Meanwhile, the Chaco War had caused Juan José Brizuela to do some serious thinking about life. He had been wounded and taken prisoner by the Bolivians. As a prisoner of war, he had seen widows weeping for their fatherless children, and he had observed Catholic priests blessing Bolivian soldiers. He recalled that, as Paraguayan soldiers, he and others had received a similar blessing. He thought: “There must be something wrong. If God exists, this cannot be. But if God does exist, I’m going to look for him until I find him.”

After the war, Julián Hadad met Juan José in Carmen del Paraná. From the Bible, Julián helped him find satisfying answers to his questions. As the apostle Paul said long ago, God has made it possible for humans who “grope for him” to “really find him.” (Acts 17:27) Soon Juan José realized that he had found the true God, Jehovah. (Deut. 4:35; Ps. 83:18) He got baptized in 1945; and his wife, Jóvita, in 1946.

Jóvita Brizuela, baptized in 1946, still a special pioneer