Fulfilling My Desire to Help Deaf People

I was born in 1941 into a deaf family living in Virrat, Finland. Both my parents, many of our relatives, and my younger brother and sister were deaf. We communicated in sign language.

Learning Wonderful Things From the Bible

Sign language was strictly forbidden at the boarding school I attended, about 240 kilometers (150 mi) from home. At that time, schools for the deaf in Finland used an oral approach, so we were forced to learn spoken language and lip reading. If our teachers saw us signing, they would hit us so hard with a ruler or a pointer stick that our fingers would be swollen for days.

After high school, I went to an agricultural college. My parents had a farm, and I needed to learn the farmer’s trade. When I returned home, I saw the Watchtower and Awake! magazines on the table. My father told me that these magazines explain wonderful things from the Bible and that some hearing people had been conducting a Bible study with him and my mother. They communicated with my parents using pen and paper.

My father told me that under God’s Kingdom the earth will become a beautiful paradise and that the dead will be resurrected. But I had been taught that people who die go to heaven. I thought that he must have misunderstood the Witnesses, as they did not communicate with him using sign language.

When the couple came to visit my parents again, I asked them about the things my father had told me. “Your father is right,” they assured me. Then they showed me what Jesus said about the resurrection at John 5:28, 29. They described how God will cleanse the earth of wickedness and told me that people will live forever in perfect health and peace.—Psalm 37:10, 11; Daniel 2:44; Revelation 21:1-4.

I wanted to know more, so I started to study the Bible with a hearing Witness named Antero. He did not know sign language, so I answered the questions in the study book by writing the answers on paper. Then Antero read them and wrote additional questions or comments. He studied patiently with me for two hours each week using this method.

In 1960, I attended a convention of Jehovah’s Witnesses where the program was interpreted into sign language. On Friday afternoon, an announcement was made that a baptism was to take place the next day. So, on Saturday morning, I took my swimming trunks and a towel with me, and I was baptized!a Before long, my parents and my younger siblings were baptized as well.

Sharing Bible Truths

I wanted to share what I had learned with other deaf people, and the best way to reach them was with sign language. At first, I zealously preached to the deaf in my hometown.

Soon I moved to Tampere, a large industrial city. I searched for deaf people there by going from door to door, asking if the householder knew any people who were deaf. I started Bible studies this way, and in just a few years, Tampere had more than ten deaf publishers.

In 1965, I met a lovely sister, Maire. We were married the next year. Maire learned sign language quickly, and she proved to be a loyal and industrious companion in the five decades that we served Jehovah together.

Two years after our marriage, we had a son, Marko, who is hearing. At home, he learned Finnish, his mother tongue, and Finnish Sign Language. Marko was baptized at the age of 13.

In time, many new ones joined our sign-language group in Tampere. Therefore, in 1974, we moved to another city, Turku, where there were no deaf Witnesses. We again searched for deaf people by making door-to-door inquiries. During our years in Turku, 12 of my Bible students got baptized.

Work in the Baltics

In 1987, Marko was invited to serve at Bethel. Our sign-language group in Turku had strengthened, so we started making plans to move again.

About that time, the territories in Eastern Europe were opening up. So, in January 1992, I traveled with another deaf brother to Tallinn, Estonia.

We got in touch with a Christian sister whose brother was deaf. Although he showed no interest in the Kingdom message, he very kindly helped us to contact many deaf Estonians. On the final night of our visit, he took us to a meeting held by the Estonian Association of the Deaf in Tallinn. We arrived early and filled a table with Estonian and Russian magazines and books. We placed about 100 books and 200 magazines and obtained about 70 addresses. That evening the foundation was laid for the sign-language ministry in Estonia!

Soon afterward, Maire and I started to make regular preaching trips to Estonia. We cut back on our secular work and enrolled as regular pioneers. In 1995, we moved nearer to Helsinki so that it would be easier to travel on the ferry to Tallinn. Our ministry in Estonia exceeded all our expectations!

We had as many Bible studies as we could handle, and 16 of our students progressed to baptism, including two fleshly sisters who were blind and deaf. I would conduct study sessions with them by signing into their hands—a method called tactile signing.

Studying with deaf people was challenging. At the time, there were no sign-language publications available in our field, so I made extensive use of appealing pictures in our publications, collecting them into a scrapbook.

The branch office in Finland asked me to visit Latvia and Lithuania to find out how sign-language activity could be advanced in those Baltic states. We visited these countries several times and helped the local Witnesses search for deaf people. Almost every country has its own sign language. So I learned the sign languages of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, along with some Russian Sign Language, which is used by deaf Russians living in the Baltics.

Sadly, after traveling for eight years to Estonia and other Baltic states, Maire was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and we had to stop.

Organized to Help the Deaf

In 1997, a sign-language translation group was established at the Finland Branch. Because we lived nearby, Maire and I were able to help prepare sign-language publications, which I still occasionally do today. We worked together with our son, Marko. Along with his wife, Kirsi, Marco also later helped train sign-language translation groups in other countries.

Additionally, the branch office has organized courses to help hearing publishers to learn sign language. Thanks to these courses, many have joined the sign-language activity, supporting the preaching work and meetings and taking up responsibilities in the congregation.

My Desire to Help Still Burns

In 2004, Maire and I helped form the first Finnish sign-language congregation in Helsinki. In three years it became a strong and zealous congregation with many pioneers.

Again, we started to make plans to move to an area with greater need. In 2008, we moved near Tampere and went back to the sign-language group that we had left 34 years earlier. A year later, that sign-language group became the second sign-language congregation in Finland.

By now, though, Maire’s health was deteriorating steadily. I gladly cared for her until her death in 2016. Although I miss Maire dearly, I look forward to seeing her in the new world, where sickness will be no more.—Isaiah 33:24; Revelation 21:4.

Meanwhile, my desire to share the good news with my deaf neighbors—an activity that has been my life’s work for the past 60 years—is still burning strong!