A NEW ASSIGNMENT BRINGS NEW CHALLENGES

After three years in the traveling work, the Japan branch asked us if we would be willing to go to Taiwan to work among the indigenous Amis people. An apostasy had arisen there, and Taiwan needed a brother fluent in Japanese to help remedy the situation.a We loved our work in Japan, so this was a hard decision. But Harvey had learned never to turn down an assignment, so we agreed to go.

We arrived in November 1962. Taiwan had 2,271 publishers, most of them Amis. But first, we needed to learn Chinese. We had only a textbook and a teacher who did not speak English, but we learned it.

Soon after arriving in Taiwan, Harvey was assigned to be the branch servant. The branch was small, so Harvey could care for his office responsibilities and still work with the Amis brothers up to three weeks per month. He also served as district overseer from time to time, which included giving talks at assemblies. Harvey could have given the talks in Japanese, and the Amis brothers would have understood. However, the government allowed religious meetings to be held only in Chinese. So Harvey, still struggling with the language, gave the talks in Chinese while a brother interpreted them into Amis.

LITERATURE FOR THE AMIS

Harvey realized that the Amis brothers were struggling to progress spiritually because many were illiterate and they had no literature. Since the Amis language had recently begun to be written using Roman characters, it seemed practical to teach the brothers to read their own language. This was a huge undertaking, but eventually the brothers were able to study by themselves. Amis literature became available in the late 1960’s, and in 1968, The Watchtower in Amis began to be published.

However, the government restricted publications that were not in Chinese. So to avoid problems, the Amis Watchtower was circulated in various forms. For example, for some time, we used a dual-language Mandarin-Amis edition of The Watchtower. If anyone was curious, we were ostensibly teaching the local people Chinese. Since then, Jehovah’s organization has supplied much Amis-language literature to help these dear people learn Bible truths.​—Acts 10:34, 35.

A PERIOD OF CLEANSING

During the 1960’s and 1970’s, many Amis brothers were not living by God’s standards. Since they did not fully understand Bible principles, some were living immorally, getting drunk, or using tobacco and betel nut. Harvey visited many congregations, trying to help the brothers understand Jehovah’s view on these matters. On one such trip, we had the experience mentioned at the outset.

Humble brothers were willing to make changes, but sadly, many others were not, and the number of publishers in Taiwan dropped from over 2,450 to about 900 during a period of 20 years. This was very discouraging. However, we knew that Jehovah would never bless an unclean organization. (2 Cor. 7:1) Eventually, the wrong practices were cleaned out, and with Jehovah’s blessing, Taiwan now has over 11,000 publishers.

From the 1980’s on, we saw the spiritual condition of the Amis congregations improve, and Harvey could spend more time among the Chinese. He was delighted to help the husbands of a number of sisters become believers. I recall that he said how happy he was when one of these men prayed to Jehovah for the first time. I too rejoice to have been able to teach many honesthearted ones to draw close to Jehovah. I even had the joy of serving at the Taiwan branch with the son and daughter of one of my former Bible students.