• Norway
    2012 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses

    • REACHING OTHER PARTS OF NORWAY

      The preaching work in Norway received a welcome boost in 1903 with the arrival of three zealous colporteurs (full-time preachers)​—Fritiof Lindkvist, Viktor Feldt, and E. R. Gundersen. Fritiof settled in the capital, Kristiania (now called Oslo), and in 1904 his home became the office of the Watch Tower Society, where literature orders and subscriptions to Zion’s Watch Tower were processed.

      Late in 1903, when Brother Gundersen was preaching in Trondheim in central Norway, he witnessed to Lotte Holm, who accepted some literature. Later, she went home to the Narvik area, above the Arctic Circle, and became the first publisher in northern Norway. Afterward, Viktor Feldt went to Narvik and helped two married couples to become Bible Students. They got in touch with Lotte, and soon this small group gathered regularly to study the Bible. Lotte’s sister, Hallgerd, also accepted the truth, and later they both served as zealous pioneers in various parts of Norway.

      Brothers Feldt and Gundersen had particularly good response to their preaching in Bergen in 1904 and 1905. Zion’s Watch Tower of March 1, 1905, reported: “A prominent preacher of the Free Mission church of [Bergen] has become thoroughly grasped by the clear light, and he is now setting forth the full and true Gospel to his always large and attentive audiences.”

      That preacher was Theodor Simonsen, who was later expelled from the Free Mission Church for teaching the wonderful new truths he had learned from our publications. The church’s loss, however, was the Bible Students’ gain. Among Jehovah’s people, Theodor was much appreciated as a brother and a speaker. Later, he settled in Kristiania, where there was a growing congregation of Bible Students.

      SOME OF THE FIRST PIONEERS

      About 1905, there were congregations of Bible Students in four cities: Skien, Kristiania, Bergen, and Narvik. Soon several eager publishers started pioneering and took the good news to many other parts of the country. Those early pioneers came from interesting backgrounds.

      The first pioneer sister in Norway was Helga Hess. She was an orphan and lived in Bergen, where she had become a Sunday-school teacher at the age of 17. When she heard Theodor Simonsen speak in the Free Mission church about what he had learned by reading one of the Bible Students’ books, her interest was aroused and she started to read the same literature. She resigned as Sunday-school teacher, and in 1905, at 19 years of age, she set out to spread the good news in Hamar and Gjøvik.

      One day in 1908, Andreas Øiseth was chopping wood at the family farm near Kongsvinger when a pioneer called and left the book The Divine Plan of the Ages with him. Andreas, who was in his early 20’s, loved what he read and ordered more literature. After some months he turned the farm over to one of his younger brothers and began to pioneer. During the next eight years, he preached throughout almost the entire country. First he went northward, traveling inland by bicycle in the summer and by kick-sled in the winter. When he came to Tromsø, he turned southward and covered the areas along the coast all the way to Kristiania.

      Anna Andersen from Rygge, near Moss, was also one of the early pioneers. She had been a Salvation Army officer for years and had devoted herself to helping the needy. In about 1907 she read some of our publications and realized that she had found the truth. In Kristiansund she got in touch with another Salvation Army officer, named Hulda Andersen (later Øiseth), who showed interest in the Bible. Soon those two women set out on a long trip northward on a coastal steamer, which took them all the way to Kirkenes, close to the Russian border. En route, they went ashore at every port and placed literature. In 1912 or thereabouts, Anna enrolled as a pioneer. For decades she traveled all over the country by boat and bicycle, reaching nearly every town in Norway with Bible literature. She spent quite some time in the south at Kristiansand, where she provided valuable support to the growing congregation.

      Karl Gunberg had been an officer in the navy before he became a Bible Student. He started out as a pioneer when he was in his mid-30’s, in about 1911, and supported himself as a navigation instructor. Despite Karl’s rather stern appearance, he was known as a pleasant and humorous person. He preached throughout Norway well into his old age, and his background as a naval officer and navigation teacher proved to be very useful in spreading the good news, as we will see later.