more and more of them had parts on the program as well as responsibility in planning and directing assembly activities.

In 1952 three of us spent our vacations visiting four towns where Jehovah’s witnesses were unknown. During the years that have passed since then, I have had a part in organizing the work in these places. Work was started only recently in the last of the four towns, because its weather is so cold and windy. Just seven months after two missionaries were sent in, eight new publishers of the good news were making public declaration of Jehovah’s purposes. Now a congregation is functioning there.

When the two New World society films came to Bolivia, there was just one circuit. Since I was the circuit servant, I had the joy of showing the films all over the country. The joy was from seeing the happiness they brought to the brothers and to persons of good will.

When there was only one circuit in Bolivia, I knew all the brothers and most of the new ones that were coming into the truth. But now with six circuits, I can only see all the publishers once a year at our national assemblies. During the last one, I looked at the thirty-six new brothers to be baptized and was amazed to realize that I knew only a few of them. That is a sure indication of growth. Baptizing thirty-six in one day is quite a contrast to the twenty-three that were baptized in the entire year of 1956.

Because the health of the branch servant failed, I was asked to take his place until another one could be sent. Although I felt unsuited for office work, I enjoyed those ten months. There was something to be done all the time. There were problems to work out, reports to make, literature to be sent out, handbills to print, new missionary homes to be set up, assemblies to care for and personal preaching with the local congregation.

It was a great pleasure to attend the great international assembly in 1958 and to visit once again with old friends and relatives. When my vacation was drawing to an end, I was ready to return to my work in Bolivia. I love the work here among these spiritually hungry people.

It was a joy to see many brothers at the assembly who were planning on serving where the need is great, and to speak with young people who were thinking of making full-time service their purpose in life. They will never regret following such a course. When I consider what I have done and what I could have done by pursuing another goal, I am convinced that I pursued the only goal that is worth-while. If I could live my life over again, I would not choose a different course to pursue.

Clouds of Locusts

Writing in Travels in Arabia Deserta, Charles M. Doughty describes a locust invasion: “The clouds of the second locust brood . . . wreathing and flickering as motes in the sunbeam, flew over us for some days, thick as rain, from near the soil to great height in the atmosphere. They alight as birds, letting down their long shanks to the ground; these invaded the booths, and for blind hunger, even bit our shins, as we sat at coffee. They are borne freely flying at the wind’s list, as in the Psalms, ‘I am tossed up and down as the locust.’ . . . The children bring in gathered locusts, broached upon a twig, and the nomads toast them on the coals; then plucking the scorched members, they break away the head, and the insect body which remains is good meat; but not of these latter swarms, born in time of the dried-up herbiage.”