Grateful for Our Older Brothers
As told by Don and Earlene Steele
IT IS June 29, 1970, our thirtieth wedding anniversary. Earlene and I are seated in our comfortable room in the Watch Tower Society’s branch headquarters here in Seoul, Korea. We are reminiscing about our years together—twenty-seven of them in the full-time ministry of God’s kingdom, the last twenty-one years in missionary assignments.
“Your memories of the organization of Jehovah’s people and of faithful older men and women in it must go back a long way, Don.”
“Yes, Earlene, for mother accepted the Kingdom message when I was only two years old, and she did her very best to bring us boys up in a way that would fit us for the ministry. The major part of each year she herself used to devote to the ministry full time.”
“That’s wonderful! She is still busy on a missionary assignment in Puerto Rico, too. But is there anything else you recall about those early days?”
“Yes, there is. Mother saw to it that my two brothers and I were trained to pay close attention at ‘class,’ as our Bible study meetings used to be designated. She made sure that we were surrounded by visitors and associates who were devoted to Jehovah’s service. And each one of us went along in the door-to-door ministry when we realized it was expected of us. I recall working with mother when I was not yet ten, she on one side of the street and myself on the other, offering seven booklets on various Bible subjects. When I placed my first set of booklets, I don’t know who was the happier.”
“That was in Kansas, wasn’t it?”
“Right. I can recall vividly many of our activities in the 1930’s out in Wichita, Kansas. We would organize several carloads of publishers and go as a group in the door-to-door ministry in the various towns and cities. In 1934 and 1936 we used to go from door to door seeking to get as many names as possible on the petitions seeking relief from the boycott on broadcasts by the Watch Tower Society’s president, J. F. Rutherford. We also used printed testimony cards in explaining and presenting our Bible message from door to door, and later phonographs were put to use.”
“And you have often told me about those early conventions. They must have been thrilling to attend.”
“They surely were, Earlene. At first Mom used to give us all the news, such as the adoption of the name ‘Jehovah’s witnesses’ in 1931, and the information about the ‘great multitude’ in 1935. But my first convention was at Columbus, Ohio, in 1937. I stayed with friends at the trailer camp on the Fair Grounds, and how I loved to listen to the experiences of my older Christian brothers each night after the sessions had closed!”
“So, when once you started, you have never really been idle as far as the Lord’s work is concerned, have you?”
“Well, in 1939 I had become involved with secular work and worldly associates to the point that I was inactive. But I recall the loving assistance I received from our ‘company servant,’ as a congregation overseer used to be termed. He was a barber, and he used every opportunity when I was in the chair to remind me tactfully of my responsibility to Jehovah. And do you remember, after I met you, how he used to invite us both for dinner and engage in fine Scriptural discussions for our benefit?”
“Oh, yes, and that was not long before we got married in 1940. Then we hesitated about going in the full-time pioneer ministry because we had the idea we needed to have some kind of financial reserve.”
ENTERING THE FULL-TIME MINISTRY
“How glad I am that we got rid of that idea and wrote the Society to say that we had saved up enough money to keep us going for at least two months! With my appointment as pioneer minister came a letter admonishing us ‘not to be anxious’ about the necessities of life. (Matt. 6:25-33) So I got started in February 1943, and you were appointed one month later. Anyway, we’ve managed, with Jehovah’s help, to keep going, not for just two months, but for twenty-seven years.”
“I remember how happy we were, Don. Of course, we did not realize at the time that there would be tests and trials of our devotion.”
“That’s right. Soon after that my brothers and I got caught up in the ‘neutrality’ issue. At first I was given deferment by reason of being married prior to Pearl Harbor. Later my classification was changed to ‘conscientious objector’ rather than to that of ‘minister’ as I had requested. So soon I joined my brothers and some sixty other Witnesses in Leavenworth Penitentiary. But even there we kept up our Bible studies and meetings, and I shall never forget the visits of the Society’s special representative, A. H. Macmillan. His counsel and encouragement did much to sustain us all spiritually.”
“I really missed you all that time, I must say.”
“Yes, that was one of several occasions when we had to endure separation for the sake of the good news. But then we appreciated each other all the more when we were reunited. That time it was twenty-five months. And one thing that really made it easier for me, Earlene, was your faithfully continuing in the full-time preaching work.”
“It was quite difficult in some ways, especially since I could not visit you often. But I agreed with Dave and Pauline Hasty and their young son, Bud, to go into unassigned territory where there was great need for giving the Kingdom witness. At an assembly in Denver, Colorado, we met Sister Glass and she encouraged our group to come to Glenwood Springs and Aspen in the mountains. I shall never forget her kindness, not only then, but down through the years. Later, the McLain family came out from Wichita and we moved our trailers near Palisade, Colorado. With only one car for the whole group, we preached God’s Word throughout that rugged area. It seemed to take every cent we could get to keep the car going.”
“That’s where I joined you on my release, and I remember that one of the first questions you asked was, ‘How much money do you have?’ It seems that the car was badly in need of some repair.”
“But you must admit that those were among the happiest years of our lives, pioneering in that beautiful mountain country and associating with those wonderful friends we still have there.”
“Soon after, do you recall going to the Cleveland assembly of 1946? I believe that was your first large one, wasn’t it, Earlene?”
“Yes, and I was assigned in the volunteer service department with Mabel Haslett. We did not know at the time what a fine influence she and her husband were to have on our lives, no, not even when we found that they were called to the same class of the Society’s Gilead School as we were.”
GILEAD SCHOOL AND MISSIONARY WORK
“That was the eleventh class, the second international class as it was called, since only about one third of its students were Americans. What a privilege it was to associate so closely with spiritually mature brothers from Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Europe!”
“And do you remember how, after the first quarter, the Society’s president, N. H. Knorr, asked for volunteers to go to Japan with Don and Mabel Haslett and a group of Hawaiians of Japanese descent? As I recall, about 75 percent were willing to go, and we were among the sixteen who were selected. That meant we had to start studying Japanese right away.”
“For about a year after graduation we were assigned to visit and assist congregations in a California circuit, and then came President Knorr’s letter changing our assignment from Japan to Korea, and asking if we would accept. Of course, we did, and it was in August 1949 that we took off from Los Angeles airport bound for Korea. Our plane arrived in Tokyo, and Don Haslett arranged with the occupation authorities for us to stop over for a few days, days during which he could offer us some fine counsel as to how to adjust to an Oriental assignment.”
“Yes, Don, I remember that. And I remember too that when we arrived in Seoul there were about twenty meeting each week for a study of The Watchtower. One of the Witnesses would translate the study material from the English, and then make extra copies on thin sheets of paper. This painstaking handwork would produce only eight copies, and at the study four or five persons would crowd around one copy.”
“That’s right. Little literature was available then. In fact, we had brought with us twenty copies of the Korean edition of the booklet Where Are the Dead? And in the ministry we loaned these twenty booklets out, then went back and picked them up again. Eight of the local Witnesses joined us in the field ministry that month. What other recollections of those early days do you have, Earlene?”
“I remember when six new missionaries arrived in March 1950. By May we had reached a peak of sixty-one publishers, including eight missionaries. The original Witnesses we found here when we came had endured prison from five to seven years each under the Japanese occupation. Almost all of them held on faithfully until their deaths, and those surviving are still preaching the good news.”
THE KOREAN WAR
“Then war came. I know that you recall the public meeting we had in a school auditorium on June 25, 1950. As the meeting was dismissed, police told us that Communist North Korea had attacked and that a curfew was in force; everyone was to hurry home.
“So we watched the war from the roof of our home the first night. On the third day, when the Communist forces had entered the city’s outskirts, all American and European citizens were ordered to report to their respective embassies for immediate evacuation. As we obeyed the order, we had no idea that the hostilities were to develop into a major conflict. You’ll never forget those days, will you, Earlene?”
“Never! One of our Christian sisters and I were ill at the time, and we had about thirty minutes to pack one suitcase. I still remember how upset the American consul was when he found out that there were six American women still in the city because we had not recognized the warnings broadcast in code earlier over the radio. But it worked out well for us because we got to go on the last group of planes from Kimpo airport, while the other women and children who had been evacuated on a fertilizer boat the previous day were a long time in getting reunited with their menfolk.
“I’ll never forget the strafing of our buses by Communist planes as we were going to the airport. And out there on the airstrip they strafed us again, so we were herded into a cramped basement. Finally we women were put on the first plane out. Then two Communist planes tried to shoot down our plane; however, they were shot down by the planes escorting us. We learned later that these two planes were reportedly the first to be downed in the Korean War. Instead of taking the evacuees to some other place in Korea, they took us to Itazuke in Kyushu, southern Japan. How glad we were to find out that you men had been taken to the same place!”
“Yes, Earlene, and it was only later that it became apparent there would be no early end to the Korean conflict, and Seoul twice fell into the hands of the Communists. The Society then assigned us eight missionaries from Korea to Nagoya, Japan. There were no local Witnesses then in Nagoya, but within a year’s time there were more than sixty publishers of the good news!
RETURN TO KOREA
“During the next year the Tokyo branch office of the Society tried repeatedly to arrange for at least one of us to return to Korea. Finally the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers permitted one of us to return to Korea. The Society’s president wrote me to go back and stay at least a month. It turned out that I could remain in Korea, but no other Witness missionaries could come in; so I stayed. I got back there in November 1951, but you were not allowed to come until October of 1952, Earlene.”
“How well I remember! And how happy you were, when I did get back, to have me cook you a meal for a change. I suspect you had many more cold meals from those GI rations that were on the market then than you’d admit, Don.”
“That year was difficult in view of our being separated again, Earlene, but what a wonderful year of progress for the Kingdom work. Our Christian brothers had been scattered to the south as refugees during the heavy fighting. In November 1951, only thirty-five reported serving in the field ministry, but more were preaching than that. In December and January I traveled around to visit them, and six congregations were organized. From then on, the work grew so fast there was almost no keeping up with it. By the end of the 1952 service year, there were 192 publishers reporting. By the end of the 1954 service year, 1,065 were reporting! So, while the Korean War was a disastrous thing for the Korean people, the fact that Jehovah’s witnesses were scattered to different parts of the country served to get the Kingdom message to people in those areas that much sooner. It is certainly a credit to our dear Korean brothers that they ‘exerted themselves vigorously’ to make use of that circumstance.”
“Don, I must say that those days had their difficulties for us, but it brings me joy when I think about the excellent qualities of our Korean brothers and Jehovah’s direction that resulted in all that increase. It is true that at times things seemed difficult. For example, when we first moved back to Seoul after two years in Pusan, into the portion of the present Bethel home known as the ‘old building,’ it had been all shot up from the war—no windows, the plaster down, no electricity, no water, and so forth. Then for ten years in that building we had no water come through the pipes. It all had to be carried up in buckets on an A-frame on someone’s shoulders. Now, just look at the fine modern Bethel home we enjoy today. It’s hard to realize what happened during those other days.”
“Yes, all of Korea has changed much from those days, Earlene. Eight more missionaries arrived in 1955 after the war. And local Witnesses had made fine progress in spiritual growth. One of my first Bible students, baptized in 1950, is now an overseer in one of Seoul’s fifty-two units. At that time he was not yet married; now his second son is assisting us here at Bethel. It makes us seem old, doesn’t it?”
“Well, Don, we are considered the grandfather and grandmother of our Christian brothers here. They use those same endearing terms when speaking to us. Even though we have passed the age of fifty years, we still have years ahead of us to use for the work remaining before Armageddon. Jehovah has certainly blessed us.”
“You remember, Earlene, when we graduated from Gilead in 1948, the Society’s president told our class we were to be given one-way tickets to our assignments. But Jehovah has been good to us, for since our return to Korea from our home leave in 1969, we can say we have crossed the Pacific nine times, having been back on four different occasions. In 1953, for instance, to attend the international assembly in New York, we were scheduled to go by ship, but the brothers in our old circuit in California contributed the extra funds so we could go by air. Again in 1958 we were in New York at the assembly. Then in 1962 I was called back for the ten-month course in Gilead School. And at that time you were having physical difficulties and were allowed to spend those ten months in Colorado to recuperate. This last year we were able to attend the 1969 assembly in New York also. Our families have been good to us, as well as many friends whose help made those trips possible, and we are grateful to them as well as to the Society.”
“Don, I shall always be grateful for that extra leave given in 1962. I have had some health problems during the years, including three cases of surgery, and I can’t say that I have had less competent treatment here than I could have had elsewhere. Now I must say I feel better physically than I have in the past five or six years, and I am grateful to Jehovah for it.”
“Through the years our Christian brothers have been very kind and hospitable to us, Earlene, and have shown their love in so many ways. They have been our constant delight. And now as we write this story, our Korean brothers are still growing in numbers. The service year of 1970 has seen more than 3,000 baptized. And for the service year, we had a publisher peak of 12,267. There is no letup in sight.
“We can look back with thankfulness to the many older brothers and sisters in the faith whose lives touched ours in our younger years and who exerted much influence on us by their own course of faithfulness. Many of them were of the Lord’s anointed. If these blessings we have enjoyed so far are any indication, then what wonderful joys await us all in the new system of things, along with the fine associations we can then enjoy!”