Get Ready for Some Updates!
By Jac | October 31, 2011
For those of you who drop by this blog from time to time you’ll notice we haven’t posted ANYTHING since May 2010 when Jess was interviewed at the Circuit Assembly.
That is all about to change!
Since we’ve all been receiving such strong encouragement to reach out and examine our circumstances to see if we can “step over into Macedonia” many friends in the States have answered the call. In fact, at our recent Special Assembly Day they announced that in the last month the branch has received over 300 requests for information about serving in the DR!
300 requests in 1 month! That’s insane!
We have gotten a couple of emails from people who were told to contact us by the branch to learn about serving in ASL in the Dominican Republic, particularly in Santiago. While we have been able to answer many of their questions, we were most surprised at just how many of them had stumbled across our blog in an attempt to find information on the Deaf in the Dominican Republic!
To that end, I’ve decided its something important for the friends and for us to keep up. I’ve gone back over the last year and half and picked a couple of highlights to share with you. I’m starting with last June, so bear with me, we’ll get caught up soon enough!
I hope you enjoy our stories and experiences, and leave a comment if you have any questions!
Topics: From Anton and Jac, From the Dominican Republic | No Comments »
Back to Business! Another Service Year Begins!
By Jac | September 1, 2010
Everyone is rip-roaring and ready to go for another service year, right? I know here in the Dominican Republic we are! Here are the pictures to prove it!
Hope your service year is off to an excellent start!
Topics: From the Ministry | No Comments »
Working with the Deaf Blind in Dominican Republic
By Jac | August 31, 2010
August 2010 saw the entrance of someone very special into my life: Grecia. She is a 39 year old woman who went deaf and blind 5 and 4 years ago, respectively. They believe her deafness is caused by the same disease that rendered her kidneys useless and left her on dialysis, although she also suffered a stroke and was in a coma for 4 days.
I met Grecia through Teresa, who has worked with others who have been affected by the whole kidney/deaf/blind combo. Since Grecia spent the first 35 years of her life living in a hearing world, she speaks Spanish and reads and writes. Her family has communicated with her for the last 5 years by writing on her leg with their finger. She has a husband and a son, but since becoming sick she has had to move in with her sister and her son has had to move in with family in another town. Her husband visits her everyday, and the two of them go visit their 8 year old boy, Anthony, in La Vega every weekend. It is really heartbreaking to see how her life has been turned upside down.
When we first met, she had a very hard time understanding our writing on her leg, plus the method is very laborious, so we started using magnetic letters that she could feel to teach her the manual alphabet. Here she is at the hospital, receiving dialysis and using her one free arm to feel the letters.
Once we received vocal recognition that she knew the letter, we would make the sign in her hand. It was tough to get her to understand that the shape we were making with our hands was representative of the letter, but eventually we got through. When she finally grasped what we were teaching her, she became a voracious learner and mastered the alphabet in just 3 weeks!
From there we would spell things into her hands and then teach her the signs. Her mind had atrophied greatly over the years, and she wasn’t used to communicating back and forth, so questions were a magnificent struggle to start with. Now, she gets everything with ease. Since she still thinks in Spanish I try to sign following a Spanish word order so that she can understand. When I bring Jessica with me, who is deaf and doesn’t know Spanish very well, she tries her best to follow Spanish, and it is super cute!
Despite her physical limitations Grecia has made it to the Kingdom Hall several times where she has been very warmly received.
Topics: Deaf/Blind in DR, From the Ministry | No Comments »
Relaxing in Bonao at the Waterfall
By Jac | July 31, 2010
Just so you know we don’t take ourselves too seriously down in the Dominican Republic, here are a few pictures from a trip we took to a waterfall in Bonao, which is about an hour away from Santiago. Our good friend from Michigan, Jeremy, lives in Bonao and he is one of our favorite people to visit.
This trip we had a whole group come down from up in the mountains in a town called Manabao that is absolutely gorgeous! Some in the group were from the States, and some were from Spain, Chile, and Argentina. It was a super fun day, very relaxing, and nice to get to take some time away from the city and into a place where we could enjoy Jehovah’s creation.
You park your car at the end of this old dirt road that seems like it runs through people’s backwards, and then you start to hike. You walk maybe 15 or 20 minutes before you get to the first set of stairs. (They put the stairs in maybe a year and a half ago to encourage the less than outdoorsy people to visit the location.) You climb multiple sets of stairs and walk stretches of pathway for about half an hour (more or less depending on the group) before you come to the first major fall.
The path runs along the river so you can jump in and swim a bit at a few parts if you want. Many Dominicans like to set up camp in these little watering holes on Sunday afternoon. The first fall as well is usually where you find the bulk of the people, sitting around, drinking Brugal and playing Reggeaton. We usually pass this one by and head up to the next fall, which is generally less crowded.
Since it’s mountain water, it’s usually quite cold, but refreshing after a hot hike/climb. You can climb and jump from various places on the rocks, some quite easy to get to and others a little higher up.
Compared to the 27 Waterfalls in Damajagua, this is more like the kid sister version. Great for taking kids or parents who want to see the falls, but can’t stand the rigors of swimming/hiking/climbing and rappelling the 27 Waterfalls. Plus, there’s no entrance fee!
Topics: Fun Things to do in DR, Personal Life | No Comments »
Corn Dog El Mudo or How to Be an Entrepreneur
By Jac | June 9, 2010
Anton is never without a hair-brained idea, but I think he really hit the jackpot with this one.
Dominicans love fried food. Dominicans love hot dogs. Dominicans love street food. A few Deaf brothers in our congregation desperately need work. Do you see where this is going? Yeah, me neither, but Anton sure did.
In an attempt to help some friends in our hall earn some money and have a profitable business that can get them the cash flow they need to make it to the meetings and even say, regular pioneer, Anton decided to help them set up a fried food stand, selling none other than the ultra American favorite, the corn dog.
You pretty much can’t go wrong with a corn dog. Now, the Dominicans had never seen anything like it, but when we described it as an “empanizado” hot dog and covered it with mayo and ketchup (YUCK!) they couldn’t get enough.
Here are some pictures from the very first night of Corn Dog El Mudo:
Topics: From the Dominican Republic, The Deaf Community | No Comments »
ASL Circuit Assembly May 2010
By Jac | May 20, 2010
This assembly was particularly special for me, because not only was Jessica able to attend her first pioneer day, she was also interviewed, and we gave a part together where I was a school counselor pressuring her to go to college. That was a lot of fun for both of us, and especially timely, as they have just started interpreting at one of the universities in the capital.
Check out Jess’ interview here, with a translation below:
Ron: In the past Jess was able to resist temptation at school. We are going to ask her about it. Jess, at school what temptation did you face?
Jess: Two of my best friends from school and I would always go to the Kingdom Hall together. The two of them studied regularly, they were near publishing, and had really developed a relationship with Jehovah. I was so happy. But then, they rebelled against Jehovah, quit going to the meetings and I didn’t know what to do. Should I keep going, or stick with my friends? I was torn, it was tough.
Ron: Why did you resist them?
Jess: I knew hanging out with them would have a bad impact on me and I didn’t want to act in a way that would reflect badly on Jehovah. I knew it would be better to stop hanging out with them and stick close to Jehovah.
Ron: What Bible principles helped you to maintain your stand?
Jess: I remembered 2 scriptures. 1 Cor 15:33 that says you should avoid bad association and Matt 4:11 where Jesus resists Satan’s temptations. Just like Jesus I can resist the world’s temptations and stay close to Jehovah.
Ron: What blessings have you received for being faithful?
Jess: I am so happy! One year ago I was baptized, and I started auxiliary pioneering. Six months later I started regular pioneering and I have been doing that since. Hanging out with the brothers and sisters makes me so happy and I am proud and happy to be a friend of Jehovah.
Ron: Thank you.
Topics: Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
The Suhy Family Gets Bigger!
By Jac | May 20, 2010
No silly, we’re not having a baby. Joe and Adi already did that! Here’s our new nephew Oliver Moses, born back in Dec of 2009. Anton and I finally met him when we flew up to welcome the newest member of the Suhy family, Amanda. Mike, Anton’s little bro, and Amanda got married April 24th in Minnesota. They met serving in English in Monterrey, Mexico, and in true need-greater fashion are already back there hard at work, as is Anton’s little sis, Katrina.
It was awesome to have the whole Suhy side of the family together!
Topics: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Santiago ASL Hopes to Split!
By Jac | May 20, 2010
In a previous post I mentioned a lot of the growth happening in the ASL field in the Dominican Republic. At the assembly they announced that there are 6 locations where there is no group, but they have started interpreting meetings and hope to become groups soon. One of those is being held right here in Santiago!
Santiago is the second biggest city in the Dominican and was also the first city with a sign language congregation. The capital, Santo Domingo, is about 3 times the size of Santiago and has 6 ASL congregations and a number of groups. Santiago, for the last 14 years, has had just one congregation. According to size and deaf population, we should have at least 2, if not 3 congregations. At Bethel’s encouragement it was decided to hold one meeting on the far south side of the city to determine the interest.
The meeting was held in an area of the city called Pekin, where a book study was held before the arrangement changed. One elder lives in the area with his family, and many deaf friends live there as well. We spent the weeks before the special talk and Watchtower study letting all the deaf in the area know there would be a program given in ASL. We even had a special guest speaker, Bill Ramsey from the States come with his beautiful wife Lynne, for the talk. We were delighted to have 60 in attendance, 26 of those being deaf, and about half of those being newcomers. The following day at our normal meeting in the Imbert Kingdom Hall we had 53 in attendance and 28 Deaf.
With such a great turnout it was decided that Saturday meetings would be held regularly in Pekin starting in April. We will still all meet together during the week for now, but on the weekends some of the friends are assigned to go to the new group. Anton and I are with the old side, the original Santiago sign language hall, but Anton was one of the brothers asked to help conduct the Watchtower at the new group every couple weeks, so we will at least get to visit from time to time.
It is so exciting to see the growth right here in our own city! After so many years of just being one hall doing the same thing, now something completely different has come about, and we are thrilled to be a part of it. You can really see how Jehovah is rocking the nations and speeding it up!
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From the Congregation
By Jac | May 19, 2010
In addition to a new set of special pioneers, we got a new ministry, Teresa Smith, and a new regular pioneer, David Porter. Here are their smiling faces:
Here are some other shots of members of our congregation:
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A Taste of our Ministry
By Jac | May 19, 2010
Anyone who has had the chance to come and visit us knows what a need there is here. Well, we have just had our ASL Circuit Assembly, and we attended the English Circuit Assembly and have some interesting facts to share with you about the preaching of God’s Kingdom in the Dominican Republic.
- There are now 3 English congregations in DR. One is in Santo Domingo, one in Santiago, and one in Puerto Plata.
- They are currently assessing the needs for foreign language groups in Italian, German, Russian, French. People are particularly needed in English, Spanish (in some areas) and in Creole.
- There is one Chinese congregation, and the first man from that congregation was baptized last year. Their territory is the entire island.
- 1545 were baptized last year.
- The English District Convention will be held here June 18-20.
And on the ASL front
- 1529 Deaf attended the Memorial of Jesus’ death around the country.
- There are 15 ASL congregations.
- There are 15 ASL groups.
- 7 of those 15 could be a congregation with just one elder.
- There are 6 pre-groups where they are currently interpreting.
- ASL has 182 pioneers, 21 of those are deaf, and one of those is a special pioneer.
- There are 37 ministerial servants in ASL, 8 of those are deaf.
As you can see, there is much to do in the Dominican Republic in the way of announcing God’s Kingdom. Here are a few pictures from:
That last one is me crashing on a progressive Bible study. Anton conducts the study with the boyfriend while they sit in the two chairs and I sit with the girlfriend on the bed. This day I sat down, and just fell right over, it had been such a LONG preaching day. She grabbed my camera and snapped a shot of me sleeping on the job!
UPDATE: The last student, where I am laying down, who is also featured in the Progressive Teaching post, has moved out of her boyfriend’s place and is hoping to start preaching soon!
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Our Kingdom Hall
By Jac | May 19, 2010
Not sure if I’ve ever posted a shot of our Kingdom Hall before… there are two actual auditoriums, one upstairs and one downstairs. There are also two attached apartments where two traveling overseers live with their wives.
Topics: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Still working on the street…
By Jac | May 19, 2010
It’ll be done someday… but until then, we’re just going to keep taking these crazy pictures!
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Visiting ASL in Grand Rapids
By Jac | May 15, 2010
While in Michigan we took the opportunity to head out to Grand Rapids and visit Sarah and Isaac and their little sign language group. We got in Friday night and hit the ground running! Anton gave the talk Saturday morning, then we had the privilege to watch the ASL class’ graduation ceremony, and even speak and share photos from the DR with them. That night Anton and I cooked a huge Dominican feast – complete with about 15 platanos worth of tostones!
The group is growing – and now too big for the library, so they have set up their meetings in the lobby! It is quite a sight. They have a number of Bible students in attendance regularly, and seem to have a lot of support from the local congregation. They are a group of young, zealous pioneers, and a whole lot of fun to be around. We spent a nice long day in service with Sarah and Isaac and got to meet a couple of their RVs and studies.
Sarah and Isaac took us ice skating, got us sushi and thai food, and even arranged for us to go out wakeboarding! Being out on a boat in Michigan feels more like home to me than pretty much anything else! The water was freezing, but we had a blast anyways, and I even got to try and wakesurf!
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Mom Gives DR a Third Chance
By Jac | April 19, 2010
Well, with how good last year’s trip went, how could my mom not want to return? The first time Mom came it rained and we walked for miles and took rides in over crowded cars. I think the whole experience overwhelmed her a bit. Not the type to give up, she made a second trip back in April of 2009 and saw Anton and me have the privilege of being interviewed at the English assembly. This time, I wanted to do something different; I wanted to show her the island.
Mom got in, but her suitcases didn’t. 
Thankfully they made it before we headed up to Constanza, one of my fav towns in DR. It’s in the middle of nowhere, so I am not sure if I could actually live there, but it is a breathtaking town set up high in valley in the mountains.
We explored around there for a couple days, found a little stream and a giant dam, and then headed down to Bonao to visit Jeremy Fryc. Mom ended up going on a Creole study with him, and helping him with the French texts he had to read at his Creole public talk the next day. Since they don’t have a Creole Bible yet, they use the French translation.
After the mountains we hung out a couple more days in Santiago, had an incredible dinner with friends, the boys (Anton and David) put on a concert for us and the neighborhood, and then we headed off to Las Terrenas, a French enclave on the Northeast side of the island, where we stayed with good friends for a few days.
It was a busy, but awesome trip!
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Memorial at Santiago Sign Language
By Jac | April 3, 2010
Just a quick post about our Memorial – there were 139 in attendance with 79 deaf. For a congregation of 55 publishers, I’d say we didn’t do too shabby. Anton and I enjoyed having a number of students there, including the mom of one of Anton’s students, Angela, who has started studying with me in Spanish. Even though she doesn’t know any sign language she would catch what scripture it was off the DVD and look it up in her own Bible. The best part is that the DVD’s only show the scripture in English, so she was deducing what book of the Bible matched each of the Spanish books. The only one that was tough was Acts, which is Hechos in Spanish. The rest are pretty similar.
Here is a shot of Anton and me looking all coordinated in pink at the Memorial!
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Terping at El Pino Hospital
By Jac | February 15, 2010
A couple Saturdays after the Haiti quake Anton and I were asked to go down to a hospital outside the city of La Vega where 7 of our Haitian brothers and sisters had been taken to receive treatment. They were desperately short on interpreters and the brother in charge new I spoke a bit of Creole. They asked us to do the overnight shift, which, of course, we were more than happy to do. We even brought our new friend David Porter along to keep us company.
When we first got there we started off by meeting the friends receiving treatment and their family members. They asked how David and I learned Creole, and Anton entertained them with the Creole slang he knows. We used a bit of sign language, which sparked everyone’s interest, including the Dominican patients in the room and the doctors! We read a bit, and chatted, mostly about light topics, until it was time for them to go to bed.
The night shift was the perfect one for us, since the Creole we speak is pretty limited. There were only a few important messages we needed to convey, and thankfully, we were able to do so. Jeremy Fryc, who serves in the Bonao Creole group, stayed the whole night with us as well, just in case. It was a good thing he did too! In the middle of the night one of the patients had a nightmare and ended up having a pretty bad freakout. I was in the room with him when it started and sent for Jeremy, since it was a male patient. They ended up being able to calm him down. It’s just heartbreaking what our friends are suffering.
Somewhere around 3 am I fell asleep and ended up waking up a few hours later to find that the boys had done the same:
It was a long night, but we were happy to help.
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Dominican Republic Gets a Zone Visit
By Jac | January 30, 2010
In the wake of the Haiti quake the entire Dominican Republic gathered at 5 different locations to have a Zone Visit. The speakers were at the assembly hall in Santo Domingo, and we were connected via Satellite. One group was at the assembly hall in Villa Gonzalez, we were at the baseball stadium in Santiago, and other groups gathered at baseball stadiums in San Fransisco de Macoris and La Romana. We were able to see and hear the speaker via satellite transmission. It was pretty awesome!
- Spanish and Creole speakers on the screen, ASL terp in front
The visit was planned long before the earthquake hit, but adjustments were made to update us on the status of what was happening in Haiti. Talks were given in Spanish and translated into ASL and Haitian Creole. At the 5 locations there were over 65,000 in attendance.
- Setting up in case of rain!
- No mirrors, gotta improvise!
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December 2009 Pioneer Meeting
By Jac | January 3, 2010
Check out this handsome group of pioneers from the Santiago Sign Language Congregation! (Not everyone is in this shot – I think total we are 19 pioneers, 2 special pioneers and 1 missionary.)
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Our Cute Neighbor Kid
By Jac | November 19, 2009
I just had to share this cute snapshot I got of the little neighbor boy. Anton and I live in a “parte atras,” so we aren’t right out on the main road. There is a large metal door that opens to a hallway that leads to our house. Right when you open the door you see the metal windowsill that the boy is sitting in. He had climbed up onto the couch at the salon, which is the building in front of us, and then crawled through to sit where he is in the photo. Cute!
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La Vega Talk and Pool Party
By Jac | October 20, 2009
Anton and I traveled with Maria and Jess down to La Vega where Ron and Diana Thrasher are now serving as special pioneers for a talk that Anton gave at their congregation.
The La Vega hall is pretty cool… lots of young deaf women doing very cool things. After the talk we went with a group up into the mountains to where a family in our congregation owns a home. It’s the Dominican’s equivalent of having a cabin up north, for all you Michiganders. The view was incredible, and the setting was so different to what we experience day to day. They have a grill, a pool, and GRASS! Hehe, it’s the little things.
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