Besides the Theocratic School there is a weekly service meeting and congregation book studies, as well as a public Bible lecture and the Watchtower study, all of which provide excellent material for consideration.

These meetings build up the spirituality of God’s people, help them to cope with the problems of life and to live in accord with Scriptural principles, while also encouraging all associated to have a regular share in witnessing to others.

Nevertheless, they persisted in witnessing solely with the Bible.

Roman Catholic opposition increased and a Catholic mob once broke up a public meeting by throwing cow dung at the speaker.

Also, street witnessing was engaged in with the magazine bag, and 285,837 Watchtower and Awake! magazines were placed in France that year, more than at any previous time in the history of the work in France.

But then, like a bombshell, at the end of December in 1952, the public press dropped the news that the Watchtower magazine had been banned.

Apart from witnessing from house to house with the literature or phonograph, during the 1930’s the brothers used another means of proclaiming the truth throughout the entire Philippines.

This was by public debate.

The inhabitants of the “Rock,” as Gibraltar is often called, are certainly hearing the “good news,” thanks to the ardent witnessing of our brothers there.

A publisher witnessing in an apartment house observed a man leaving by the staircase.

Last year at our international assembly in Copenhagen a man and wife came in to hear the public talk.

By the end of the public talk they were sure this was the truth, and a Bible study was arranged following the assembly.

Many of these had been damaged by insects, but there was a sufficient supply in suitable condition for the Nolls to use in their public witnessing when they started the next morning.

In Mexico, house-to-house witnessing continues to be the main avenue of preaching the good news of God’s Kingdom.

In the past year, however, as our brothers have reached out to contact people wherever they might be, publishers and pioneers have been appearing at bus stops early in the morning, in hospital waiting rooms, on the streets, in parking lots, in public parks.

However, the tests of faithfulness those Christians faced involved more than public witnessing.

During the following year, Witnesses, including four members of the McLuckie family from Southern Rhodesia, arrived and began informal witnessing.

However, public Bible talks were prohibited because of the strong Roman Catholic presence.

Up until this time public witnessing consisted mainly of the distribution of tracts.

At first the activity of the Łódź group was rather limited as to any public witnessing.

She began attending all our congregation meetings and now does public witnessing with us.

The majority of the publishers in Kuwait are sisters, and this makes it difficult for them to engage in the public ministry in this Moslem land.

But they are reporting field service regularly, and the one brother there is visiting the sisters and conducting the various meetings with them and giving some of the public talks.

House-to-house activity is not permitted in every village on the islands of Wallis and Futuna, in the South Pacific, but it is possible to visit relatives and do informal witnessing.

The public talk that week was “A Clean People Honors Jehovah.”

They reported public witnessing in 232 lands, island groups, and territories.

By January 14, 1976, public witnessing had been obstructed by the authorities in a number of places.

Still, attending meetings and sharing in the public preaching of the good news were enormous obstacles to her.

Eventually, however, witnessing became easier and even enjoyable for her.