• Serving Wherever I Was Needed
    The Watchtower—2001 | February 1

    • To Missionary Service

      When we saw the invitation to attend the second class of the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead, we thought, ‘They made a mistake! Why would they invite two simple, young Mississippi boys to that school?’ We had imagined that they wanted educated people, but we went anyway. There were 100 students in the class, and the course lasted five months. Graduation was on January 31, 1944, and we were eager to serve in a foreign field. But in those days, passport and visa documentation took much time, so students were temporarily assigned to the United States. After serving for a while as pioneers in Alabama and Georgia, Bennett and I finally received our assignment​—Barbados, West Indies.

      World War II was still in progress, and the work and literature of Jehovah’s Witnesses were banned in many places, including Barbados. At customs there, the officials opened and inspected our luggage and found the literature we had hidden in it. We thought, ‘We are finished.’ Instead, one official simply told us: “We’re sorry we had to go through your luggage; some of this literature is banned in Barbados.” Still, he let us through with every piece of literature we had packed! Later, when we witnessed to government officials, they said that they did not know why the literature had been banned. After some months, the ban was lifted.

      We had much success in the ministry in Barbados. We conducted at least 15 Bible studies each, and most of the students progressed spiritually. We were happy to see some coming to congregation meetings. However, because the literature had been banned for some time, the brothers there lacked current understanding of how meetings were to be conducted. Soon, though, we were able to train a number of capable brothers. We had the pleasure of helping many of our students start out in the Christian ministry and of seeing the congregation grow.