Can You Too Have the Joys of the Missionary?
“THE other day two of us walked for two miles over a little oxcart trail, cut down into deep ruts, to reach the house where we were to conduct a Bible study. Imagine sitting there on low banquitos (V-shaped benches) in a little thatched-roof cottage with mud walls and a hard-packed dirt floor. In one corner, and still in the nest on the floor, two pigeons were caring for their young, while chickens came in the open door to pick rice from the neatly stacked puñados (literally, fistfuls of unthreshed grain) in another corner.”
So reads a letter from missionaries of Jehovah’s witnesses serving off the beaten track in Panama, but not too far from the blacktop highway and bustling, modern Panama City. “We do appreciate the handiwork of our Creator here in these tropics,” the letter continues. “Growth here is so rapid and luxuriant that what started out as poles for our clothesline ended up budding and eventually becoming shade trees for our patio. Now we understand why most of the fence posts hereabouts are trees. And the sunsets are gorgeously colorful; we know, because we view them through our west, board-shuttered window that frames gently swaying palm fronds against the evening sky. But more beautiful still, we are finding hearing ears.”
You, too, could thrill to the sights and sounds of life in countryside and small towns of a tropical land. If you are one of Jehovah’s witnesses, you, too, could find pleasure as you conduct Bible studies with people in such places and note the eager inquiry in their bright eyes as you open up to them an understanding of God’s purposes. Is there really a need for your help? Here is the answer of the Watch Tower Society’s representative in Panama: “Yes, there is a place and a need for more missionaries. Out in our westernmost province towers majestic El Volcán (a long since extinct volcano) more than 11,000 feet above sea level. Surrounding it is a prosperous, agricultural district that produces fine vegetables for the city markets. The climate is cool; the people thrifty; the scenery breathtaking. What an assignment for those with the real missionary spirit, who would be content without too much entertainment and would find joy and peace of mind in a simpler life—one of praise to Jehovah!”
And that is but one of the districts in Panama where there is need for preachers and teachers of God’s Word. Can you count the cost and then offer yourself willingly? The time is ripe.
TIME RIPE IN DOMINICAN REPUBLIC TOO
The Dominican Republic is another land that has slumbered long under Roman Catholic control. But today there is a ferment of change as humble people ask questions, read the Bible and want to know more. Even in districts not yet reached by the missionaries, people are reading the Bible, separating themselves from false religion and seeking the right worship of God. One Saturday one of those country dwellers visited the town of Santiago and chanced to see Witnesses on the street offering the Watch Tower Society’s magazines ¡Despertad! (Awake!) and La Atalaya (The Watchtower). He obtained two magazines and then turned up the following week asking for more literature. He invited the Witnesses to visit the people who had been studying the Bible with him.
Arrangements were made with a Witness who owned an omnibus, and groups from Santiago began to make regular visits on these sheeplike people. As a result over fifty persons progressed in the understanding of God’s purposes to the point where they submitted to baptism in symbol of their dedication of their lives to Jehovah. Today there are four congregations with 102 publishers of the Kingdom in the same locality.
The Society’s representative in the Dominican Republic writes: “There is a very large field left in which there is no preaching work being done. If the brothers who have cars or even motorcycles would come over and help us preach to people in the rural sections and outlying towns, no doubt the increase in the next few years would be very great indeed. Surely there are many here who are just waiting for ministers of the true God to knock at their doors! There is room for others to share in the joys of missionary work here.” Can you find it in your heart to respond to the invitation that is implicit in these words?
The missionaries themselves write about their assignment to this part of the field: “Certainly missionary life is happy. Especially here in Latin America the field is so fruitful and it is such a joy to work with the people that no missionary would even consider for a moment exchanging his privilege of service for any material benefits he might be offered in his home country. In fact, those who have served for a number of years in the foreign field, and who then take a vacation in their own country of origin, are soon anxious to return to what has now become their adopted home, and where they have spiritual ties that are much stronger than fleshly ties.”
ECUADOR A WIDE-OPEN FIELD
Apart from the population scattered around the countryside and in the smaller towns and villages of Ecuador, the Watch Tower Society’s branch there reports that the preaching work in the two larger cities, Quito and Guayaquil, is far from done. Both cities keep growing faster than the ability of the Witnesses to cover them adequately. Most of the Watch Tower missionaries and pioneer ministers say they cannot possibly take care of all those who want to study the Bible.
Are you hesitating about whether to offer yourself for service where the need is far greater? Consider this statement from the Society’s branch office:
“Yes, Ecuador is a wide-open field that has been only partially cultivated. Materials are here and ready and waiting to be built up into true Christians. After twenty years of missionary service here the workers are still comparatively few and the harvest seems to be getting greater. Even in our largest cities special pioneer ministers are cultivating and reaping as though in virtually untouched territory. Other cities and smaller towns continually send their ‘Macedonian call’ to the branch office.
“In Cuenca, a city of 80,000 people, half a dozen Witnesses are striving to demonstrate right worship amid a solid-Catholic population. Ibarra, the ‘white city’ of Ecuador, with its beautiful spring climate, has only a handful of persevering Witnesses to serve some 25,000 inhabitants. Tropical Esmeraldas, as green as the emerald from which it draws its name; these, and half a dozen other cities in cold, cool, warm or hot climates are saying, ‘Come over and help us!’ Even with our latest peak of over 2,000 publishers of the Kingdom, we are still too few for the work ahead.”
CHOOSE YOUR CLIMATE IN BOLIVIA
Watch Tower missionaries who first went to Bolivia started preaching in the larger cities and then transferred their ministry to the smaller towns. These are either in the tropic lowlands or in the high, cool altiplano. The homes are made of adobe and their roofs protected by tin or tiles. Missionaries, like everyone else, had to carry water in from the patio or from the nearest river or spring. In the evening electricity was rationed to about three or four hours, and even then the power was hardly strong enough for modern electrical appliances. They used a kerosene lamp most of the time, and cooked on a kerosene burner. Nevertheless, some of the richest blessings came from preaching and teaching in these faraway places.
Watch Tower missionaries have adjusted themselves almost completely to the Bolivian way of life. They are satisfied with the simple life of the people, since it gives them more time for Bible study and ministry among the people. Life is not cluttered with materialism, and the people are happier with less. God has not died in the minds of the people. He is very much alive. Not that the people are satisfied with the rule of the Catholic church. In fact, in some places the press is ridiculing and criticizing the church, and a lot of doubts are being raised among ordinary Catholics.
What the earlier missionaries of Jehovah’s witnesses have done and are doing, you can do too. Bolivia still has room for much more witnessing, from lowland plain to the lofty Andean highlands. Everywhere there are people hungering and thirsting for the real life-giving food and drink, the refreshing spiritual sustenance that Jehovah God has made available for them. Who is going to bear it to them and help them appreciate the spiritual food that can nourish them for eternal life? Are you?
EXPANSION POSSIBILITIES IN COLOMBIA
Colombia, too, is a land of climatic variety that beckons, not merely to sightseers, but to those impelled by God’s spirit to go and spread the “good news” where people eagerly await it. A few years ago it was common for missionaries to encounter violent hostility, fomented by influential priests. Today, however, the attitude has so radically changed that the missionaries often answer the bell at the missionary home entrance and find someone requesting help to study the Bible.
Here is a country where, for decades, the people were discouraged from reading the Bible. But now it can readily be obtained in bookstores and elsewhere. In just a few years some 37,000 Bibles have been distributed by local Witnesses and missionaries. And the people want to understand this Book of books. This is clearly indicated by the demand for Bible-study aids. Whereas the Watch Tower Society’s branch in Colombia shipped out 20,000 copies of the book “Let God Be True” in eight years, the more recent publication, “Things in Which It Is Impossible for God to Lie,” has had the phenomenal distribution of 22,270 copies in only ten months.
A pertinent question, therefore, arises. How are the 4,700 Witnesses in Colombia to accomplish the vital work of aiding those thousands of Bible readers to get a clear grasp of God’s purposes? They definitely need help. And this is true, even though the joy of the preaching work moves many of the local Witnesses to earn their livelihood during one-half of each month so they can spend the other half out in the open country or in the smaller towns and villages, carrying the Word of life to others.
Expansion of the Kingdom interests in Colombia has been gradual. It could be speeded up with the help of those who have the attitude expressed in Isaiah’s words, “Here I am! Send me.” (Isa. 6:8) And can there be any mistaking the urgency in this report from the Society’s branch office: “Except for Barranquilla, which has over one thousand Kingdom ministers, the other cities can use any amount of help, especially brothers to serve as servants in the congregations. Aside from the large cities there are a number of towns with populations from 40,000 to 100,000 without any Witnesses yet”? This call for help might well be addressed to you!
ACHIEVING A LIFE OF JOYFUL ACCOMPLISHMENT
Do you love Jehovah God with all your mind and heart? Do you have strong faith in his timetable of earthly events that sets apart this period through which we are living for the ever-widening proclamation of the Kingdom? Are you unencumbered? Do you have reasonable health? Are you satisfied that in your district the “good news” is being adequately preached? Then surely it is time for you to step forward and lay hold of the opportunity to live a life of joy and satisfying accomplishment in a land where the need is greater!
If you have no obligations that tie you to your present location, why not write to the Office of the President, Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, New York 11201, and request information about preaching in other lands. And, if you have some specific country in mind, you may also write the Society’s branch office there, requesting details as to part-time or full-time secular work, immigration arrangements, and so forth. It would also be helpful to provide them with information as to your age, marital status, health, occupation, and theocratic service assignments so that it may be determined how you can best be of assistance in the land you have in mind.
Effective preaching and teaching in these Latin-American countries require a knowledge of Spanish. But that should be no insurmountable problem, for local Witnesses and missionaries can offer suggestions and help that will allow you to get started in a study of the language. North American visitors to the “God’s Sons of Liberty” District Assemblies in Latin America last year were amazed at how easily they could begin sharing in the witness work. Many of them accompanied local Witnesses in the house-to-house ministry and were delighted at the cordial receptions by the local people. Others used printed cards bearing a brief message in Spanish. They all agreed that the best way to see a country—how the people live, their customs and the extent of their love for righteousness and truth—is to visit from house to house and speak with the people about “the magnificent things of God.”—Acts 2:11.