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.
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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!
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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.
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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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New Special Pioneers!
By Jac | September 30, 2009
With Ron and Diana Thrasher getting reassigned to La Vega ::sniff, sniff:: we anxiously awaited hearing who would be coming to our hall. We were told that starting in October Ricardo and Walezka Lugo, a Dominican couple who had been previously serving in San Fransisco de Macoris would be coming to our hall. Ricardo’s niece, Giselle, has been in our hall for 4 years now, and Walezka served in the congregation 10 years ago, before her and Ricardo married.
Ricardo is an MTS grad, and the two of them served together in Spanish as special pioneers before getting switched to ASL in SF de Macoris. They have been married 8 years, and are an awesome, young, zealous couple.
Ron and Diana are equally awesome, but in different ways. It was really hard to say goodbye to them and the love and experience they brought to the hall, but it has been so nice to have Ricardo and Walezka with us. They have a lot of experience with the deaf, and are both skilled signers, quick thinkers, and a whole lot of fun to be around. They have helped unite the hall because they are just so easy to get along with.
They both speak just enough English for us to use it to joke around in, and when our Spanish fails sign language always comes through for us! They are so great, to fully understand it you’ll just have to come down here and meet them for yourself!
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ASL District Convention in Santo Domingo
By Jac | September 19, 2009
So, after Anton and I got back from enjoying the DC in Michigan, we had about a week to get things set for our own District Convention in the Dominican Republic. This year it was our turn to travel down to the assembly hall in Santo Domingo, which is about 2.5 hours away, instead of having it in the nearby assembly hall in Villa Gonzalez.
The good part about the assembly hall in Santo Domingo is that even though it is open air just like ours is, there is a lot less ambient light. This means that the projected image we use to show Bible texts in ASL, and make sure the people in the back can see the speaker, is a lot clearer. In Santiago we always struggle with the massive amounts of light, but in the capital that isn’t a problem.
The bad part about Santo Domingo is that it is incredibly hot! Also, because of the economic situation of the friends, rooming arrangements are made with local friends. We are very grateful for this, even though it means you never know what to expect and things are generally out of your control… something that is a bit challenging for Anton and me.
Anyways… we had to go down to Santo Domingo the Wednesday before the program started for video set-up. Anton worked on that while I helped the assembly hall caretakers with some tasks around the facility.
The program started on Friday morning and the Santiago congregation arranged for all the brothers, sisters, and students that wanted to come to head down that morning on rented bus. Happily for us, Darwin and Luis both attended the program, coming down without us on the congregation bus.
At the program a young deaf woman from our hall, and a dear friend of Jessica’s named Maria was baptized. Jessica couldn’t stop crying! She said, “Maria and I have been friends for years, and now we can be friends for eternity.” I have to admit, that part choked me up a bit.
Bethel arranged for the purchase of a new projector and screen, which the ASL district is extremely happy to have. No more making screens out of plastic and glass window frosting! Here is the beautiful set-up the brothers used for this program:
And here we have Darwin and Luis happy as can be at the program:
Remember I mentioned that things can get a little crazy staying with random brothers and sisters in the capital? Well, check the following picture out. Darwin and Luis are happily sitting on the bed, looking at one for the new publications they released at the program. Notice the size of the bed? That is the bed Anton and I shared for the 5 nights we were in the capital! It was old and sagged in the middle… gave us a nice excuse to cuddle, but it was about a billion degrees so that wasn’t entirely appealing… Even though it was the most comfortable thing in the world to sleep on, it was still so nice of them to let us stay there for the long weekend.
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First ASL District Convention in Belleville, Michigan
By Jac | September 19, 2009
Thanks to some great family and friends, Anton and I were able to go up to Michigan at the start of August to enjoy the first ASL District Convention held in Michigan. The program was awesome, and the best part was all we had to do was sit and listen!
Well, at least that was all we were supposed to do… at one point I was chatting with some friends and lost track of Anton. When I finally located him, he was on stage, on a ladder, adjusting the lighting for the video department! You just can’t stop him from working!
- Sarah and Jac
The following weekend Anton gave a talk in the Detroit congregation, and we “crashed” the French congregation’s annual picnic with my Mom.
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This is why Dominicans are such good baseball players
By Anton | July 27, 2009
Here is a fun scene we happened upon after finishing our last study one hot Saturday afternoon. We had to stop and watch of course since there was plenty of good shade under this enormous tree and the kids were more than happy to have their picture taken.
At the beginning of the video, when the “Ump” hits the base, listen carefully as he yells “Play Ball!!!”. Then after it goes into the river, he shouts “Foul Ball!”. There are actually very few Spanish words in baseball, most of the vocabulary is borrowed since they all grew up watching the “American Past Time” on TV, in English.
Click the “Read the rest of this entry” button below to see some pictures.
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Darwin, Luis and Luis David (the 15 year old rush)
By Anton | July 26, 2009
So these boys are my new project!
All three boys are in the deaf school and do very well. I contacted Luis (middle) first about 8 months ago and he has gone from being a lifeless lump to looking forward to his study every week. Little by little he has been opening up and asking more and more probing questions. I think it is amazing the way we were created to have an intense curiosity for our Creator and it really shows in Luis. For being a boy that doesn’t know much about communication, he has some pretty interesting questions every week.
Darwin (first on the left) was contacted about 4 months ago. Friend of a friend of a friend said they talked with him and that he wanted to study the Bible. He is the popular kid at school so he likes to talk a lot… though sometimes about nonsense. We have worked with him a lot and now he doesn’t go off on his tangents nearly as much as he used to. His study is going quite well.
Luis David (right) isn’t actually my student, he is the student of another sister in our congregation but he has really latched on to the other boys.
A few weeks ago while we were cleaning out the house, we found a big bag of ties and a dress shirt that was too small for me. I gave the dress shirt to Luis and 2 ties each to the boys. I also gave 2 ties to another student of mine who isn’t in the picture (I will have to write about him(Alex) another time). It was so exciting to see all of the boys at the meeting in their dress shirts, slacks, shoes and ties. And they all commented at least once at the Watchtower study (I think Darwin commented 5 times though 2 were a little off lol).
We are really hoping to get them to the District Convention this year in the Capital. Darwin’s and Luis’ parents already said yes but they said that they are a little tight economically with the new school year approaching but they would do their best to contribute to the hotel and food. With our uncertain job situation, we aren’t quite sure how it will work out but we are continuing to pray for their fine progress.
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