Donald Nowills, who was assigned to oversee the work at the branch after the missionaries were deported, was just 20 years old and had been baptized for only four years. Although he had served as a circuit overseer for a few months, his work at the branch was new to him. Brother Nowills had a modest little office in his house, which was made of wood and galvanized iron and had a dirt floor. It was located in Gualey, a very dangerous section of Ciudad Trujillo. With the help of Félix Marte, he made copies of The Watchtower for the entire country.

Mary Glass, whose husband, Enrique, was imprisoned at the time, assisted Brother Nowills. “I would leave my secular work at 5:00 p.m.,” she explains, “and go to Brother Nowills’ office to type The Watchtower. Then Brother Nowills would duplicate copies on a mimeograph machine. Then, a sister from Santiago, code-named ‘the angel,’ would put the mimeographed magazines in the bottom of an empty five-gallon vegetable-oil can. She then laid a cloth over the literature and covered it with cassava, potatoes, or taros. Next, she placed on top of that a burlap (hessian) sack. Then she would take public transportation to the north of the country and leave one copy with each congregation. Families took turns borrowing that copy so that they could study it together.”

“We had to be very cautious,” adds Mary, “since the streets were crawling with government agents who were trying to discover where The Watchtower was being printed. But they never did. Jehovah always protected us.”