Como Tu Ta?

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Well, most of you know I'm back in the Motherland. Not sure how I feel about it. Happy to stand in the hot shower, to rinse my toothbrush in tap water and to eat Pho (Vietnamese Soup). Not happy to discover how many clothes I had, that I hate driving, and that I have to work.

I mentioned that the closer I was to leaving the DR the busier things got. That's an understatement. We had so many amazing blessings the last month I was there. I'll try to list a few.

First of all, La Torre. This is a rural area between La Vega and Santiago. Every Thurs. Lily, I and our roomate Nicloe started taking the 1 1/2 hour GouGou ride there to preach to the deaf. La Torre has had a Spansh group for about 2 years, but no one has been teaching the deaf. With the help of some of the local brothers and our dear friend Rachel we have found 35 deaf there. And are they amazing! One little girl, Yarlin, I affectionately call "Yellow" (Her name sign looks like the sign for the color). A crazy Cuban brother took us to find her. She was very shy at frist, probabaly cause I was on my usual "Deaf high" that hit's me anytime I get to meet a new deaf person. We taught her our names and hers but, not much else since she didn't understand what the heck all this "Hand Jive" was. Two weeks later it was totally different! Before going I prayed to know which signs and concepts I should start with. When I arrived she was wearing my favorite color so I commented how I liked her blue pants. "Blue", she signed, and then shrugged her shoulders like: "what's that?" So, there we went finding everything that was blue, this turning into an intense game of "I spy with my little eye". By just using something she was curious about we were able to help her to see that all this "Hand Jive" actually ment something. From there she took off and had millions of questions.

Needless to say, I miss this territory very much, but I try to remember to support it with my prayers. And that's something we can all do. ;)

Another HUGE blessing, I mean beyond all belief, was the event of March 28th. On this day we all piled into "GuaGua's" ( All meaning the sign language group plus many of our Bible Students) and rode to La Vega. There we found the Kingdom Hall full of 145 people ready to hear our special speaker. Yes, here in this not so big, not so famous town we were priveleged to have a Brother and his wife visit from Patterson Bethel! (That is, the Branch Offices of Jehovah's Witnesses in NY) They are both involved in the ASL Translation department. Now let me break this down for those of you not familiar with the Sign Language field. This team of translators are responsible for translating and then filming all our literature. That means all the Watchotwer's, new realeases, and also the Bible. It's quite a lengthy and intense process, with many hours of research. And yet, they took their personal vacation time to come visit us! It was such a huge privelege, so encouraging.

These were just some of the spectacular things that happened, but I don't want to lose your interest by writing too much. I shutter to think I was planning on coming home in January! I would have missed out big time! For those of you 'para ya' (over there) I miss you very much! Soon I'll write about the craziness here in P-town!

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