,” I was impressed by the example of John the Baptizer and said to myself, ‘I’d like to be a fearless preacher like him.’”

María asked around for the Witnesses’ meeting place but was told there was not one in Ciudad Bolívar. The nearest one was in El Tigre, about 75 miles [120 km] away. Undaunted, off she went, found the place, attended a meeting, and left a note for Alejandro Mitchell to please call on her in Ciudad Bolívar.

Meanwhile, she discovered that a tailor nearby also had the book “The Kingdom Is at Hand.” He knew where a small group met to read The Watchtower. María went along and found Leopoldo Farreras, his mother, his sister, and a few others. She enjoyed the meeting and was so enthusiastic about the material that she raised her hand for every question!

When the study was over, Leopoldo Farreras asked her: “And where have you come from?” María replied: “From my jeweler’s shop, but I won’t be making any more images.” Smiling at her directness, Farreras asked her: “Why not?” “Because of what it says at Psalm 115:4-8,” replied María.

 The group was not yet organized for public witnessing. It was actually this newest member, María Charles, who suggested that they obey the Bible’s command to preach. They fitted themselves out with testimony cards and literature and made a start in taking the good news to the inhabitants of Ciudad Bolívar in an organized way. The first few years were very difficult because the people feared the clergy. But the zealous group’s faithful efforts bore fruit. As of 1995, in Ciudad Bolívar there were nine congregations and a total of 869 publishers.

More Missionaries Arrive

There was exciting news at the branch office in Caracas in 1950. Fourteen more missionaries were going to be sent to Venezuela, and three more missionary homes were to be opened​—in Barquisimeto, Valencia, and Maracay. But would the missionaries be able to get into the country? The president had just been assassinated; there was a 6:00 p.m. curfew; communications had been affected.

The first plane to enter the country after the assassination landed at the airport near Caracas. Fourteen new missionaries disembarked. But no one was there to meet them. Under the circumstances, they simply were not expected. Ralphine (Penny) Gavette, one of the 14, recalls: “We got into three taxis armed with the address of the branch. Finding the street, Avenida Páez in Caracas, wasn’t the problem; but it is a very long avenue, and we couldn’t find the house. It was dark, past curfew, and the taxi drivers were getting nervous. At last, Vin Chapman, one of the missionaries, told the driver to stop and he’d go and knock on any door and ask directions, though his Spanish was very limited. When he knocked, Donald Baxter, the branch overseer, opened the door. What a relief!”

 The missionaries assigned to Barquisimeto, about 170 miles [270 km] southwest of Caracas, found it to be a very religious city. In the 1950’s, the people there were steeped in tradition and resisted change.

But reactions differed, depending on what was being done and by whom. Regarding the first Saturday that the missionaries went out to do street witnessing, Brother Chapman recalls: “The five of us stood on the main corners of the downtown business section. We caused quite a sensation! There were hardly any Americans in Barquisimeto at that time and no young American girls. I couldn’t seem to place any magazines, but the girls placed them like hotcakes!” Another day, however, when they went to the open market to buy food, the four girls decided to wear their blue jeans. Within minutes nearly a hundred women had formed a circle around them, pointing and shouting: “¡Mira! ¡Mira!” (Look! Look!) They were not accustomed to seeing girls on the street in such attire. Naturally, the girls went straight home and changed their clothes.

Most people in this area had never seen a Bible. Even when a Catholic Bible was used, they did not want to accept what it said. Some would not even read a scripture out of the Bible, fearing that they would be sinning if they did. For the first year, very little progress was made in Barquisimeto.

At Last, the True Religion

Not everyone in Barquisimeto was blinded by years of Roman Catholic tradition, however. An outstanding example was Luna de Alvarado, a very elderly lady who had been a Roman Catholic for many years. When Sister Gavette called at her door for the first time, the woman said: “Senorita, ever since I was a young girl, I have waited for someone to come to my door and explain the things you have just told me. You  see, when I was a girl, I used to clean the home of the priest, and he had a Bible in his library. I knew that we were forbidden to read it, but I was so curious to know why that, one day when no one was looking, I took it home with me and read it secretly. What I read made me realize that the Catholic Church had not taught us the truth and so was not the true religion. I was afraid to say anything to anyone, but I was sure that some day the ones teaching the true religion would come to our town. When the Protestant religion came, I thought at first that they must be the ones, but I soon discovered that they taught many of the same falsehoods that the Catholic Church taught. Now, what you have just told me is what I read in that Bible so many years ago.” A study was arranged immediately, and it was not long before Luna symbolized her dedication to Jehovah. In spite of severe family opposition, she served Jehovah faithfully until her death.

Eufrosina Manzanares also had a heart that moved her to respond to God’s Word. When Ragna Ingwaldsen first called on her, Eufrosina had never seen a Bible. But she agreed to let Ragna study with her. Ragna recalls: “She had been religious in a formal way, attending Mass every Sunday and always having a lamp lit to a statue of a ‘saint,’ which was in a niche in the wall. To make sure the lamp would never go out, she kept on hand gallons of oil for that express purpose!” But Eufrosina applied what she learned from the Bible. When she learned that certain things were not pleasing to Jehovah, she made changes in her life. Thus, she disposed of her images, quit smoking, and got her marriage legally registered. Later, her mother joined in the study. It was not easy for Eufrosina to get rid of her big cigars. When she was just two years old, her mother used to put a cigarette in her mouth to keep her quiet, and she had smoked ever since then. But now, to please  Jehovah, she quit smoking, got baptized, and became a very zealous publisher.

Six years after the first missionaries were sent to Barquisimeto, there still were only about 50 publishers there. But Jehovah has blessed the persistent efforts to search out sheeplike ones. As of 1995, the 28 congregations in Barquisimeto were reporting a total of 2,443 publishers.

Valencia, a Fruitful Field

About halfway between Barquisimeto and Caracas is the city of Valencia, the fourth-largest city in the republic. The atmosphere of its older and narrower streets is that of old Spain, and like its Spanish namesake, Valencia is famous for its oranges.

From the group of missionaries that arrived in Venezuela in 1950, eight were sent to Valencia. Evelyn Siebert (now Ward) remembers starting out in Valencia with a memorized presentation. “In spite of our lack of knowledge of Spanish, we started many Bible studies,” she recalls. One of these was with Paula Lewis. Paula was a Catholic and very devoted to images, particularly to “The Sacred Heart of Jesus,” from which she regularly asked favors. She would go down to church each week, give her donation of three bolivares, and pray to the image that her husband would return home to stay with the family. As he continued to live apart from them, she decided to speak more forcefully to the image. ‘Lord, if I don’t get results this time, this is the last donation I’m giving you.’ She left her three bolivares and never went back.

Next month Evelyn Siebert called at her door. Paula was happy to listen, took the book “Let God Be True” (even though she did not know how to read), and, with Evelyn’s help, began to study the Bible. Paula and one of her daughters  were among the first ones in Valencia to get baptized. Paula’s husband, Stephen, though at first wanting nothing to do with “this foolishness,” as he called it, reconsidered, went back to live with his family, and also became a servant of Jehovah​—this not as a result of devotion to an image known as The Sacred Heart of Jesus but because of his study of the Bible.

Two years after the other missionaries arrived in Valencia, Lester Baxter (Donald’s older brother) and his wife, Nancy, joined them. Lester had to work especially hard to master Spanish. Not only did he need it for his field ministry but, as the one brother in the missionary group, he was responsible to conduct all the meetings. The intense training yielded good results. Two years later, when the first district was formed in Venezuela, Lester was appointed to be district overseer. Thereafter, he served in the traveling work for 30 years.

Among the missionaries who served in Valencia were short, blond Lothar Kaemmer from Germany and blue-eyed, rosy-cheeked Herbert Hudson from Britain. They were roommates for a while and a living demonstration of how Bible truth affects lives. You see, Lothar as a youngster had been a member of the German Hitler Youth, and Herbert had been in the British Royal Air Force​—enemies during the war! But God’s Word had changed their outlook on life. As missionaries, they worked together to teach people how to live at peace​—first of all with God, also with one another.

Jump the Fence or Take a Firm Stand?

Alice Palusky, one of the missionaries there in Valencia, was calling on 18-year-old Gladys Castillo in 1953. Gladys liked what she was hearing; yet, she was somewhat suspicious because Alice was not using a Catholic Bible. So Gladys went to the cathedral in Valencia and spoke to the bishop. She explained that she was studying with “Protestants,” as  she believed the Witnesses to be, but wanted a Catholic Bible in order to check all the scriptures. At the time the Witnesses were comparatively few and not well known in Valencia. What Gladys had in mind sounded like good sense to the bishop, so he provided her with a Bible. Amazed at what she read there in the Bible, Gladys realized that the Catholics were not practicing what the Bible taught. She decided to leave the church.

In 1955 when she was preparing to get baptized, a test of her faith arose. She was studying to be a schoolteacher, and there was only one more year before graduation. A celebration was planned at her college in honor of the Virgin Mary. Everyone was expected to attend a special Mass. Gladys recalls: “Those were the days of the dictator Pérez Jiménez, and expulsion from schools was common if someone refused to toe the line. The announcement was made that anyone not attending Mass should pick up his letter of expulsion, which would also deny him the opportunity to study elsewhere. This was a real test for me. The time arrived for going to Mass, and I considered hiding in the bathroom or jumping the fence and going home. Finally, I decided to take my stand. I explained to the director of the college that I would not be going to Mass because I no longer considered myself a Catholic but was studying with Jehovah’s Witnesses. Although he was very angry with me, he let me go home. I was not expelled. I was happy to have trusted completely in Jehovah.”

When Clergymen Received a Witness

Among others, members of the clergy received a witness. Marina Silva, one of the first persons to become a Witness in Valencia, recalls the day when the priest of the church that she had attended before becoming a Witness paid her a visit. She was able to talk to him at length. What she remembers most  clearly is that when he was unable to locate the Scripture texts that Marina wanted him to look up, he admitted: ‘At the seminary we studied everything except the Bible.’ He agreed with her on many points; but when she encouraged him to leave the priesthood and serve Jehovah, he said: “Then who would provide me with my arepa?” (Arepa is local maize bread.)

Although Marina herself was formerly a devotee of “The Sacred Heart of Jesus”​—dedicating every Friday to this image—​Bible truth changed her life. She got baptized in 1953, became a special pioneer in 1968, and still continues in that special service. As she has shared in preaching the good news, Marina has had the privilege of helping to open up the work in San Carlos, Temerla, Bejuma, Chirgua, Taborda, Nirgua, and Tinaquillo.

When the message of truth first reached Tinaquillo, just southwest of Valencia, the initial reaction was hostile. Marina remembers that as the small group started to work the town, the local priest, “Monsignor” Granadillo, set up loudspeakers to warn the people. “The yellow fever has arrived in Tinaquillo!” he shouted. “Don’t listen to these people! Defend the town and your religion! Defend the mystery of the holy Trinity!” Marina decided to pay the priest a visit. She went to his house and waited till he came home.

She greeted him, saying: “I am part of the ‘yellow fever’ that you complained about this morning. I would like to make it clear that we are Jehovah’s Witnesses. We are preaching an important message about God’s Kingdom, a message that the church should be preaching but is not.” She bravely asked him for his Bible and showed him the scripture at Acts 15:14, where it is foretold that Jehovah would take out of the nations “a people for his name.” His attitude changed. He said that he was sorry, that he had not realized what kind of people  we were. To everyone’s surprise he attended the public talk to which the sister invited him. After this he accepted the magazines on several occasions in the main plaza. Others observing this were encouraged to take them too. As of 1995, there were four congregations in Tinaquillo and a total of 385 publishers.

Seeds of Bible Truth Flourish in Maracay

You will recall that in addition to the missionaries sent to Barquisimeto and Valencia, some who arrived in 1950 were to give attention to Maracay. That is Venezuela’s fifth-largest city, just 74 miles [120 km] southwest of Caracas. It is located on the east side of Lake Valencia and is rimmed with hills.

With the arrival of the missionaries in Maracay, it became possible to hold meetings in that city too. At that time the missionary group was made up of single brothers. However, by the time that Leila Proctor, an Australian-born missionary, arrived in 1958, although between 12 and 20 were attending meetings, there was only one baptized brother in Maracay. That was Keith Glessing, who with his wife Joyce had graduated from Gilead School in 1955. Because of the shortage of brothers, the help of the sisters was needed in various ways. Sister Proctor recalls: “We sisters had parts on the Service Meetings and helped out with the accounts, the literature, and the magazines. After five months in my assignment, I was assigned a book study to conduct. At first, there were just one inactive publisher and me. The meeting was held by candlelight in a home with a dirt floor. Before long, despite my horrible Spanish, the attendance grew so much that the living room, kitchen, and patio were all full. It could only have been due to Jehovah’s holy spirit.”

So many in Maracay have demonstrated a keen desire to know and serve Jehovah that early in 1995, there were 30 congregations and a total of 2,839 publishers in that city.

 ‘I’ll Shoot You if It’s True!’

Among those in Maracay who were showing interest was María, the wife of Alfredo Cortez. Joyce Glessing had studied the Bible with her for six months. Then one day the husband came home and found this gringa, as American women are called here. He asked his wife what it was all about. By way of explanation, the wife gave him a magazine that Joyce had left with her. It contained an article about spiritism, linking this with Rosicrucianism. He read it with interest because he was involved in their beliefs.

When his wife told Sister Glessing about her husband’s interest in the magazine, arrangements were made for the missionary’s husband, Keith, to call on Mr. Cortez. He did, and a Bible study was started. After only three weeks​—somewhat prematurely—​the missionary invited Mr. Cortez to join him in the door-to-door work. He did, enjoyed it very much, and placed 16 magazines. Overjoyed, he went out that night with non-Witness friends to celebrate his success and got drunk, arriving home at three o’clock in the morning!

The next day he felt bad about it and thought, ‘Either I’m going to serve Jehovah properly or else just go back to my old life-style.’ With difficulty, he was persuaded to continue his Bible study. Gradually leaving behind his former way of life, he progressed to baptism in 1959.

Two weeks later a furious colonel, godfather to one of Alfredo’s daughters, came to see him, pointed a revolver at his chest, and threatened: “Is it true what I’ve heard​—that you’ve become one of Jehovah’s Witnesses? I’ll shoot you if you say it is!” Alfredo kept calm and confirmed that it was true and explained why. Disgusted, the colonel put away his gun and stomped off, saying that he no longer considered himself the girl’s godfather. Thanks to Jehovah’s spirit and Alfredo’s zeal  in witnessing to anybody and everybody, he has been instrumental in helping 89 people to know the truth and dedicate their lives to Jehovah. He presently serves as an elder in Cabudare, near Barquisimeto; one of his sons is a special pioneer; and his daughter Carolina along with her husband serves at the branch.

Be Careful, It’s Carnival Time!

Carnival time in Venezuela is a time for parties and fancy dress​—and for water throwing! Children in particular take great delight in drenching unsuspecting passersby. It is usually not wise to venture out onto the streets the Monday and Tuesday of carnival week.

“I didn’t listen to the warnings,” admits Leila Proctor. “The first year that I was in Maracay, I thought I would conduct my Bible studies no matter what. Well, I did, but I arrived at my first study soaking wet, having been on the receiving end of a bucket of water poured on me from above. I walked to my second study partially dried out, only to be the target of two bucketfuls of water on the way there. I arrived drenched to the skin.” Other missionaries have similar tales to tell.

Leila, who is in the Caracas missionary home in Quinta Luz, now arranges her schedule a little differently at carnival time.

“He Heard My Heartfelt Prayer”

When Alfredo Amador was small, his father would show him the starry heavens and tell him the names of some of the constellations. “God made all those,” he would say. But Alfredo’s father died before his son was ten. Alfredo, who was then living in Turmero, Aragua State, began to have doubts about his religion. It did not seem right to him that the priest charged money to say prayers for the dead or that wealthy  people could get their relatives out of purgatory more quickly than poor folks. Filled with doubts, he got caught up in drunkenness, sexual immorality, violence, and drug abuse. As he began reaping the consequences of what he had sown, he searched for a way out. Then he remembered those nights when he had looked up at the heavens with his father.

“One afternoon, feeling totally desperate and with tears in my eyes,” he relates, “I prayed that God would allow me to know him. It seems he heard my heartfelt prayer, for the very next morning, two of Jehovah’s Witnesses knocked on my door. Interesting discussions ensued, but I wouldn’t agree to a Bible study. I wanted to read the Bible for myself, though I did agree to go to the Kingdom Hall. The brother who visited me also took me along to an assembly nearby in Cagua. Listening to the different talks, I realized that this was the truth. When the baptismal candidates stood up to answer the questions, I did too!”

Alfredo was surprised that all the others who stood up were in one part of the auditorium, while he was in another. But he lined up with them to be baptized. At that, someone asked him what congregation he was from. He did not even know that congregations had names! He soon discovered that he was not really ready to be baptized.

Not long after that, he married the woman with whom he was living, and with the help of a systematic Bible study, he qualified to join the brothers in witnessing from door to door. In 1975 he got baptized together with his wife. Now he serves as a Christian elder in Maracay. He looks forward to the day, in God’s new system, when his father will return in the resurrection. Then he will be able to tell his father that the name of the Creator about whom he spoke many years ago is Jehovah, and he can encourage his father to get to know Jehovah well.

 Disaster in Maracay

The sixth of September 1987 is a date that will long be remembered by those living in the area of Maracay. Torrential rains caused flooding and induced mud slides that swept away or completely inundated hundreds of homes.

Many of the nearly 2,000 publishers in Maracay were attending a district convention when the catastrophe struck. On returning, they found their homes and possessions gone. At least 160 people had died; hundreds more were never accounted for; 30,000 were left homeless. Although no Witness suffered loss of life or was badly injured, a total of 114 Witnesses and Bible students were among those left homeless, with no more possessions than the clothes on their backs.

The brothers quickly mobilized an efficient relief committee and administered abundant help in the way of food, medicines, clothes, and bedding. These supplies arrived by the truckload from concerned fellow Witnesses in other towns and cities until no more was needed. When the brothers in charge realized that there was more than enough to care for the Witnesses and Bible students, they also made food and some clothing available for neighbors who were in dire straits. The overwhelming generosity of the brothers and their readiness to help were truly faith-strengthening.

An Outstanding Desire to Congregate

The Venezuelans by nature are decidedly gregarious. They love to get together in large numbers​—for a meal, for a party, for an outing at the beach or in the countryside. When they come into Jehovah’s organization, this facet of their personality continues to be very pronounced. They love assemblies and conventions. For many of them, time, distance, cost, and inconvenience are no object just as long as they can be together.

 In January 1950 there was great excitement as the brothers prepared for a two-day assembly in Maracaibo. Brother Knorr and Robert Morgan, from the world headquarters, were to be present. Pedro Morales was disappointed because publicity for the assembly was refused by the local press as a result of opposition from the church. However, as the time neared for the brothers to arrive by plane, he devised another method. He later said: “I arranged for all the children of the congregation to be out at the airport, each one with a spray of fresh flowers. This naturally aroused the interest of the newspaper reporters there, and they asked if they were expecting someone special. The children, who had been carefully briefed, would answer: ‘Yes, Sir, and he will give a talk at the Masonic Hall, Urdaneta Street No. 6, next to the police station.’ As the visiting brothers arrived, the reporters took pictures, and the information about the assembly along with the photographs came out in the newspapers. We got our publicity.”

Also, for two days before the Public Meeting, a local radio station, Ondas del Lago (Waves of the Lake), made announcements every half hour that this talk would be given and that it would be broadcast on the radio. The results were very favorable. In addition to the 132 at the assembly, there was a large radio audience. That year saw the highest rate of increase in the number of publishers ever recorded in Venezuela​—146 percent.

Another district convention remembered by many was held at Nuevo Circo bullring in Caracas, January 23-27, 1967. It was our first international one in Venezuela. There were 515 foreign delegates in the audience, including members of the Watch Tower Society’s board of directors. Bible dramas were new as a program feature at that time. Dyah  Yazbek, who had supervision of one of them, recalls: “They caused quite an impression, not just because of the novelty and the message of the drama but also because of the 500 cameras of the visiting delegates snapping frantically to record the event!” Such an international assemblage attracted attention. Although there were fewer than 5,000 Witnesses in Venezuela at that time, attendance reached 10,463. During the following three years, the increase in the number of active Witnesses in the country was 13 percent, 14 percent, and 19 percent.

It is not unheard of for an interested person to attend a circuit assembly or a district convention even before having a formal Bible study or being inside a Kingdom Hall. This desire to congregate was outstandingly demonstrated in January 1988. Don Adams, from the Brooklyn headquarters, was visiting as zone overseer. A bullring in Valencia had been hired, and a two-hour program had been arranged. At that time there were just 40,001 publishers in all of Venezuela. Yet, 74,600 people showed up for the program; they had come from the farthest corners of the country. Some had traveled 12 hours or more by bus to be present; and when the program was over, they climbed back into their buses for the 12-hour return trip. But for the smiling, cheerful, uncomplaining Venezuelan Witnesses, it was worth it just to be among so many of their spiritual brothers and sisters for half a day.

Message Taken to the Andes

The Andes mountain range reaches as far north as Venezuela. Three principal cities found in the Andes region are Mérida, San Cristóbal, and Valera. The way of life and attitudes of the people are noticeably different from those in the coastal towns and the cosmopolitan areas.

 Rodney Proctor, a district overseer who has served in the Andes, made this observation concerning the people who live there: “Many times a stranger is treated as a foreigner although in his own country. The church still exercises a strong hold, and generally speaking, the Kingdom message is not readily accepted. Some of the special pioneers had the experience of being in a town a whole year before they would get a reply when greeting people on the street. After the second year, some might start to study the Bible. Unlike other parts of the country, ‘What will my neighbors think?’ seems to be a deterrent to listening when the Witnesses call.”

In the early 1950’s, Juan Maldonado, a pioneer from Caracas, visited various cities in the Andes, staying for a few weeks in each, preaching as he went. The reception in San Cristóbal was not initially encouraging. Brother Maldonado was arrested several times because of his forthright preaching.

 However, there was a family that showed interest in the truth, and he studied the Bible with them several times a week during his stay. But they were persecuted by relatives and the local priest to the point that the mother, Angelina Vanegas, could not obtain sufficient work to support the family.

After having served as missionaries in Barquisimeto, Vin and Pearl Chapman were assigned to San Cristóbal in December 1953. Angelina Vanegas and her family welcomed them as a wonderful provision from Jehovah and started out in service with the missionaries right away. A few months later, the mother decided to get baptized. The bathtub in the missionary home was very large, and Angelina very small, so there was no problem in obtaining suitable facilities.

Siesta or Salvation?

The Chapmans started a study with a very poor couple, Misael and Edelmira Salas. Edelmira was strongly Catholic. “My devotion was such,” she explains, “that on one occasion when pregnant, in order to fulfill a vow I had made to God, I made a barefoot pilgrimage from one village to another, then went on my knees from the door of the church to the altar. I then walked barefoot all the way back, and in so doing I became ill and lost the baby.”

By the time their next baby was born, Misael and Edelmira had begun to study the Bible with the Chapmans. One day when the baby was very sick, Edelmira decided to take her to the hospital. Before she left, the neighbors put pressure on her to get the baby baptized quickly, saying that if the baby died, it would be denied a burial and would go to Limbo. Edelmira decided that to be on the safe side, she should stop at the church on the way to the hospital and ask the priest to baptize her baby.

 “I arrived at about noon, and the priest was not pleased at being disturbed during his siesta,” she recalls. “He told me to go away and come back at another time. I told him: ‘My baby is dying. Is it more important to save a baby from Limbo or for you to finish your siesta?’ Grudgingly, he condescended to have the baby baptized, but he sent his assistant, a sacristan, to do it.”

The baby survived, but that incident was the turning point for Edelmira. Now completely disillusioned with the church, she began taking her Bible study with the Witnesses seriously. Then she and her husband moved away to a town called Colón, where there were no Witnesses. When Casimiro Zyto visited San Cristóbal as circuit overseer, the missionaries asked him to visit Edelmira. How grateful she was for that visit! On that occasion she got baptized.

Thanks to her initial efforts, there is now a congregation in Colón. There are also three in El Vigía, where she helped to open up the work when the family moved there. After some years her husband also got baptized as did her three daughters.

Priest Encourages Violence

In another small village in the Andes, Luis Angulo was serving as a pioneer. Alarmed at the noise outside his house one day in 1985, he looked out and was astonished to see a table near his front door with an image of a “saint” on it. An angry crowd was clamoring for the Witnesses to get out of town, and they threatened to burn the house down. “We give you one week to leave town!” they shouted.

Brother Angulo recalls: “I decided that the best thing to do was to go to the prefecto of the town for help. The prefecto was sympathetic and got the police to bring in the ringleaders. ‘Who organized you to do this?’ he asked them. They  eventually admitted that it was the Catholic priest. In a sermon during Mass, he had encouraged his parishioners to run us out of town, on the premise that we were endangering the spiritual welfare of the village. ‘That priest is crazy!’ exclaimed the prefecto. ‘Now go home and leave the Witnesses in peace, or you’ll all go to jail.’”

Not long after that, the priest was found to be involved in fraud, and as happens so often in such cases, he was simply transferred to another area.

A Changed Person

In Pueblo Llano, the next village, Alfonso Zerpa was very well known. He was involved in politics, was a drunkard, used drugs, smoked, ran after women, and terrified the local populace by tearing up and down the two main streets on his motorbike. However, after seeds of truth were planted in his heart in 1984, these grew rapidly. Alfonso began to see the need to make big changes and to put on the new personality.​—Eph. 4:22-24.

When he came to his first Public Meeting, he was the only one present other than the special pioneers. “Where is everybody?” he asked. Perhaps it was better that he was the only one. He had so many questions that the pioneers were busy till midnight answering them from the Bible. He never missed a meeting after that, and his wife, Paula, came with him. He cleaned up his person and his life and eventually qualified to be a publisher. The first territory he worked was those same two main streets in Pueblo Llano! Now courteous and dressed neatly in a suit and tie, he was able to give an excellent witness. He and Alcides Paredes, whom Alfonso had brought to the meetings and introduced as his best friend, are now elders who serve, with their families, in the Pueblo Llano Congregation. More than 20 of Paula’s relatives have also been helped to appreciate the truth.

 Eventually the apparently insurmountable barriers to progress were overcome, and by 1995, San Cristóbal had ten congregations, Mérida had seven, and Valera had four. There are also many smaller groups and congregations all over the Andes region.

Men Wanted in Cumaná

The city of Cumaná, capital of the state of Sucre, is the oldest Hispanic city in South America. The truth was introduced to the people of Cumaná in an organized way in 1954 with the arrival of special pioneers. Later, Rodolfo Vitez and his wife, Bessie, who were missionaries, came to help. In time, he was assigned to circuit work​—but not before they had managed to rent a small hall, clean and paint it, and equip it with some old, discarded benches salvaged from a baseball stadium. With somewhere to meet, the number of people in attendance rose quickly. But they were nearly all women and children.

Penny Gavette and Goldie Romocean had been assigned to the missionary group in Cumaná, and their recollection is that after Brother Vitez left for circuit work, there were no men to take the lead. The men simply did not want to come. Says Penny: “They would tell us: ‘We don’t like that religion. It doesn’t allow us to get drunk and have other women. Our religion lets us do what we want.’ Even when there were 70 or 80 attending, there would still be only five or six men present, and we sisters were still having to conduct meetings from time to time.”

Gradually, however, men did begin to attend and progress sufficiently to be entrusted with responsibility in the congregation. Soon the little Kingdom Hall was bursting at the seams. Poor ventilation and crowding did not stop people from coming. Even though the missionaries felt that the  Kingdom Hall at meeting time was like a Turkish bath, love for the truth moved those in attendance to sit and listen for two hours. In time, Jehovah opened the way, and a new Kingdom Hall was built.

The work in Cumaná has continued to grow. By 1995 there were 17 flourishing congregations, with a total of 1,032 publishers of the good news.

In Her Sister’s Footsteps

When Penny Gavette left home in California to attend Gilead School in 1949, her sister Eloise was only five years old. What Penny was doing made a big impression on Eloise. She remembers thinking, ‘I want to grow up to be a missionary too.’ Both were overjoyed, in 1971, when Eloise, herself a graduate of Gilead, was assigned to be Penny’s missionary partner in Cumaná.

Eloise, now married to district overseer Rodney Proctor, remembers the vast territory that she and Penny covered. “After two years of working in Cumaná, my sister and I decided we would like to give more attention to some of the smaller towns,” she relates. “We got permission from the branch to work the towns of Cumanacoa and Marigüitar and would spend whole days or weekends there. It was very hot, and we had to go everywhere on foot. In both places groups were formed.”

Good News Reaches Border Towns

In the eastern part of the country, rounded, forested hills south of the Orinoco River give way to tablelands north of the border with Brazil. These are impressive sandstone mesas up to 9,000 feet [2,700 m] high. This sparsely populated area is Venezuela’s richest source of gold and diamonds. However, treasures of another kind are being sought in the small towns in  this area. These are spiritual treasures, “the desirable things of all the nations.”​—Hag. 2:7.

In 1958 a group of five Witnesses flew into this area in a small plane. They placed hundreds of magazines with the Indian population. Nearly 20 years later, when traveling overseer Alberto González went to Santa Elena with a group of brothers from Puerto Ordaz, 1,000 magazines were placed. The town had no electricity at the time, but a man lent them a generator so they could show slides, and these were enjoyed by an audience of 500 persons. Then in 1987 two special pioneers, Rodrigo and Adriana Anaya, arrived from Caracas.

Religious groups that had gone into these areas before laid a foundation on which the Witnesses have built. Catholics and Adventists taught the Indians to speak and read Spanish. They also brought the Valera Bible translation, which consistently uses the divine name Jehová.

But some of the Indians began to realize that the Catholic Church had not been straightforward in teaching what is in the Bible. For example, one Indian lady, when learning about God’s view of images, exclaimed: “To think they told us that it was wrong to worship the sun and that the Indian idols were false, yet at the same time, the Catholic Church’s own images are displeasing to God! I feel like going down to the church and beating the priest with a stick for having deceived me for so long!” She was persuaded not to do so, but she voiced the feelings of many inhabitants in that area.

The Indians there in the southern part of Bolívar State love our publications. Being lovers of nature, they are particularly attracted by the full-color pictures of God’s creations. It is interesting to witness the placement of a publication. The Indian will take the book in his hands, feel it, smell it, open it, sigh ecstatically over each colored illustration, and  murmur approving comments in the Pemón language. Sometimes they are so eager that they will take literature out of the pioneer’s briefcase and start distributing it to members of their family. The local people are very hospitable and will often offer meals to those who take them the Kingdom message.

For the first Memorial after the arrival of the special pioneers, 80 people were present. Now there is a congregation. But deeply entrenched Indian traditions have made the progress slow.

Ready Response in the Amazon

The Amazonas area of Venezuela is in the south-central part of the country. Next to the Colombian border is the small town of Puerto Ayacucho. It is surrounded by untouched jungle with fascinating wildlife and numerous waterfalls.

In the 1970’s, Willard Anderson, a circuit overseer, visited Puerto Ayacucho, when only seven publishers were there. He found excellent response in the territory; one morning he placed 42 books. The group optimistically set out about 20 chairs for a slide presentation, but imagine their surprise and delight when 222 people turned up! There is now a thriving congregation made up of more than 80 Kingdom proclaimers in Puerto Ayacucho.

Goajiro Indians in Zulia

To the far west in Venezuela is the state of Zulia. The original inhabitants of this area are the Goajiro Indians. In some places, such as La Boquita, they live in houses that are made of woven reed mats and built on stilts. Their customs and clothing are colorful. The men, with bare legs, ride horses. The women wear long, multicolored, tent-shaped dresses, and their sandals have big wool pom-poms.

 People with a sheeplike disposition are being found among these Goajiro Indians. Their initial reaction to the Bible’s message is often somewhat reserved because religious groups from Christendom have taken advantage of them. But some are responding favorably.

Frank Larson, a missionary, took one of the Society’s films into Goajiro country. The showing of the film was announced for 7:00 p.m., but no one came. However, after a cracked record of popular salsa music was played, 260 people showed up, and they enjoyed the film. On another occasion, over 600 gathered to hear a talk given by Mario Iaizzo, a circuit overseer.

Immigrants Who Zealously Share Bible Truth

In Venezuela, 1 out of every 6 people is foreign-born. Especially in the 1950’s, large numbers of immigrants arrived from Portugal, Italy, Spain, and the Arab countries. Often they arrived almost penniless, but over the years many of them have built up thriving businesses. These are very hardworking people; their lives are filled with concern about material interests. As a result, it is frequently difficult to reach them with the Kingdom message. There are also, of course, immigrants from other South American countries, notably Colombia.

Here in Venezuela one of the Witnesses with a very long record of theocratic service was Vilius Tumas, who had been baptized in Lithuania in 1923. Having survived the dark days of the Hitler regime in Europe, Brother Tumas moved to Venezuela after World War II. Until his death in 1993, he was a fine example of faithful service to his brothers in the town of La Victoria, where he served as a congregation elder.

Remigio Afonso, a native of the Canary Islands, serves as a traveling overseer in Venezuela. He has contacted other immigrants. He has found that some in a family may not be  interested but that others in the same family may be eager to hear Bible truth. Thus, in Cumaná, an Arabic-speaking couple who operated a business did not want to listen, but their daughter did. “She asked me to bring her a Bible,” relates Remigio. “I said that I would, but she wondered if I would keep my word. We arranged a day and time, and I made a particular point of arriving punctually, which impressed her. She took the Bible as well as the book The Truth That Leads to Eternal Life, and arrangements were made for a sister to continue the study I started.

“Soon after that, while I was visiting a congregation in Güiria, I saw a man sitting in the doorway of a shop opposite the Kingdom Hall, reading a book with a green cover. He beckoned me to come over. He was Arabic-speaking and asked me if the book he was reading was one of ours. It was in Arabic, but I could tell that it was ‘Let God Be True.’ He explained that he had received it as a gift in his home country and that he would neither loan it nor sell it to anyone! Having made sure he also read Spanish, I offered him the Truth book, which he readily accepted, and we started a study. He came to three meetings that week and even answered at the Watchtower Study.”

Two years later at a district convention in Maracay, a man with a briefcase greeted Brother Afonso and asked if he recognized him. “I am the man from Güiria,” he explained. “I am baptized and now conduct three Bible studies of my own.” The following year at a district convention in Colombia, after Brother Afonso had a part on the program, a young lady rushed up to him with tears of joy in her eyes and  introduced herself as the girl from Cumaná to whom he had witnessed. She explained that she too was a baptized Witness. What joy such experiences bring!

Another example of one who came from abroad, made Venezuela his home, and has witnessed the progress of the work is Dyah Yazbek. He remembers preaching with his parents, brother, and sisters in villages and towns in Lebanon, where his father had accepted the truth in the 1930’s. It was a serious blow to the Yazbek family when the father, Michel, died two months after their arrival in Venezuela; but Dyah recalls: “Mother and we children continued in the truth, attending meetings at the North Congregation in Caracas. I was baptized at 16 and entered the pioneer service.” Financial reverses at home led to his cutting short his pioneer service at just three years. But after 28 years of secular work in banking circles, he felt that he was in a favorable position to resign without adversely affecting his wife, their three children, and his mother, who lives with them. Once again he enrolled as a pioneer. Brother Yazbek now serves as a member of the Branch Committee. Looking back over nearly 40 years, he remembers the district convention in Venezuela in 1956. There, for the first time, the attendance exceeded one thousand. “Now,” he states, “the total attendance at the district conventions exceeds one hundred thousand.”

Traveling Overseers Help

During the late 1940’s, when Donald Baxter was the only one in the branch office and when there were just six or seven congregations in the entire country, Brother Baxter would visit these groups as he was able to do so.

However, upon the return of 21-year-old Rubén Araujo from Gilead in 1951, he was assigned to visit the congregations and isolated groups throughout the country. The number  of congregations rose to 12 that year. Having no automobile, Rubén would travel by bus or public taxi and at times by airplane or small boat (chalanas) when visiting remote places.

He still remembers a call he made on a Watchtower subscriber near Rubio, Táchira State, close to the Colombian border. The owner of the farm said he was Swiss and could not read Spanish. “But you can talk to my wife, as she likes the Bible,” he said. “After I spoke to his wife,” Rubén recalls, “she called her mother, an 81-year-old lady. When she saw the books I had, she asked if this work was connected with the book The Divine Plan of the Ages. Her eyes lit up, and she became excited. She asked, ‘You mean, you know about Mr. Rutherford?’ Her daughter was interpreting for her into Spanish, as the older lady spoke only German. She said she had been reading and rereading the book since she received it in 1920. She had also seen the ‘Photo-Drama of Creation’ and had heard the talk ‘Millions Now Living Will Never Die.’ Twelve years earlier, when she had come to Venezuela from Switzerland, she had lost contact with the Witnesses. ‘I’ve missed you people very, very much,’ she said. She demonstrated her joy by singing a Kingdom song in German, and I readily joined her with the same song in Spanish. We sang with tears of joy.”

Keith and Lois West, graduates of the 19th class of Gilead, shared in circuit work for 15 years. The circumstances that they encountered were not always easy. The visit to Monte Oscuro in Portuguesa State is a case in point. Keith reflects: “Because of heavy rain the night before, we couldn’t go the distance that we had hoped in the car, so we left the car and walked as far as the river. We took our shoes off and waded upstream and then had to climb the mountain, which took  us to the little Kingdom Hall. There wasn’t a soul in sight. But a brother who had accompanied us said: ‘Don’t worry. They’ll be here.’ Promptly he beat on a metal tire rim, and finally about 40 people came. I gave my talk​—wet, muddy trouser legs and all. It appears that the combination of the cold river, the hot climb to the hall, and my giving the talk in wet trousers resulted in a painful muscle illness. For a while after that, I had to have help to get on and off Kingdom Hall platforms and had to rest frequently when preaching.”

The variety in accommodations is often a challenge for traveling overseers. Many times there is no running water. Corrugated metal roofs contribute to room temperatures of between 90 and 100 degrees Fahrenheit [30-40° C.]. Screens on windows and doors are virtually unknown, so one’s room​—and sometimes one’s bed—​are shared with local fauna. And the relaxed, open, and gregarious life-style enjoyed by Venezuelan families sometimes requires adjustment on the part of foreigners used to more privacy. However, the friendliness and hospitality of the Venezuelans are outstanding, and the expression “Usted está en su casa” (Feel completely at home) is part of the welcome a traveling overseer receives on his arrival.

The Society’s motion pictures and slides were shown all over Venezuela by traveling overseers. The Venezuelans are great moviegoers. Hence, a circuit overseer can always count on having a capacity crowd. People sit on the floor, stand inside, or watch from the outside through the windows. One interested man obligingly painted the side of his house white so that it could serve as a screen. In a settlement in the mountains near Carúpano, a friendly storekeeper provided the electricity from his plant (the only electricity available for miles) and also the auditorium​—his rooster-fighting arena. He then shot off rockets so that the people living up on the  hills would come down. Eighty-five of them did, many riding their donkeys. It was a drive-in movie with a difference!

Gladys Guerrero, in Maracaibo, has special affection for traveling overseers and their wives. When in the field service with young Gladys one day in the town of Punto Fijo, Nancy Baxter, the wife of the traveling overseer, noticed that the girl had a speech impediment. Gladys explained that it was something inherited from her father’s side of the family. Although she suffered much ridicule because of it, she had not been able to change. But she was deeply moved when Sister Baxter devoted time to teaching her how to pronounce certain words correctly and how to practice them. “Her patience paid off,” says Gladys. “Now I can speak properly.” Others too contributed to Gladys’ spiritual growth.

With Trust in Jehovah, They Pioneer

There are more than 11,000 pioneers in Venezuela at present. Many of these got started as a result of loving encouragement from others in full-time service.

Pedro Barreto got such encouragement. In 1954 the branch overseer invited him to enter the special pioneer work along with three other boys. Pedro was the oldest, being 18. What should he do? “I was young and inexperienced, and I didn’t know how to wash or iron clothes. In fact, I hardly knew how to bathe myself!” laughs Pedro. He had been baptized just the preceding year. After chatting with the branch overseer for an hour or so, Pedro made up his mind. The four boys were assigned to Trujillo, the capital of the state with the same name. Its people, especially then, were tradition-bound and very religious. Those four pioneers did much of the foundation work there. Among those to whom they preached were some of the more prominent citizens,  including the head of the post office and the judge of the court of Trujillo.

One day in the main plaza, the four pioneers came face-to-face with a Catholic priest who was well known in Venezuela for his scathing, defamatory, and inaccurate articles in the national press concerning Jehovah’s Witnesses. As a crowd gathered, the priest told the people not to listen to what the boys had to say because, he claimed, they were disturbing the peace of the town and upsetting everybody. He urged the crowd to remember that the faith of the people belonged to the Catholic Church. “In the confusion and hubbub,” recalls Pedro, “the priest would say threatening things to me in a low voice and use foul language. So I would say out loud to the people, ‘Did you hear what he just said? . . . and he’s a priest!’ and I would repeat some of the things he was saying to me. He then said between clenched teeth: ‘Clear off or I’ll kick you out of here.’ So I said that there would be no need for him to use his feet. We would leave.”

This incident reached the ears of the judge previously mentioned. He commended the pioneers, saying that he admired very much the work they were doing. The message of truth preached by those four brave youths took root in Trujillo, and by 1995 there were two congregations in the city besides congregations and groups in most of the surrounding towns and villages.

Arminda López, Pedro’s sister, remembers that in the late 1950’s, while she was pioneering in San Fernando de Apure with three other sisters, Jehovah always provided them with the necessities of life, as he promises to do for those who seek the Kingdom first. (Matt. 6:33) One month their special-pioneer allowance did not arrive when they expected it, and their money had run out. The cupboard was literally bare. In  order to forget their rumbling tummies, they decided to go to bed early. At 10:00 p.m., they heard someone knocking on the front door. Looking out the window, they saw a man with whom they conducted a Bible study. He apologized for the late hour but said that he had just returned from a trip and had brought some things he thought they could use​—a boxful of fruits, vegetables, and other groceries! All thoughts of bed were forgotten, and the kitchen suddenly became a hive of activity. “It must have been Jehovah who moved the man to come that night,” says Arminda, “as he was due to have his study the next day and could so easily have waited until then.” Arminda still serves as a regular pioneer, now in Cabimas.

Among the zealous pioneers, almost no problem seems too great. Age, poor health, or an opposed family member need not necessarily be an insurmountable obstacle. Although young ones are certainly represented in the pioneer ranks​—early in 1995 there were 55 regular pioneers between the ages of 12 and 15—​by no means do they have the monopoly on this branch of service. Many a sister whose husband is not a Witness rises early each morning in order to prepare meals and care for her children and household chores, so that she can meet with the group for field service each day and conduct Bible studies without neglecting her wifely responsibilities.

Also married brothers with families streamline their activities and successfully handle a pioneer schedule. David González started his pioneer career as a young, single man in 1968. Later, he served as a special pioneer with his wife, Blanca, until children came along. Now he and his wife as well as one daughter are regular pioneers. Along with shouldering responsibility for his three children, he is an elder and regularly serves as a substitute circuit overseer. How is it possible?  He says that he has been able to do it by sacrificing unnecessary material extras and having a good schedule. He also has the full cooperation of his wife.

Then there are those in their twilight years whose circumstances have changed and who can now think of undertaking the pioneer service. These include folk whose children have grown up and others who have retired from secular work. There are also some like Elisabeth Fassbender. Elisabeth, born in 1914, was baptized in postwar Germany before immigrating to Venezuela in 1953 with her unbelieving husband. For 32 years she endured bitter opposition until his death in 1982. At 72 years of age, with the way now clear to serve Jehovah more fully, Elisabeth realized her longtime ambition by enrolling as a regular pioneer.

One thing that undoubtedly contributes to the successful pioneer spirit in Venezuela is the general absence of a materialistic way of life among a majority of the brothers. Most of them are not caught up in the constant struggle to get luxuries for their homes or to earn money for costly vacations. Without these extra financial commitments, a larger number of Jehovah’s people find that pioneer privileges are within their reach.

A Fruitful Field Under Cultivation

Venezuelans as a whole are a tolerant people, respectful of the Bible; and with very few exceptions, they profess belief in God. The Catholic Church’s stranglehold of years gone by has weakened, and many sincere but unhappy parishioners are looking elsewhere to satisfy their spiritual needs. The  political involvement of the church and individual cases of wrongdoing by priests that come to light from time to time do nothing to rally support for the church.

Undoubtedly all these factors contribute to the relative ease with which Bible studies can be started here. As of August 1995, the 71,709 Witnesses of Jehovah in Venezuela were conducting more than 110,000 home Bible studies. It is not difficult for a publisher who preaches regularly and is conscientious in following up the interest to start progressive Bible studies. Generally speaking, the students will attend meetings and quickly make changes to conform to Jehovah’s righteous requirements.

In 1936 there were just two proclaimers of the good news reporting activity in Venezuela. In 1980 the publisher figure was 15,025. Fifteen years later the total Kingdom proclaimers exceeded 71,000. In 1980 there were just 186 congregations in the entire country. Now there are 937. And the numbers of those who love and serve Jehovah continue to grow.

A Time to Build

With the notable increase in publishers in recent years, many Kingdom Halls do not have adequate space for those who come to the meetings. The price of property, especially in inner-city areas, is prohibitive. In Caracas, where there are currently 140 congregations and land is at a premium, it is not uncommon for as many as five large congregations bursting at the seams to share the same facilities. On Sundays this provides an interesting sight for neighbors as one congregation files out after their meeting and another moves in, with endless handshaking and kissing as the brothers and sisters greet one another. Many have to stand during meetings, and ventilation is often inadequate. There is an acute need for more Kingdom Halls, and with the help of a central  Kingdom Hall Fund in Venezuela, efforts are beginning to be made to cope with this need.

In spite of limited resources, the brothers’ generous response made possible the construction of Venezuela’s first Assembly Hall, in Cúa, Miranda State. Dyah Yazbek, who served on the construction committee, provides some details. “Construction of the hall in Cúa ran into some problems after the first year when, with the framework erected and still more work pending, adequate funds were not available. On October 12, 1982, we met with the local elders and ministerial servants and presented the situation to them, asking them, in turn, to sound out the brothers in the congregations. The result was that three months later, much to our surprise, 1.5 million bolivares were donated​—a considerable sum in those days. This enabled us to complete the project, including air-conditioning and comfortable seating. The hall has proved to be a real blessing to the 11 circuits that currently use it.” Venezuela now has two Assembly Halls, the other being in Campo Elías, Yaracuy State.

Better Branch Facilities

A committee of six mature brothers now administer work cared for by the branch. They are Teodoro Griesinger, Keith West, Stefan Johansson (present Branch Committee coordinator), Eduardo Blackwood (who also serves as one of the four district overseers), Dyah Yazbek (a regular pioneer and family man), and Rafael Pérez (a circuit overseer).

As work in the field has grown, it has also been necessary to enlarge the branch facilities. When Brothers Knorr and Henschel visited Venezuela in November 1953, Brother Knorr pointed out that it would be good for the Society to buy its own property for a missionary home and branch office. A large, new two-story house was found in the quiet,  residential area of Las Acacias, Caracas. The branch and missionary family moved into Quinta Luz in September 1954, and the branch operated from there for 22 years.

When the number of Kingdom publishers had grown to over 13,000, the branch again moved to new facilities​—this time in the nearby town of La Victoria, Aragua State. This splendid new complex seemed positively enormous in comparison with the previous branch, and it was difficult for some to visualize its being used to full capacity. But in 1985 a new section was completed and dedicated because the earlier part was already too small.

In a few years, the branch had again become too small, and in 1989, 35 acres [14 ha] of prime building land was purchased for the construction of new branch facilities. Preliminary work has already been done, and it is hoped that the new facilities will be completed in the near future.

“Let Anyone Thirsting Come”

As the apostle John drew near the end of the writing of the book of Revelation, Jesus Christ saw to it that he included the following: “The spirit and the bride keep on saying: ‘Come!’ And let anyone hearing say: ‘Come!’ And let anyone thirsting come; let anyone that wishes take life’s water free.” (Rev. 22:17) That gracious invitation has been extended to the people of Venezuela for some 70 years now. With greater intensity than ever before, it is reaching into all parts of the land​—and with good results.

The increase of crime has not slowed down the work. Almost without exception, houses and apartments have wrought iron across the front door, sometimes boasting a thick chain or a large padlock. Mugging, even in broad daylight, is a constant danger. Caraqueños (those who live in Caracas) in particular are careful not to wear gold jewelry or expensive  watches on the street. Unwary tourists are often the target of muggers. When preaching in poorer areas of the city, our brothers have to exercise great care. Generally, Jehovah’s Witnesses are respected. However, whole groups of publishers have been held up at gunpoint and made to hand over watches, money, and jewelry. But the zeal of our brothers in these dangerous areas remains unaffected, and a thorough witness is being given.

The patient and persistent proclaiming of the good news has benefited people of all sorts. An engineer and his family in Maracaibo had firmly rejected the efforts of their friendly Witness neighbors to discuss the Bible with them, and for 14 years conversation between the two families had never gone beyond polite greetings. Then, one day in 1986, the five-year-old son of the Witnesses talked over the fence to the neighbor’s little girl. As the conversation ended, the boy said: “If my daddy gave your daddy a Creation book, he’d see that Jehovah made us.” The next morning, feeling that perhaps Jehovah wanted him to try again to reach his neighbor, the father went next door and related the children’s conversation. “So on behalf of my son,” he said, “I would like you to accept this Creation book as a gift.” To the brother’s surprise, two days later this couple came to the Witnesses’ home asking forgiveness for their previous intransigent attitude and expressing appreciation for the wonderful book. A Bible study was started, and now the couple and their two older children are dedicated, baptized Witnesses of Jehovah.

In Barquisimeto, Ana had always turned the Witnesses away when they came to her door. She was a devotee of the María Lionza cult, and as such, she engaged in spiritistic practices. But she longed to be free from these things that held her in bondage. She prayed to God to help her to change her way of life. Soon after this, one of Jehovah’s Witnesses,  Esther Germanos, called at her door. Ana could not help but wonder whether there was a connection between her prayer and the visit of the Witness. She accepted a regular Bible study, began to attend meetings, soon told her immoral tenants to move, cleared out of her house all objects related to spiritism, dedicated her life to Jehovah in 1986, and at last experienced the freedom that only the truth can bring!

Hernán had belonged to a group that practiced spiritistic rites, viewed sexual immorality as acceptable, and used considerable alcohol during religious rites to “fortify the spirit,” as they put it. When he first went to the Kingdom Hall, he would listen to what was said and then go directly to his church and give a similar talk. But after he attended an assembly, he began to take more seriously what he was learning. Then, one Sunday in 1981 when he arrived at the church, he found the one they called the spiritual mother frothing at the mouth. The others told him that she was possessed by Satan the Devil. He never went back. The following year he got baptized as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. He, his wife, and eldest son are now regular pioneers.

The Martínez household was at the point of breaking up. There were constant threats of divorce. The children used the situation to their own ends. In a desperate search for comfort, the wife located one of Jehovah’s Witnesses who had previously spoken to her about the Bible, and a study was started without the knowledge of the husband. Meanwhile, at work, the husband’s secretary witnessed to him, and arrangements were made for one of the elders to study with him. It was not long before he decided to share with his wife the things he had learned from his Bible study. What a surprise to learn that she too was studying the Bible with Jehovah’s Witnesses and attending meetings at a different Kingdom Hall! From that moment, studying the Bible together and attending  meetings as a family became a regular part of their family life. That family, which was at the point of breaking up, now serves Jehovah happily and unitedly.

Beatriz had dreamed all her life about understanding the Bible. She married and, with her husband, moved to Caracas, where they became part of high society. There in the capital she made friends with an old man who had left the priesthood, unable to agree with the church’s fundamental teachings. On one occasion he told her: “The only valid baptism is total immersion such as practiced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.” Years later, divorced from her husband, Beatriz was facing a distressing personal problem. Desperate, she prayed to God. One night in particular​—December 26, 1984—​she spent many hours in prayer. The following morning the doorbell rang. Irritated, she looked through the peephole in her apartment door and saw two people with briefcases. Upset at being disturbed, she called through the door as if she were the maid: “The lady isn’t home, and I can’t open the door.” Before they left, the couple pushed a handbill under the door. Beatriz picked it up. “Know Your Bible,” it said. The words of the old ex-priest came back to her. Could these visitors be the people he had spoken of, Jehovah’s Witnesses? Could their visit be connected with her prayers the night before? She opened the door, but they had gone. She called down the stairs for them to come back, apologized for her initial reaction, and invited them inside. A study of the Bible was begun immediately, and some time later Beatriz was baptized as a Christian Witness of Jehovah. Happy at last that she had fulfilled her lifelong desire, Beatriz now spends a large portion of her time helping others to know their Bible.

With Jehovah’s blessing, congregations are growing fast. Kingdom Halls are packed and overflowing. New  congregations are being formed. The number of Kingdom proclaimers is swelling as are the ranks of full-time ministers. The large Memorial and convention attendances portend that many more will join us in worshiping Jehovah before the end of this system of things.

As Jehovah’s Witnesses intensify their witnessing in the cities, villages, plains, and mountains of Venezuela and see the outstanding results, they are reminded of the apostle Paul’s words: “Neither is he that plants anything nor is he that waters, but God who makes it grow.”​—1 Cor. 3:7.

 [Full-page picture on page 186]

[Picture on page 194]

Rubén Araujo, one of the first Venezuelans to become a baptized Witness

[Picture on page 199]

Inez Burnham, Ruby Dodd (now Baxter), Dixie Dodd, and Rachel Burnham leaving New York in 1949. Before the boat left the dock, everyone felt just fine!

 [Pictures on page 200, 201]

 Some of the missionaries who have served in the Venezuelan field for many years: (1) Donald and Ruby Baxter, (2) Dixie Dodd, (3) Penny Gavette, (4) Leila Proctor, (5) Ragna Ingwaldsen, (6) Mervyn and Evelyn Ward, (7) Vin and Pearl Chapman

[Picture on page 207]

Quinta Luz

[Pictures on page 208]

Top: Milton Henschel addresses convention at Club Las Fuentes, in 1958

Below: Nathan Knorr (left) with Teodoro Griesinger as interpreter, in 1962

[Picture on page 227]

In 1988 more than 74,600 packed out the bullring in Valencia for a special program

 [Pictures on page 236]

Some who have served as circuit or district overseers (with their wives): (1) Keith and Lois West, (2) Alberto and Zulay González, (3) Casimiro Zyto, (4) Lester and Nancy Baxter, (5) Rodney and Eloise Proctor, (6) Remigio Afonso

 [Pictures on page 244]

A few of those with long records of pioneer service: (1) Dilia de Gonzáles, (2) Emilio and Esther Germanos, (3) Rita Payne, (4) Ángel Maria Granadillo, (5) Nayibe de Linares, (6) Irma Fernández, (7) José Ramon Gomez

[Pictures on page 252]

Above: Branch office in La Victoria

Branch Committee (from left to right): Dyah Yazbek, Teodoro Griesinger, Stefan Johansson, Keith West, Eduardo Blackwood, and Rafael Pérez