• Suriname
    1990 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses

    • Nevertheless, from 1910 till 1914, some faithful ones followed Brother Donk into a polder outside Nickerie, waded into the drainage canal of a cacao plantation, and were baptized. “Those baptisms drew hundreds of onlookers,” says James Brown, now 86 years old. He remembers watching spellbound as Brother Donk dipped a fully clothed new disciple under and cried out: “In the name of the Father.” Then he immersed the same person a second time and called, “In the name of the Son,” and again, a third time, “In the name of the Holy Ghost.” That done, the baptizer turned to the onlookers and cried out: “Come! Be baptized and stay alive!” Some came but mostly out of fear that the world would end in 1914. When 1914 came and went, a goodly number of them drifted away.

      “God’s Kingdom Has Come”

      However, about 1920, the Bible Students who pressed on received a boost when a brother from the United States arrived by boat and showed the Photo-Drama of Creation.

      “It was the talk of the town,” relates James Brown. “I went early to the shed at the cacao plantation and sat in the front row. The place was packed with 500 people. The showing began. I’d never seen anything like it​—the slides, the movie, the music! One man stood up and said, ‘Tonight God’s Kingdom has come to Nickerie!’”