Kingdom Proclaimers Report

A Happy Reunion in Brazil

Of the 67 Gilead-trained missionaries currently serving in Brazil, 63 got together at the branch office and posed for this historic picture. This happy reunion took place on November 18, 1986, during the visit of A. D. Schroeder, a member of the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Brooklyn, New York.

It was 41 years earlier almost to the day​—on November 17, 1945—​that two graduates of the first class of the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead came to Brazil. For one of them, Charles Leathco (rear, left of center), this was a special reunion because he and visitor Charlotte Schroeder were classmates in Gilead, and Brother Schroeder was one of their instructors.

Since that first class, a total of 258 missionaries have come to Brazil. Among them were 16 native Brazilians. One of them, Augusto Machado (front left), learned the truth from an early missionary, went to Gilead and returned to Brazil. He has served at the branch office for the last 30 years and is now the coordinator of the Branch Committee. Even though many of the missionaries are no longer serving in the missionary field, the good work they have done remains. In 1945 there were only 394 Kingdom publishers in that land; now Brazil has passed the 200,000 mark, reporting a peak of 201,226 publishers in February 1987.

What a joy it was for the Brazilian missionaries, young and old, to reminisce at this happy reunion about all the marvelous activity of the last 41 years.