Year Book of Jehovah's Witnesses - Watchtower Archive

Yearbook 97
Jehovah's organization by the help of the Lord. While I
was calling out 'La T01lr de Garde' and 'Reveillez-V01lsl' a
French-speaking man came to me and said that he would
like a magazine, but, since he spoke French, I called my
companion and he talked with him, resulting in his taking
'Let God Be True' from me. I said to my companion, 'Ask
to call back,' and he did. After three or four days we called
back and had a nice back-call.
"But I was only a short time in that company's territory, so
I traveled on and while I was advertising a public lectUl"e
on the street of another town a man tapped me on the
shoulder, and I looked at him and recognized him as the
French-speaking man with whom I had placed 'Let God Be
True' and made the back-call. He said in broken Dutch, 'My
wife study, my mother study, and I study, and the images
broken and thrown away.' Well, that was enough to understand
that he and his family liked the truth. When we had
our circuit assembly, he and his wife and mother were all
baptized. So we see why the Lord through his organization
caused the street work to be organized on the earth."
There has been a very nice increase in the number of
public meetings held during the year. There were 1,069
public talks given in halls, private homes, cafes, parks and
public places, making a 57 per cent increase over last year's
total of 683 public meetings. Public meeting activity has
been followed up by back-call and Bible-study work, and
thus the people of good will have been properly cared for.
It is also good to note that we had a 36 per cent increase
in Bible studies.
During the year we continued to enjoy much freedom to
carryon our Bible-education work in Belgium. There have
been some instances where misguided persons have tried to
cause us trouble. In January during one of our circuit
assemblies a brother was apprehended by the police while
in the magazine work and accused of peddling without a
permit and legal action was instituted against him. The
king's attorney told the brother that if he could furnish
him with a letter from the Ministry of Economic Affairs
showing that our work is not considered as peddling, then
he would be acquitted. Our lawyer took the matter up with
the Ministry and he received a letter saying that the administration
had decided that our type of activity would not
be considered as peddling. The brother filed a copy of the
letter with the king's attorney and he has heard no more
of the case.
The 4th of July a sister was apprehended by the police
while in the witness work in a small village. She wrote a
letter to the king's attorney explaining the work, and the