Wayne and Cheryl Simmons
(hoping and praying these guys come back real soon!)
While they were here we had to do a quick trip to Suriname for our visa renewal. Wayne and Cheryl went with us. We stayed at a hotel on the river, the view was great!
Wish we could have said the same for the rooms, but sadly, this was not the case. They did, however, have a decent swimming pool...
...so it was almost worth the money we paid!
Just a few days after returning from our trip, we had our Special Assembly Day. This takes a lot of preparation and cleaning the day before, which sadly, I forgot to bring my camera, so no pics.
One of my Bible students did take the step of baptism at this assembly, though, and I did remember my camera for that!
Rosie sitting with the baptismal candidates. (She's the one in pink looking at the camera)
Rosie "taking the dip"
Rosie's mom came to the afternoon session to see her get baptized! Although the home is religiously divided (mom is Hindu, dad is Christian) it was nice to see they were so supportive of Rosie's decision. Dad said he would have come if he didn't have to work.
Altogether, 14 were baptized.
Proud of my student. She is also signed up to auxiliary pioneer for the month of April.
Just three days after the SAD, we had to prepare another venue for the Memorial of Christ's death. Most of you know this is our biggest day of the year for Jehovah's Witnesses. Our sign language group has so many that attend that we can't possibly meet together with the English congregation as we normally would do, so we had to have our Memorial celebration at the New Amsterdam Town Hall. More cleaning and setting up! We also have to arrange for bus transportation for the Deaf that live in various far flung corners of our territory. I was responsible for one of the three buses, while Scott prepared to give the talk in American Sign Language.
Our bus had a total of 15 people. Two other buses went to other areas.
The picture is a little blurry, but, these were some of the ladies that attended.
Some of the guys. I think this year the men outnumbered the women for the first time ever. There was a total of 58 in attendance, 38 of whom are Deaf.
A few more of the deaf.
Our attendance was a little lower than last year. I think this was partly due to the fact that it fell so closely to our SAD. Some of the Deaf had to choose one or the other, and went on Saturday to the Assembly. Also, the very next day was the Hindu holiday of Pagwah, so some from Hindu families were not allowed to attend, as they wanted them home to help cook and clean to get ready for family visiting on the holiday. Knowing that some of the Deaf who did come had to take a stand with their families to be there made it all the more special, despite the lower numbers.
The last thing that has been keeping Scott busy (but sane!) is tending to his little flower garden.
It seems the butterflies love it as much as we do! Whew, now that flurry of activity is over, and in two more weeks we get ready for our Circuit Overseer's visit. It just keeps coming....
Missing and loving everyone back home!
