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.

It was awesome to have the whole Suhy side of the family together!

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!

Here are some other shots of members of our congregation:

• 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!

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!

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!

Here is a shot of Anton and me looking all coordinated in pink at the Memorial!