LIVING AS CHRISTIANS: Week of February 12 to 18, 2024, Analysis with the audience, Positive points of the World Report of Jehovah's Witnesses for the 2023 service year, Analysis and Responses.

LIVING AS CHRISTIANS: February 12-18, 2024, Analysis with the audience, Positive points of the World Report of Jehovah's Witnesses for the 2023 service year, Analysis and Responses.

Annual service report (15 mins.) Analysis with the audience. Read the branch announcement about the annual service report. 

Then ask the audience to comment on some positive points from the 2023 Service Year World Report of Jehovah’s Witnesses. 

Despite all the problems that have occurred post-pandemic, there has been a growth of 1.3% worldwide, an interesting thing to note in South America, many of the countries did not have an increase, but there are places in Europe, for example, where for many years there was never an increase and Now it is being seen, that is, Jehovah is sending the good news where it is most needed. As Paul said, we sow and water, but Jehovah makes it grow.

Also worth noting is that thanks to the arrangement of hours that the pioneers have had, the number of auxiliary pioneers has almost doubled on a monthly basis, so something of note is that many brothers have seen the possibility of doing more hours in the service of Jehovah, doing more. throughout the kingdom then you see that a lot in the congregations.

Something that is impressive is the number of baptized 269,000. Let's do the math, that means 738 people were baptized every day of the year, that's more than seven congregations in which the work has grown during the past year. 

Then ask the audience to comment on some positive points from the 2023 Service Year World Report of Jehovah's Witnesses.

If the number of studies mentioned was 7 million and a little more, so practically if we are 8 there a little more and we were practically one per publisher, so if these studies progress tomorrow the number of siblings would be practically double .

I was struck by the growth of the people from what was many years ago to what the number of publishers is today, how Jehovah is accelerating and his people are growing.

Something that caught my attention about the averages, for example, is from the Republic of the Congo in the Republic of the Congo in the year 2023, 784 were baptized, so how many congregations are there 123 if we divide 784 divided the congregations it is an average of 6 new brothers per congregation The truth is that this is a blessing and there is also the need. 

Well, like almost every year, India draws my attention a lot. India has 1.4 billion inhabitants and there are only 57,000 brothers, so without a doubt it is a huge territory that our brothers are trying very hard to cover and yet they have a great success because there is a 2% increase and thus having a commemoration of 160,000 people, so without a doubt India attracts my attention because of the great work that remains ahead to continue preaching in that country.

Palestine has drawn my attention to the Palestinian territory that has a 25% increase. 

If in this case I looked at Ukraine, a country that we already know has been at war for two years, however the brothers who have remained there have dedicated all that time to preaching without caring about the circumstances they had, for example, it says here that there is more of 15,000 precursors and have done almost 29,000 Bible courses, so really despite the circumstances the brothers have continued preaching and have continued zealously in the work.

Almost every year I look at an island that was mentioned in The Watchtower years ago and said that that territory was preached every week. It is the island of Saint Helena and it caught my attention that the average number of publishers there is one publisher for every 35 inhabitants, that is, in our area, if we had that average, we would be hundreds of publishers, but the striking thing is that they have had an increase over the previous year, a 1% increase, and attendance at the commemoration is almost triple, double and more, almost triple the number. of publishers since this shows that the brothers there, despite how much they preach the territory, continue forward without becoming discouraged.

I always look at the countries that were banned, these 33 countries about which there is not much information but the brothers are working there in full persecution and yet they have managed to get 4,000 people to accept the truth under those conditions. 

My attention has been drawn to the country of Ukraine, where 4,000 brothers have left, but what has caught my attention is the number of brothers who continue to be there despite the difficulties and despite the fact that they know that they would be well received in any country. Firstly, this teaches us that no matter how many difficulties we have, our brothers are going through and then also the recent conflict that exists in Palestine, both in the territories of Palestine, where there are about 78 brothers, and in Israel, where there are more than 2,000 and little catches our attention. that these brothers also find themselves in complicated situations because the area of ​​the world where they live is complicated and this teaches us that at any moment everything can change.

The attention of Cameroon despite having a population of 28,680,000 people, 103,587 attended the commemoration, so it is a large number for that area that perhaps is not beneficial in terms of economy in terms of what the day to day life is like we could be living. here and we see the great need that exists for people to come to the commemoration because they have a great spiritual need and we have to preach.

For example, if we look at Brazil, it is a country that has a population of 203 million, there are 907,000 brothers and that means that for every 226 inhabitants, one is a brother, so let's imagine what it is like in a territory like that where they already know you week after week. preach.

As there are still places where there is still a lot of need and where there are still people who have not yet heard the message, for example, Bangladesh is one of the most populated countries in the world, there are only a little more than 200 brothers, what does that mean that there is a lot of work, also in Countries where there are wars, the brothers also continue to preach. In fact, Palestine, which has been mentioned, is the country where the work has increased proportionally the most in the world.

And in the part of the totals, the increase with the previous year of service in '22 draws my attention. The difficulties have increased throughout the world and we are not isolated, we also suffer them, however, Jehovah continues to bless the work, there was an increase. of 1.3%. 

Among the things that I have marked this year was to see how many countries there were that had more than 250,000 publishers and I have seen that there were several, including several from Africa such as the Republic of the Congo, but one that caught my attention is the country of Nigeria that It has 400,000 publishers, if we stop to think for those countries it is a lot, but another one that caught my attention is Zambia, which although it did not reach 250,000, it is just barely there, but it has one publisher for every 95 inhabitants, that is 1% of the population. population is Jehovah's Witness so seeing the zeal of our brothers Even in countries where conditions are not easy but it encourages us a lot to see with what zeal they are preaching.

In truth, this many positive encouraging data caught my attention about Guyana, which, despite being a small country, has almost the same number of inhabitants as Valencia and there are 3,200 publishers who cover the entire territory for the commemoration, and there were almost four times as many attendees. the number of publishers more than 12,000 this certainly speaks of potential.

Angola has caught my attention and to make a contrast with Argentina for example although the population is more or less 10 million difference but it is incredible that even the number or average of publishers there is also a difference of 10,000 and then As for biblical studies, Angola 504,213 is impressive. 

Yes, it draws my attention to the studies that more than 7 million studies are carried out, so it is a large number, a large number. If all of them were baptized, this would be something laudable, but thanks to Jehovah, he is blessing his people to continue growing. .

What caught my attention was how the number of regular and special precursors increased. It was not specified how many were regular, however that makes me see that it did increase by more than 5.5%, counting the eight more than 8 million brothers that we are. in the world, it must be a very large amount, so that encourages me to be able to recalculate my times so I can set a goal and perhaps be part of next year's figure.

If the attendance at the commemoration was also very good, it says that there were 20 million 461.77, then without a doubt that encourages us to continue with the campaign that will soon take place so that we can serve all the people and they can attend.