Hope

Here we see John and Tom having their first study in the Good News brochure. John printed it off of jw.org in Ponapean. They are studying lesson 6 about the good news for the dead. You see, Tom is a widower. His wife died in October. They had nine kids together. The oldest is 20 and doesn't live at home. The youngest, Arthur, is 4. His second oldest son, Jeremy, is studying with a sister in another congregation that knows ASL. He is deaf. He watches the sign language videos over and over again and loves what he is learning. 

The first time we met Tom, we had such a nice heartfelt conversation about death and how God feels about it. It touched us deeply to have him share his feelings with us and see how starting to understand the truth about the condition of his wife has lifted some of his burden.

Tom's sister-in-law, Senda, studied from 1993-2003. She had her first study in the Ponapean Bible Teach book at the same time as Tom. She is married and has three kids. They all live together ( you can do the math--it's not uncommon to have a large amount of family living together. In this case, the family is helping Tom and his kids.) Senda is a load of fun and really likes to laugh, so we have a very lively study. She has been reading the Bible Teach book everyday along with her Bible since I left it with her last week. To let you know just how much she values her Bible that she brought with her to Guam in 1992, she has protected it through typhoons and earthquakes. It looks like it too, but it is precious to her.