English Meetings

Hi everyone, this past week we had the opportunity to visit the Sosua English congregation since our Spanish congregation was attending the C.A. which we've already attended. Doug and I were in Sosua when the English was just beginning. We were at the very first Sunday meeting in which Doug gave the public talk. I think there were maybe 30 in attendance at that first meeting 3 or 4 years ago. Well there were only 4 other people there this past Sunday besides Doug and I that had been in attendance that very first Sunday. And what was the attendance this Sunday......111. Wow  Of course they did have a lot of visitors, vacationers etc in attendance but still! One Elder told us that he counted 10 Bible studies in attendance which is great and if you've been reading the yearbook, the experience from the DR, that's from the Sosua English congregation. So it truly is serving a need here. It was nice for us to relax and enjoy a meeting in English. Afterwards we grabbed some pizza and headed to the beach in Sosua and met up with some other brothers and sisters and enjoyed some visiting with friends from different parts of the world.

Notice the three year texts in three languages, Spanish, English, and Creole. When we first came to Sosua 7-8 years ago there was one Spanish congregation. Today from the one there are three Spanish, one Creole, one English and also groups of Russian and Sign Language

This picture is for Danelle, This is Jana a mutual friend, she is currently serving with the Creole congregation.

I'll share two highlights from the ministry this past week. On Tuesday at Laura's study, we had a visitor. A young Dominican woman stopped in to see Laura. We had just gotten started in the study so Laura invited her to join us which she did. She didn't say a whole lot but when I was getting ready to leave, she said that next week she would come at the beginning of the study! When I talked with Laura on the phone the next day she said again that after I left the woman said how much she enjoyed the study and that I taught in a way that didn't make her feel "foolish". And that she wanted to come next week. So that made me feel really good. I'm often nervous and doubting my ability to teach in Spanish but this shows the benefits of keeping it simple, it's really what people need. The second nice experience we had this week was on Saturday at our study with Vilma. Doug had given her the assignment to teach her children Jehovah's name and also a quality of his by using an example in creation. She completed both assignments and related how she did so, it was very encouraging. Also during the study something cam up about time management and Doug told her that she would enjoy next month's magazines in which she replied "I've already read them online". We had told her about our website last week and the many tools it had to help us teach our children. So it was great to see how she had taken the initiative to not only check it out but use it!

Well that's all my news, it would be nice to hear from you! Enjoy some flowers around us.