Building Their Own Meeting Places

At about this time, the brothers in Asunción built and dedicated a Kingdom Hall, the first one in Paraguay to be owned by them. It was a fine building of brick and cement, with room to seat over 200 persons. What a witness it was to the community, as men, women, and children shared together in digging, mixing concrete, polishing bricks, painting, and cleaning up! It was evident to observers that these were diligent workers.

A small group of Witnesses, not yet a congregation, were having so many come to their meetings in Vacay, a rural area in the south of the country, that they decided they too needed a Kingdom Hall. But they had no money. What could they do? They made an agreement with a logging operator by which they, as a group, would clear some land in exchange for building materials and some money. When the hall was finished, four interested families who lived far away sold their farms and moved closer to the Kingdom Hall so that they would not miss the meetings.

But in 1962, Nathan Knorr, then president of the Watch Tower Society, gave direction to purchase property in one of the nicer parts of the city, with a view to building a branch-missionary home that would also include a Kingdom Hall.

Proud of their Kingdom Hall (in Asunción) —the first one built and owned by the Witnesses in Paraguay