Then, in 1977, the Department of Religious Affairs struck another blow​—they refused to renew missionary visas for Jehovah’s Witnesses. Most Witness missionaries were reassigned to other countries.a “Hundreds of brothers and sisters came to the airport to say good-bye,” recalls missionary Norbert Häusler, who served with his wife, Margarete, in Manado, North Sulawesi. “We walked to the steps of the plane and paused to look back. A sea of hands waved to us, and a collective cry echoed across the tarmac: ‘Thank you. Thank you for being here.’ We boarded the plane and wept.”