We move ahead to 1946. The Watchtower Bible School of Gilead was training hundreds of eager missionaries. That September, graduates Thomas and Mary Klingensmith, along with Walter and Mary Pemberton, arrived in the Ecuadorian capital of Quito, fired with zeal for witnessing activity. Overcoming three centuries of tradition with their limited knowledge of the Spanish language proved to be a real challenge. Testimony cards, phonograph recordings of Bible talks and plenty of sign language resulted in the first organized meeting of Jehovah’s Witnesses there in October 1946. Missionary efforts were blessed with an attendance of eight persons, including one Ecuadorian. The very next month, seven Ecuadorians and the four missionaries were preaching in the Magdalena section of Quito.

Among the seven persons who symbolized their dedication to Jehovah by undergoing water baptism in August 1947 were Ramon Redin and Pedro Tules. At age eighty-two, Brother Redin still serves as a special pioneer or full-time kingdom proclaimer. Brother Tules, now with over thirty-four years in full-time service, was the first Ecuadorian to attend Gilead School (in 1951).

Rewarding Work in Quito and Guayaquil

The calendar now moves to 1948. Six more Gilead-trained missionaries then came to Quito and an equal number established their home in the seaport of Guayaquil.

Lottie Foster, now an octogenarian, came to Ecuador with the 1948 group and still resides here. “I have been a sower and a waterer,” Sister Foster says of her thirty-three years in missionary service, adding: “Certainly I have helped many to the point of dedication to God. But in many cases I have placed literature and started studies and then the people would move. Later, at some of our larger assemblies, I would meet them again, baptized and going strong. . . . Truly, Jehovah makes his field produce.”​—1 Corinthians 3:6-9.

Fern Noboa also came to Ecuador in 1948. Today Sister Noboa continues to serve with her family in a country she has made her home. Looking back, she recalls: “In the Magdalena section of Quito, the priest would ride through the streets on his bicycle and round up his mob to chase us away. At least once we were ‘rocked’ out of the territory.”

But persecution was unavailing, and Jehovah prospered the kingdom-preaching work. Thus, today there are fourteen congregations in Quito.

In March 1949, N. H. Knorr (then president of the Watch Tower Society) made his first visit to Ecuador. In Quito, eighty-two listened as he gave his discourse by candlelight. At Guayaquil, after only two and a half months of activity by the missionaries, a crowd of 280 gathered to hear Brother Knorr speak.

“Little Vatican” Succumbs

In 1953 missionaries were sent to Cuenca, Ecuador’s third-largest city, sometimes called “Little Vatican.” Progress was slow and the missionaries were moved out in 1955. But the seed had found some good soil. For instance, one youth, Carlos Sanchez, recognized the truth. “When I first attended the meetings,” he recalls, “I was so shy and self-conscious that I would take the stocking cap I wore and try to pull it down over my face so that others would not see me.” Today, his face radiates the joy of the truth that has transformed his life. Although paralyzed from the waist down due to a serious auto accident, Brother Sanchez continues zealously looking for other truth seekers.

Cuenca​—the “Little Vatican”—​changed, and in this a clergyman played a part. Harley Harris, now branch coordinator in Ecuador, recalls that in 1966 he, along with three other missionaries and a special pioneer, began making a concerted effort to establish a congregation there. He states:

“In our door-to-door work we began to hear of a Spanish priest . . . [who] had announced in church that if people were talking about the Bible, they should be listened to, since the Bible contained the truth. . . . I had a two-hour conversation with him in the missionary home. He requested a Bible and manifested a very receptive attitude. Opposed to charging for church services by category, since he felt that a Mass was a Mass with the same charge for all, this priest elicited the ire of the bishop and was dispatched to his native Spain. Nevertheless, his comments had loosened the mental shackles of many and our preaching efforts gathered productive momentum. Now in 1982 there are three active congregations of Jehovah’s people in Cuenca.”

The Work Moves South

As of October 1, 1956, Carl Dochow and Nicolas Wesley were assigned the entire southern province of El Oro. In the emerging agricultural center of Machala, they worked eighteen months before they saw one new kingdom publisher in the field. “Then the work ‘took off,’” recalls Brother Dochow. “In 1960 a giant step forward was the acquisition of the very first Kingdom Hall wholly owned by a congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses [in this country, where halls had previously been rented] . . . It has been enlarged and remodeled since then and is indeed a credit to true worship.”

Machala now has three congregations, with an additional six throughout the province. And today the majority of the Kingdom Halls in Ecuador are owned by the local congregations.