“On Wednesday, 30 October, 2013, the US Bethel family enjoyed the following report by Brother Baltasar Perla, member of the USA Branch Committee.

2013 World Wide Report given at Morning Worship:

Worldwide Report: Great!

We are about 36,000 under 8 million!! WOW! And there are more Bible Students than there are of us!

Peak Publishers: 7,965,954 = 2.4% increase over last year

Baptized: 277,344 = 3.2% increase over last year

Hours: 1,844,182,235 (1 billion, 844 million) = 5.3% increase!

Reg Pios: 997,123 = 8.2% increase!

Average of Bible Studies: 9,254,963

What contributed to this wonderful report? Metropolitan witnessing, public witnessing & branches around the world have invited publishers from other countries who speak the language to come & help them with seldom worked territory.

At a book fair in Colombia, the brothers set up a display & many said it was the best one there. More than 500,000 people were in attendance. More than 23,000 pieces of literature in 18 languages were placed, & best of all more than 400 “Please follow up” forms were obtained which was an average of 20 per day. In Mexico a similar display was set up at a book fair there. 700,000 people are expected to attend.

In Bulgaria, a deaf Olympics was held & more than 4,000 deaf individuals, including 2,700 deaf athletes, came from many different countries. 33 Witnesses from 9 different nationalities came to help with public witnessing. They had tables at several hotels, along with posters at 5 others displaying JW.org, then they had permission to set up a table at several of the athletic events. One deaf woman from India grabbed the sister’s tablet when she saw it was sign language in her Indian language, & she wouldn’t give it back until the video was finished. Then she said that she would be delighted to have someone call on her in India when she goes back home. In total 203 people from 55 countries left their contact information for follow up.

As a result of the metro witnessing, a total of 90,896 magazines, 66,263 Books have been placed & 5,173 Bible Studies have been requested.

In Romania, the branch launched a special field service campaign & invited Romanian-speaking witnesses from quite a few countries to come & preach in seldom worked territory in Romania. 2,000 witnesses from US, European countries, etc. responded & 41 % of their seldom-worked territory was worked during the two month campaign. 1,359 localities & over 1 million inhabitants were reached. They met many humble people who said things like, “God must have sent you”, & “We have been waiting for you to come.” They did get opposition from the priests. In one case, a priest snatched a magazine out of a householder’s hand but the householder snatched it back! So many are hungering for the truth! The publishers placed 89,966 magazines, & 6,127 books. They also placed 116,701 brochures & 31,379 Bible studies were started! 

Brother Perla concluded that the report reminds us of Proverbs 1:20, 21 where it says that “true wisdom cries aloud in the street, it keeps raising its voice in the public squares. At the corner of a busy street it calls out!”