Results were slow in coming. With a population of about ten million, the field seemed daunting. Seeds of truth were sown as this lone family witnessed to friends, acquaintances, employers, and fellow employees. They held regular meetings in their home and invited interested ones to join them. Finally, in March 1974, after four years of persistent planting and watering, the first fruitage from Nepal came​—and that from an unlikely source!

Visiting a home, the publisher spoke to a wealthy man who was secretary to a member of the royal family. “Talk to my son,” the man said. The son agreed to a Bible study. In time he changed his employment, since he worked in a gambling casino. His father, a devout Hindu, opposed him. Still, this young man took his stand for Jehovah. The outcome? His father later stopped opposing him, and a group of close relatives accepted the Bible’s truth. He now serves as an elder in the Christian congregation.

What a joyful occasion it was when the entire district convention program was put on in the home where they held meetings! Imagine four brothers, including a member of the India branch, handling the entire program! Even the Bible drama was put on. How? Slides had been taken at a dress rehearsal in India. In Nepal, these slides were projected on a screen, accompanied by taped dialogue. The audience loved it. How large was that audience? Eighteen people!

Help in the preaching work from outside the country was limited. Missionary work was out of the question, and it was not easy for foreigners to get secular work. Two Indian Witnesses, however, did find employment in Nepal at different times, spending several years in Kathmandu and helping to build up the newly formed congregation. By 1976 there were 17 Kingdom publishers in Kathmandu.

Despite such difficulties, the brothers continued to preach the Kingdom good news zealously. For instance, in 1985, the year after government intervention began, there was a 21-percent increase in the number preaching. The 35 publishers spent an average of 20 hours a month talking to others about pure worship.

By 1989 there was an average of 43 each month sharing in the preaching work, and 204 attended the Memorial of Christ’s death that year.

Then, as promised, Jehovah began to speed up the ingathering of truth-seekers to his house. (Isaiah 60:22) Not long ago a second congregation was formed in Kathmandu, and there are now two isolated groups outside the capital. In April 1994, there were 153 Christians who reported preaching activity​—a 350-percent increase in less than five years! They conducted 386 home Bible studies with interested people. At the Memorial in 1994, there was a thrilling attendance of 580. For a special assembly day, 635 packed into the hall, and 20 presented themselves for baptism. So the great increases enjoyed by Jehovah’s Witnesses worldwide are taking place in tiny Nepal too.