Finally, on October 25, 1945, Harold Morris—a classmate—and I arrived at El Alto Airport, just outside of La Paz, Bolivia’s capital city. We thus became the only two Witnesses in the third-largest country in South America.

Later in 1949, we had our first circuit assembly, in the city of Oruro. It was encouraging to many of our new Christian brothers and sisters to meet one another for the first time. By then, Bolivia had reached a peak of 48 Kingdom proclaimers and had three congregations.

It was thrilling to see that by the mid-1960’s, congregations existed in nearly all of the small towns that we had visited some ten years earlier.

By the time we left Cochabamba 15 years later, in 1972, there were two congregations. Now there are 35 congregations in the Cochabamba valley, with over 2,600 Kingdom proclaimers!

When we arrived, Santa Cruz also had two congregations, but now there are over 45, with more than 3,600 publishers sharing in the Christian ministry.

How delighted we are that we remained in our missionary assignment these more than 50 years to see the gathering of some 12,300 of Jehovah’s people in this land! We truly have delighted to be of service to these dear ones.