A Finnish Brother Using Thai Sign

So we had a special meeting yesterday. There's a couple from Finland here for 5 weeks. They work in the sign-language department at the Finnish Branch and were sent here to help organize things. He gave the talk yesterday in sign and then we had our own WT study. We've had our own meeting twice before and it's always a great turn out. Yesterday was awesome! We had at least 20 deaf, and out of the 20 there were 4 or 5 who had come for the first time. The brother's parents are deaf so his sign-language is excellent. He did a great job at changing the signs to Thai sign and everyone was really into it!

One neat thing about some of the Bible students is how much they preach. One young girl has had 4 of her friends come to the meeting before and 3 of them are now studying. There are some girls from a local university who started studying. It started out with 1 girl. Then she invited her friends and her friends invited friends. There are now 8 girls studying and a few that have just come to the meeting but not yet studying. That's another thing so neat about things here, they usually come to the meeting before agreeing to a Bible study. Once the come and agree to study, they usually end up coming regularly. Amazing! So they had all invited people for yesterday's meeting.

Back to yesterday. We have our bookstudy at 3:00 on Sunday afternoon. So after the morning meeting and lunch we usually study with some before the bookstudy. But yesterday there were so many that came for the whole day that it was just too crazy to try to study. So we all just talked.

After the bookstudy we ordered some food in and ate together. Then played some games and talked some more. I didn't head home until 7pm! And people were still there when I left. I collapsed when I got home, it was long day. But a really awesome day! It's so neat to see all this growth.

We'll probably have another meeting like this in a couple months. There's a couple coming from Canada from an ASL cong. He actually gave the very first talk in sign 2 years ago. I'm sure he'll give another one. There's another couple coming from an ASL cong in Pennsylvania. I'm not sure how long they're staying. But I'm sure he'll give a talk at some point too.

In January we'll start to break away from the Thai cong some. We'll have our own bookstudy and ministry school and then join the Thai cong for the service mtg. We may possibly break away for our own WT soon too. I hope we do, we already take over the study with all the deaf commenting. I think we'd already be having more of our own meetings if we had more brothers. But I guess that's the need everywhere. Anyone want to come and learn Thai sign?