On July 1, 1949, I was thrilled to be invited to serve at Bethel, as the principal facilities of Jehovah’s Witnesses in a country are called. The Bethel in Brazil was then located at 330 Licínio Cardoso Street in Rio de Janeiro.

Our Bethel Facilities

It has been exciting over the years to watch the expansion of our Bethel facilities in Brazil. In 1952 we built a two-story factory behind our home in Rio de Janeiro. Then in 1968, Bethel was transferred to a new building in the city of São Paulo. When we moved in, everything seemed large and spacious for our Bethel family of 42 members. We really thought that this building would serve for all our future growth. However, in 1971 two five-story additions were built, and an adjoining factory was purchased, remodeled, and tied in to this complex. But within a few years, the continued increase of Kingdom proclaimers—we passed the 100,000 mark in 1975—demanded more room.

Therefore, a new complex of buildings was constructed about 90 miles [140 km] from São Paulo near the small town of Cesário Lange. In 1980 our Bethel family of 170 members was transferred to these new facilities. Since then the Kingdom work has grown dramatically. We now have over 410,000 sharing regularly in the preaching work in Brazil! To care for the spiritual needs of all these Kingdom proclaimers, we have had to keep building new factories to print Bible literature and new residences to accommodate Bethel volunteers. We presently have about 1,100 Bethel family members!