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A Worldwide Family Gathers for “Sacred Service” District AssembliesThe Watchtower—1976 | October 15
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Well, there are people from all races, nationalities and social backgrounds who have learned to get along well together. And especially when they gather in large assemblies is their close relationship apparent. The Allentown, Pennsylvania, Evening Chronicle of July 8, 1976, observed:
“A feeling of unity, family ties and sincere friendship permeated the air at the Allentown Fairgrounds today as 7,080 Jehovah’s Witnesses were welcomed by smiling ‘brothers and sisters’ who began the festivities of their four-day District Assembly.”
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A Worldwide Family Gathers for “Sacred Service” District AssembliesThe Watchtower—1976 | October 15
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The Augusta, Maine, Kennebec Journal noted that the beliefs of Jehovah’s Witnesses “were evident. There were no smoke-filled rooms, no rowdiness, no littering of grounds. There wasn’t even one policeman on duty to handle the huge crowd.”
At the Detroit, Michigan, assembly health inspector Peter W. Komer said: “You have been able to do what no other group has accomplished.” And he observed the reason why. “Your people care, they are concerned with others. . . . This is the finest group I have ever worked with.”
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A Worldwide Family Gathers for “Sacred Service” District AssembliesThe Watchtower—1976 | October 15
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The effect of such Scriptural education that Jehovah’s Witnesses regularly receive was apparent to assembly visitors. Judy Hierseman, who entitled her newspaper article “FAMILY-ORIENTED PROGRAM,” wrote:
“Families are the rule rather than the exception. And the presence of all those children, ranging in age from babes in arms to teenagers, does nothing to disturb the tranquillity and quiet dedication of the remainder of the Witnesses.
“Rather it adds a feeling of togetherness, serious, yet lighthearted, that has pervaded the scene of swarming humanity at the Brown County Veterans’ Memorial arena.”—Green Bay Press-Gazette, July 10, 1976.
Family unity was manifested in many ways at the assemblies, as the Oakland (Calif.) Tribune observed: “Family togetherness is evident in many convention activities, from parents and children folding plastic eating utensils into napkins to others peeling vegetables into enormous crocks to feed the assemblage.”
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