The first missionaries assigned to Peru arrived in the country in October 1946. Those early missionaries discovered a vast preaching territory. It included seven million inhabitants spread across a diverse landscape spanning almost 1.3 million square kilometers (501,932 sq mi). For the last 75 years, whether in Peru’s remote mountain villages or its coastal cities, missionaries and local publishers have worked diligently in the ministry and have seen steady growth.

In the years before the missionaries arrived, Jehovah’s Witnesses from South America had occasionally visited Peru’s capital, Lima, and given publications to interested people. Those visits were successful. In 1945, two missionaries serving in Chile traveled to Lima to baptize the first three Jehovah’s Witnesses in the country.

From October 1946 onward, Gilead-trained missionaries were assigned to organize the work in Peru. They held the first meeting with interested persons in the Rimac district of Lima. As the number of local publishers grew and the number of missionaries in the country increased, the preaching work expanded beyond Lima. It continues to expand today.

Sister Nellena Pool, one of the first missionaries who arrived in 1946, spoke of the increase in Peru in her life story published in The Watchtower of March 1, 1957. She stated: “It is difficult to describe the sensation when you see the land once a desert beginning to ‘blossom as a rose.’”

Sister Irene Mannings, a graduate of the 54th class of Gilead who still serves in Peru, stated: “Since we arrived, we have seen how the number of publishers has increased from 7,000 to over 130,000. It has been a privilege for me to have contributed a little to this growth. All this has been possible thanks to Jehovah’s blessing.”

The 133,170 publishers currently serving in Peru are deeply grateful for the spiritual foundation laid 75 years ago. The theocratic history of Peru is further evidence of Jehovah’s promise in Isaiah 60:22: “The little one will become a thousand and the small one a mighty nation.”