• Colombia
    1990 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses

    • Religious Capital

      It was Wednesday, October 1, 1958, when the first Gilead graduates arrived in Medellín to spearhead the evangelizing work. Although the dictatorship had ended and Jehovah’s Witnesses were already established in the other major cities of the country, Medellín was different. At the time, it was renowned as the religious capital of Colombia. Nevertheless, the missionary couples welcomed their new assignment. After a year in hot, tropical Barranquilla, they were delighted with the mild, springtime climate of Medellín and were pleased to find a clean city with an abundance of colorful flowers, including many orchids.

      Richard and Virginia Brown were one of those missionary couples. Richard, now coordinator of the Colombia Branch Committee, describes how the missionaries felt: “The accounts we had heard about the city’s being notoriously religious were eloquently confirmed. Black-robed priests and nuns seemed to be everywhere​—along the streets, in the stores, on the buses. The city was full of churches, chapels, and religious schools. In our limited Spanish, we made attempts at informal witnessing, only to be rebuffed by disapproving looks.

      “Though we were just four missionaries in the city, notices began appearing in the newspapers about our activity: ‘A warning to Catholics. Intense campaign started by Jehovah’s Witnesses . . . Reject and destroy any of such literature that gets into your hands.’ Still, interest was found, and by June 1959, with 23 publishers, including 5 who had come to serve where the need was greater, Medellín’s first congregation began to function.”