Nevertheless, we were able to place a lot of Bible literature. Our ministry in Machala, situated in the heart of the banana-producing farmlands, serves to illustrate this. Nicholas Wesley and I were the only Witnesses there when we arrived in 1956. We would leave early in the morning on the dump trucks that were used in work on the highways being built in those days. After we rode a considerable distance, we would get off and witness to the people all the way back to where we were staying.

On one particular day, Nick and I kept track to see who of us would place more magazines. I recall that I was ahead of Nick at midday, but by evening we were tied at 114 magazines. We left hundreds of our journals each month with people on our magazine routes. Six times I placed more than a thousand magazines during a month. Think how many could learn Bible truths from those magazines!

In Machala we also had the privilege of building the first congregation-owned Kingdom Hall in Ecuador. That was 35 years ago, in 1960. In those early days, we had only about 15 in attendance at our meetings. Today Machala has 11 thriving congregations!

[Picture on page 25]

Preaching in Machala, 1957