What Has Brought Happiness to Me
As told by Maria Alves de Azevedo
I WAS born in Lamelas, a little village in the Oporto district of Portugal, famous for its port wines. We lived in a large stone house, with upstairs bedrooms and country house furniture. Downstairs was a large kitchen that also served as a dining room. Here was a wood-fire oven, where our delicious corn bread was baked.
Our drinking water came from the spring at the back of the house. It was fresh and clear, and by its side grew delicious strawberries. And a crystal-clear stream flowed near our house.
I can still remember some of these things, and I still take delight in looking at clear flowing waters. Since childhood days my heart has beat faster when reading in the Bible about the “river of water of life.” (Rev. 22:1, 2) How happy I was, too, when I learned that someday all mankind would live in peace under their own vines and fig trees!—See Micah 4:3, 4.
When I was only three months old, my father left for Brazil in search of better economic conditions. Mother and I joined him four years later, in 1917.
RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES
Father had been an altar boy in the Catholic church back in Lamelas. And mother always took me with her to church. Later, a Presbyterian aunt got father to read the Bible, and soon my parents became Presbyterians.
I was about nine years old then, and I enjoyed reading the Bible stories about merciful Joseph and patient Job. Their course of integrity would move me to tears. I wanted to be like them.
In time we moved to Olaria, in the northern part of Rio de Janeiro. Here, instead of a clear stream, there was a big ditch in the middle of the road overgrown with grass and weeds. This was turned into an open sewer that gave off not so pleasant odors. And the mosquitoes? Well, let us forget them now.
The family’s goal of material prosperity meant hard work. First, I helped mother with the house chores and then both of us would give father a hand in his shoemaking business. Mother also raised chickens, and I helped to sell the eggs. One day I overcharged for two dozen eggs. My intention was to buy a lottery ticket in the hope of winning a doll or toy kitchenware. The stern discipline I received deeply impressed on me the value of honesty.
At age nine I was baptized as a Presbyterian, and in 1927, at age fourteen, I was confirmed. One day that year I met a sailor named Raimundo F. Cabral, who said he was a “Bible Student.” He was engaged to a girl whom I was trying to convert from spiritism to the Presbyterian Church. I was teaching Sunday school and desired to help people to learn about God.
Yet, this sailor showed me from the Bible, not only that spiritism is wrong, but that the soul is mortal and that hell is the common grave of mankind. We discussed other subjects as well, and I learned many things of which I had been unaware. However, he and my girl friend got married and moved away. For twelve years I had no further contact with the Bible Students.
During that time many things happened. I, too, married but my marriage did not turn out to be a bed of roses. There were lots of thorns and few roses. With the highest of hopes I awaited the arrival of my first child. Would it change my marital relationship for the better? Sad to say, the baby was born dead. By this time my husband had already taken to a Bohemian way of life. Not even the birth of three more children changed that sad situation.
I always tried to hide my problems from others, especially from my parents, so I had no one to comfort and encourage me. My religion offered no hope. In fact, I thought I was one of those who read the Bible, but did not deserve to understand it. On the other hand, I also believed that there must be those who would ‘bring the many to righteousness.’ (Dan. 12:3) I kept wondering who they were. How I longed to know the truth that sets one free!—John 8:32.
WHAT I HAD BEEN SEARCHING FOR
Then, in January 1939, the same Bible Student visited me again, only this time he presented himself as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. I readily subscribed to The Watchtower in Portuguese, and as a gift I received the book Riches and three booklets. I was amazed at their powerful message and showed them right away to my neighbors. When I had finished reading the book Riches I could truly say: “I have found God’s people!”
On April 4, 1939, I attended my first meeting of Jehovah’s Witnesses; it was the memorial of Christ’s death. I believed that everybody would welcome the marvelous Bible truths that were bringing so much happiness to me. But as I began to talk about God’s grand purposes to my parents, neighbors, relatives and friends, some said that I had gone crazy. My husband forbade me to mention the Bible to him. My mother started wearing black as a sign of mourning, as though I had already died!
All of this was very trying. Yet I dedicated my life to Jehovah, and on April 11, 1941, submitted to water baptism, in symbol of my dedication. The words of Psalm 26:1 became my firm decision: “In Jehovah I have trusted, that I may not wobble” in my integrity.
While I was facing opposition, not all hearts were closed. My dear sister Ruth accepted the Bible truths I spoke to her. Under the cover of giving her sewing lessons, we studied together. In order to get out of the house to preach to others, I became a dressmaker and a teacher of sewing and embroidery. Thus not a day passed that I was not able to share with others the good things in God’s Word, and this activity especially is what has brought happiness to me.
In time my parents became more friendly again. So in 1944 I invited them to attend the “United Announcers” assembly in São Paulo. To my happiness, they accepted. The train journey from Rio de Janeiro took more than twelve hours, but the warmth and joy among the Witnesses soon made us forget the hard wooden benches. We shared lunch boxes and sang Kingdom songs until we were hoarse.
The Christian love and unity, as well as the assembly program, stimulated my parents, and when we returned to Rio de Janeiro they asked for a home Bible study. From this study soon sprang up a center of preaching activity. Later, some inner walls of my parents’ house were torn down to form a Kingdom Hall to accommodate the new Olaria Congregation, the second one formed in Rio de Janeiro. Today this house is still a Kingdom Hall, and the congregation is as progressive as ever. But now there are altogether ninety-five congregations of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Rio de Janeiro!
TEACHING MY CHILDREN
The Bible truths made me feel the dual responsibility of a Christian wife—to love and respect my husband, and to inculcate godly principles in my children. Before bedtime I would sit with the children on my bed and tell them Bible stories. Noemi often rested her little head on my lap. Paulo jumped up and down at the most exciting moments, as when I pretended to be David stretching his sling to hit the giant Goliath, or Samson pushing down the pillars of Dagon’s temple. All along, I tried to stress the integrity of these and other faithful servants of God.
It was not easy to train my children in the work of telling others the good news. Yet Paulo seemed to respond very well to the Christian training and was baptized when he was fourteen. However, when he was seventeen, sports had an attraction for him. He was a soccer player of some distinction on his school team and the possibilities of a sports career seemed bright. It was time for a vital decision, and he seemed to have made it one Sunday morning when he did not go in the witnessing work. He said: “Mother, I do not want to belong to that religion anymore. I am not even sure if it is the truth.”
When I recovered from the shock of this unexpected confession, I was able to talk to him and help to straighten him out in his thinking. Today, he says he is deeply grateful for this, saying that it was a turning point in his life. From then on he never looked back. He paid more attention than usual at the meetings, and came to love Bible truths from his heart.
With my children’s cooperation I was able, in September 1948, to become a pioneer, devoting at least one hundred and twenty hours a month to the preaching work. My daughters Elza and Noemi took turns in preparing meals and Paulo lent a hand with everything, even in the kitchen.
FACING A TRAGEDY
One morning Noemi and I talked about the resurrection. How would people be resurrected? I explained to her that they would probably look similar to the way they were before they died. Little did I realize that my own faith in the resurrection would soon be tested.
On October 5, 1951, around noon, I went to make one more return visit on a person interested in the Bible and sent Noemi home with her friend Nely. After I had returned home, Nely came running to the window and shouted, “It’s Noemi! A car hit her!”
More running than walking I hurried to the hospital. On the way I passed a puddle of blood at the scene of the accident. Noemi had been crushed against a wall. At the hospital, Brother Augusto Machado was a great comfort to me. “Noemi is not suffering anymore,” he said, “she is already sleeping.”
The funeral talk was delivered at our home. A loudspeaker had been installed so that hundreds of people were able to hear it. It was a marvelous witness about Jehovah’s power to resurrect people in his own due time. Moreover, it was a great help in softening my husband’s heart. The love and kindness of my Christian brothers were of immense encouragement.
MAINTAINING TRUST IN GOD
For years my husband opposed my Christian activity. I was locked out of my own home, threatened with a legal separation and even with a gun! My loving Christian brothers and sisters, including fleshly relatives, were a real comfort to me. But above all, I came to realize that our main source of spiritual strength is Jehovah God himself, in whom we must put “unfaltering trust.”—Ps. 26:1, Byington.
In time, Paulo was appointed as a circuit overseer, as traveling ministers of Jehovah’s Witnesses are called. At first he did not want to leave me alone with his opposing father. But I told him: “Son, if you trust in Jehovah, neither you nor I will be lacking anything. Jehovah will give me the strength to persevere.” Today Paulo is still serving as a circuit overseer with his cheerful wife Tereza. I miss him very much, but I know he is serving Jehovah, as I always wanted him to do.
The most trying time of my life came when my husband and I took over a bakery. This meant working almost around the clock to pay for the next day’s flour. As a result, I had to miss many meetings and reduce my witnessing activity considerably. Some friends even thought that I had gone materialistic. Finally, we managed to sell the bakery. My husband, however, began to show the symptoms of the sickness that was to lead to his death in November 1969. Afterward I was alone. What would I do?
On March 1, 1970, when I was fifty-seven, I started out on a new feature of my life. I became a special pioneer, and began devoting at least 150 hours each month in the work of proclaiming the good news.
My first assignment was Volta Redonda, where, together with my partner Felicia Migual, we saw the formation of another congregation. Then we were assigned to Pará de Minas, a very Catholic city where we suffered all kinds of ill treatment. Once I was cowardly attacked from the back, punched and knocked down. Yet this incident only strengthened me in my firm determination to keep on searching for God’s “sheep.”
And I did find them in that city. Among them was José Antonio, a young man so thirsty for God’s truth that he was ready for baptism after only six months of Bible study. Now he is one of the elders in the Pará de Minas Congregation. My present assignment is Pitangui, a small town close to Pará de Minas.
Looking back over my years of Christian service, I am able to remember at least seventy people whom I have had the joy of helping to become Christian witnesses of Jehovah. But the end is not yet! My heart’s desire is, by Jehovah’s dynamic power, to keep right on serving him, and eventually to realize the happy hope of seeing his very face for all eternity. (Rev. 22:4, 5)—Contributed.
[Picture of Maria Alves de Azevedo on page 628]
[Picture on page 631]
I have been privileged to bring the Kingdom message to many persons