• Part 4—Witnesses to the Most Distant Part of the Earth
    Jehovah’s Witnesses—Proclaimers of God’s Kingdom

    • MOST of the islands of the West Indies had been reached in some way with the Kingdom message by 1945. But a more thorough witness needed to be given. Missionaries trained at Gilead School would play an important role.

      Missionaries Intensify the Witness in the West Indies

      By 1960 these missionaries had served on 27 islands or island groups in the Caribbean. Half of these places had no congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses when the missionaries arrived. The missionaries proceeded to conduct home Bible studies with interested persons, and they organized regular meetings. Where there were congregations already, they gave valuable training to local publishers. As a result, the quality of the meetings and effectiveness in the ministry improved.

      The early Bible Students had been witnessing in Trinidad since before World War I, but following the arrival of missionaries from Gilead in 1946, the conducting of home Bible studies with interested persons was given strong impetus. In Jamaica the preaching of the good news had been under way for almost half a century, and there were a thousand local Witnesses by the time the first missionary arrived; but they were glad to have help in reaching the more educated people, especially in the suburban area around the capital city. On the other hand, in Aruba much witnessing had already been done in the English-speaking community, so the missionaries directed attention to the native population. Everyone needed to hear the good news.

      To make sure that people on all the islands in this part of the earth had opportunity to hear about God’s Kingdom, in 1948 the Watch Tower Society outfitted the 59-foot [18 m] schooner Sibia as a floating missionary home. The crew was assigned to take the Kingdom message to every island of the West Indies where no one was active in preaching the good news. Gust Maki was the captain, and with him were Stanley Carter, Ronald Parkin, and Arthur Worsley. They started with the Out Islands of the Bahamas group, then worked their way to the southeast through the Leeward Islands and the Windward Islands. What effect did their visits have? At St. Maarten a businessman told them: “The people never used to talk about the Bible, but since you’ve been here everybody is talking about the Bible.” Later, the Sibia was replaced by a larger boat, the Light. There were also changes in the crew. Within a decade the special work being done with the use of these boats had been accomplished, and land-based proclaimers of the good news were following through.