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Denmark1993 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses
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A 25-year-old Danish-American, a shoemaker named Sophus Winter, arrived from the United States in 1894 and settled in Copenhagen, the capital. By that time Volume I of the Millennial Dawn series, written by Russell, and a few tracts had been translated. Toward the end of the year, Brother Winter could inform the Society’s headquarters office, then in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., that he had placed all the books he had brought with him.
Volume II of Millennial Dawn was issued in Dano-Norwegian in 1895, and from January 1897, Winter began publishing a monthly magazine called Tusindaars-Rigets Budbærer (Millennial Messenger). Interest was sparked, and in 1899 the Memorial of Christ’s death was attended by 15 persons in Copenhagen and 12 in the town of Odder.
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Denmark1993 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses
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In Copenhagen, meetings were attended by a group of five or six people, including two poor seamstresses. But the group was soon to become stronger.
Brønshøj, located in the north end of Copenhagen, was home to a Norwegian sign painter, John Reinseth. He and his wife, Augusta, earnestly tried to bring up their children according to the Word of God. John would often read the Bible to his family and tried to explain it so that even the children could understand. Although attending various religious meetings, they received no satisfaction. Then one evening they knelt down while the father prayed sincerely to God to open their eyes to the truth. The next morning a colporteur was standing on their doorstep with Volume I of Millennial Dawn! Who was this preacher? Anna Hansen, one of the two poor seamstresses.
Carl Lüttichau followed through and called on this family to teach them the Bible. After some long discussions, John began attending meetings at Ole Suhrs Gade, the Society’s Danish headquarters office. After every meeting he would rush home and tell his wife about the wonderful things he had heard. Although bedridden for several years, as soon as her strength came back, she eagerly hobbled on crutches to the meetings.
The family simply seized the truth. Every minute John could spare, he preached from door to door. Often he got up as early as 4:30 in the morning to prepare for the meetings. Later in the day, when he tired, he would settle into a comfortable chair for a nap, habitually holding his key ring loosely in his hand. When he dozed off and dropped the keys, he would wake up, aroused by his self-devised alarm clock. Refreshed, he was ready to get going again in service.
His wife, despite her frail health, desired to spread the truth around Hellebæk in northern Sjælland, where she was born. So she packed a large wicker trunk with books and shipped it by train to Elsinore. Since she could only carry just a couple of books in her handbag, she had a special belt sewn for her waist, with large, flat pockets. Thus equipped, with handbag in one hand, a cane in the other, and a number of books in the belt hidden by a loose-fitting coat, stouthearted Augusta would walk and preach from villa to villa along the northern coast. Before she died in 1925, her last words were: “There is so much to be done up there in northern Sjælland, and I wanted so much to do it.”
Three of their children also became zealous publishers of the good news, and their son Poul had the privilege of serving as branch overseer for a time.
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