• 1989 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses
    1989 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses

    • On May 13, 1925, a spiritual fishing work began when Brother Rutherford visited Lisbon and gave a talk to a gathering of more than 2,000 persons. However, difficult years lay ahead for Jehovah’s people. The work was banned, our brothers were harassed and imprisoned, and the branch office operated underground from different homes.

      As if struck by lightning, an old dictatorship was suddenly brought to an end by a political revolution on April 25, 1974. And by December, religious liberty for Jehovah’s people officially arrived. A large 20-room home was rented in February 1975 in Estoril to serve as the branch office and to care for the work not only in Portugal but also in Madeira, the Azores, Angola, and São Tomé. Ten years later this proved to be inadequate, for the number of publishers had swelled to 28,984. Thus, land for new facilities was sought and found, and an outside firm was contracted to put up the reinforced concrete shell. The rest of the construction project was completed by volunteer workers, all Witnesses.

      How could such a large complex be financed? Although Portugal is not a wealthy country, the brothers contributed “beyond their actual ability” and were richly blessed for it. (2 Cor. 8:2-4) One family with five children consulted together to see what they could do to help. The daughters contributed their jewelry, and a son the money he saved for a bicycle. In a letter to the branch, the father wrote: “This contribution is the result of the sale of three bracelets, five rings, and a pair of earrings, besides the money from the children’s piggy banks.”

      The dedication program was held on Saturday morning, April 23, 1988, in the new Kingdom Hall and was transmitted by closed-circuit television to the factory and by telephone hookup to the Restelo Soccer Stadium in Lisbon. The morning program concluded with the faith-stirring dedication talk by Brother Milton G. Henschel.