WILLING WORKERS BLESSED BY JEHOVAH

Meanwhile, the faithful pioneers were taking the truth into new areas. In 1933 Peter Otudoh, who had been baptized in August 1932 and was working in the branch office, volunteered to go to Badagri near the border with Dahomey (now Benin Republic). He and four others preached in Ikoyi and Ipokia, then in Ijofin and across the border down to Porto-Novo.

After the Watchtower Study that Sunday, Brother Brown asked the audience: “Who are those who want to go to eastern Nigeria to find Jehovah’s sheep there in the preaching work?” Alfred Nduaguibe, Peter Otudoh, and three others volunteered. It was not long before their preaching began to be greatly opposed by the religious leaders. But the brothers were aware that Jehovah was blessing them. As Brother Otudoh said, they “viewed the persecutors as flies perched on the back of an elephant.”

Such long-distance traveling was both tiring and dangerous. Brothers Brown and Otudoh, for example, narrowly escaped from robbers armed with knives and machetes on the road from Benin City to Agbor. They avoided the roadblock by swerving the car to one side and then had to drive fast in order to escape the pursuing bandits.