It was under such conditions that the Witnesses traveled from Maymyo to attend the district assembly held at Rangoon.

An assembly was arranged to coincide with the around-the-world trip of Brothers Knorr and Henschel. After a rousing welcome at the airport, our visitors were rushed off to the convention, which was already in session at the Kingdom Hall. A round of applause greeted them. Brother Henschel gave his talk first and was followed by Brother Knorr. Their discourses were translated into Burmese.

On Wednesday Brother Knorr spoke to 256 persons gathered at Rangoon’s City Hall to hear the public lecture “Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land.” Then, while Brother Henschel was speaking, Brother Knorr was taken to the government radio station in Rangoon to give a 15-minute talk over the air. This program also was heard at the assembly hall. The convention itself continued the next day and ended with 90 persons attending the closing meeting.

In 1956, Burma was again on Brother Knorr’s itinerary when he visited countries in the East. This time there were 268 persons present to hear him speak on the subject “Making All Mankind One Under Their Creator.” After the public talk Brothers Knorr and Kirk rushed off by car to the Burma Broadcasting Station, where Brother Knorr was interviewed. Significantly, it was during this convention that he released the new Burmese Watchtower.

In speaking to the missionaries, Brother Knorr particularly emphasized the importance of learning the Burmese language. The missionaries admitted that they still were not fluent in Burmese. Impressed with his remarks, however, they set out in earnest to learn the language.

Naturally, the first thing the missionaries tried to learn was what to say at the doors in their house-to-house witnessing work. So they learned short Bible presentations and a conclusion, Ta-ouk tamma, meaning, “Each booklet four annas.” When one missionary tried this out in the field, a householder looked confused and asked the woman standing next to her, “What is he saying?” “He says that he has eggs to sell,” was the prompt reply. “How much is he charging for them?” asked the first woman. The other replied, “Twenty-five annas for an egg.” Instead of saying Ta-ouk, the missionary had said Ta-ook, as though eggs were being sold.

It is really very difficult for foreigners to pronounce Burmese words correctly. If one is unable to pronounce each syllable accurately, the meaning may be just the opposite of what was intended. For example, “a new world” (kaba-a’thit) can become “a dead world” kaba-a’theyt), if not pronounced correctly. So quite often after witnessing in the Burmese language the missionaries would be told by the householder: “Please speak in Burmese. I don’t understand English.”

ENCOURAGED BY ANOTHER VISITOR

Now let us turn our attention to the visit of another representative of the Watch Tower Society. It was at 5 p.m. on Sunday, December 30, 1956, that a plane carrying Brother F. W. Franz, then the Society’s vice-president, landed at Mingaladon airport. What a joyous occasion it was as we traveled toward Rangoon by bus, singing Kingdom songs accompanied by Brother Franz playing his mouth organ! On our arrival at the Kingdom Hall, the Watchtower study was just ending. Promptly, Brother Franz was put on the program to give us a travelogue for more than an hour. A five-day assembly was to begin three days from then, but the 55 persons gathered at the Kingdom Hall felt as if it had already begun.

During his eight-day stay in Burma, Brother Franz had the pleasure of lodging at the missionary home with the five graduates of Gilead. He was surprised to learn that the New Year celebration was held even in Buddhist Burma. Yes, at midnight of Monday, December 31, with the twelfth and last stroke of the night watchman’s iron, there was a chain reaction of firecrackers, the sounding of sirens and the blowing of whistles of vessels in the Rangoon River.

Delegates to the assembly came from an unusually wide area. Whole families traveled hundreds of miles on trains with hard wooden seats, not knowing when they would be delayed in view of the unsettled conditions then prevailing in the country. They arrived safely, however, and were glad to be in time for the convention. One delegate, who was due to deliver her baby about assembly time, came to Rangoon early and gave birth to her child. A few days later she was listening to the assembly talks with her baby in her arms.

On Saturday, 11 persons (a record number up to that time) symbolized their dedication to Jehovah God by submitting to water baptism at the Royal Lakes, where one can see the reflection of the Shwe Dagon Pagoda, its gold sheath gleaming in the sunshine. The baptism candidates were composed of four racial groups​—six Tamilians, three Karens, one Anglo-Indian and one Gurkha.

Nearly all the discourses were translated from English into Burmese, and the baptism talk was partly translated into Tamil. A Tamil meeting on Saturday summarized the main talks of the assembly.

Until Thursday it appeared that F. W. Franz would be prevented from delivering the widely announced public talk “New World Peace in Our Time​—Why?” But by the skillful maneuvering of the Almighty God, Jehovah, the way was cleared for the public event to go on as advertised. At 4 p.m. on Sunday, January 6, 1957, the public meeting was held at the Railway Institute Hall, with 237 persons present. After the talk, the film “The Happiness of the New World Society” was shown for the first time in Burma, and the hall was filled to overflowing. On Monday, at 10:30 p.m., Brother Franz said au revoir to us and flew to Bangkok.

The visit of F. W. Franz encouraged us very much. After the assembly the brothers returned to their homes well fed spiritually. Immediately after the convention, certain pioneers were sent to new territories to spread the Kingdom message. By then our work was going ahead well in Insein, Bassein, Maymyo, Taunggyi and other places.