Kingdom Proclaimers Report
Argentina’s Outstanding Conventions
“JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES have learned to assemble without violence or promiscuity, without tobacco or alcohol, without excesses of any kind. A lesson, undoubtedly, for a society like ours, officially identified with Catholicism, yet having difficulties in taking care of big concentrations in football fields without episodes of intolerance, sometimes tragic,” reported Flash magazine in Argentina. This comment was made with regard to one of the four “Integrity Keepers” Conventions of Jehovah’s Witnesses held in Argentina in January 1986. Truly, the brothers were delighted to see 97,736 attend the four conventions. It was a joyful occasion for them to have almost 600 of their brothers from 19 other countries and 5 continents attending with them. They rejoiced, too, to know that of the 97,736 attending, about 40,000 were newly interested persons.—Psalm 122:1.
The newspapers highly commended the conventioners for their fine organization and conduct. La Razon newspaper highlighted the following with regard to the Buenos Aires convention in the River Plate Stadium where over 57,000 attended: “Order, cleanliness, and a notable silence, the characteristics . . . The attendance of the faithful displayed perfect organization . . . order rarely found when it comes to a multitude.”
The newspaper La Nacion commented on the convention held in Rosario where 15,000 attended: “Despite the number of people invited by Jehovah’s Witnesses, not even a single policeman could be seen around, and the order was perfect.”
Delegates used every means of transportation to get to these conventions: planes, trains, buses, cars, and bicycles. More than 870 buses and one train were chartered to bring the delegates from the Rio Negro Valley in the south of the country to the River Plate convention. An interested person rode a bicycle for four days, 800 kilometers (500 mi), to attend the convention in Córdoba.
Why all this effort to attend? It is because Jehovah’s Witnesses are intensely conscious of their spiritual need. (Matthew 5:3) The newspaper Clarin observed: “The counsel, the spontaneous exhortation, the Biblical explanations, were carefully followed by thousands of men and women who, writing down notes when a Bible passage was cited, went through the Sacred Scriptures and looked up the quotation.” La Voz del Interior in Córdoba observed: “The assembly emphasized the need to learn how to fulfill the law of God carefully, even in details such as association, music, and personal attire.”
Showing the effect of the information presented, one man stated some time after the convention: “From that day [of attending the convention] on, my life has changed completely. I get along better with the members of my family. I work better. I am very happy to have become acquainted with you, to realize that there are still good people around, people who help their neighbor for the love of Jesus. Women dressed with modesty, nobody smoking or drinking. A true paradise, with so many people in unity and behaving as if they were one big family.”
Such comments help us appreciate that it is by means of Jehovah’s spirit that such order and love are possible.