• Jehovah Taught Me to Do His Will
    The Watchtower—2012 | July 15

    • Our class of 120 Gilead students came from every corner of the earth. It was not until graduation day that we were told where we were being assigned to serve. As soon as we could, we rushed to the Gilead library to learn about the countries to which we were assigned. I learned that my assignment, Paraguay, was a country with a history of political revolutions. Shortly after arriving there, I asked the other missionaries one morning what the “celebration” had been during the night. They smiled and said: “You have experienced your first revolution. Look out the front door.” Soldiers were on every corner!

      A MOMENTOUS EXPERIENCE

      On one occasion, I accompanied the circuit overseer to visit an isolated congregation and to show the film The New World Society in Action. We traveled for eight or nine hours, first by train, then by horse and buggy, and finally by oxcart. We carried along a generator and a movie projector. After finally arriving at our destination, we spent the next day visiting farms and inviting all to the showing of the film that night. Some 15 people attended.

      After showing about 20 minutes of the film, we were told to go inside the house as quickly as possible. We grabbed the projector and obeyed. It was then that men started shouting, firing guns, and chanting: “Our god is a bloodthirsty god, and he wants the blood of the gringos.” There were only two gringos there, and I was one of them! Those who attended the film showing held off the mob’s attempts to break into the house. But the opposers returned about three o’clock in the morning, firing their guns and promising to get us on our way back to town later that day.

      The brothers contacted the sheriff, and he came in the afternoon with two horses to take us to town. On the way back, whenever we came near a clump of bushes or trees, he pulled out his gun and rode ahead to inspect the area. A horse, I could see, was an important means of transportation, so I later obtained one.

      MORE MISSIONARIES ARRIVE

      The preaching work continued to have good success in spite of regular clergy opposition. In 1955, five new missionaries arrived, including a young Canadian sister named Elsie Swanson, who graduated from the 25th class of Gilead. We were together for a while at the branch office before she was assigned to another town. She had devoted her life to the service of Jehovah with little help from her parents, who never accepted the truth. On December 31, 1957, Elsie and I were married, and we lived by ourselves in a missionary home in the southern part of Paraguay.

      Our home did not have running water; instead, we had a well in the backyard. So there was no indoor shower or toilet, no washing machine, not even a refrigerator. We bought perishable food each day. But the simplicity of life and the loving relationships with our brothers and sisters in the congregation made this a very happy period in our married life.