Plans were being made to send in more preachers of the good news, but the Catholic Church was not happy with the presence of the pioneers. One day a priest told Brother Manuel Silvestre in a sneering tone: “We made it difficult for you in Portugal because you would not fight in Africa, so you had better get ready for opposition to your work here!”

Shortly afterward the two special pioneers were given a 48-hour notice to leave the country under the pretext that their “activities affected the internal security of the State.” In September 1977 we had an interview with the ambassador in Lisbon in an effort to determine what the expelled pioneers had done to affect the internal security of the State, but he gave no explanation.

An unexpected event took place in January 1978 when the four Portuguese special pioneers were expelled as personae non gratae.