South Bronx: In a Silent World, Seeking New Souls
(by Katherine Bindley; published New York Times: July 6, 2008)
“EXCUSE me, sir,” a sandy-haired 20-year-old named Jeffrey Westra asked a man leaning against a car outside a bodega one recent muggy afternoon in the Highbridge section of the Bronx. “Do you know anyone that’s deaf?”
The man shook his head. And so Mr. Westra, who was dressed this day in somber charcoal-gray pants, a crisp white shirt and a navy tie, continued down the street. With him was his missionary companion, Jacob Frost, a 19-year-old Ohioan who is hearing-impaired and holds doors open for strangers, even the doors of city buses.
When Mormon men are 19 to 25, they apply for two years of full-time mission work. They receive a letter informing them where they will live and in which language they will minister. Chinese, Russian and Spanish are possibilities, as is American Sign Language.
Mr. Westra had never been east of Minnesota when he moved last summer from Lehi, Utah, to the South Bronx and began missionary work for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, assigned to serve the neighborhood’s hearing-impaired.
Before arriving in the city, he studied sign language for two months, 14 hours a day, at a training facility in Utah. In August, he moved to an apartment off the Grand Concourse on 167th Street that had three sets of bunk beds, one bathroom and five missionary roommates.
The church’s efforts to minister to the deaf in New York began in 1991. By 1998, the church had formed a deaf congregation, which today has some 250 members, about 100 of whom live in the Bronx, according to Brent Belnap, who until recently oversaw 14 congregations in the city, including the one for the deaf.
From noon until 9 p.m. six days a week, Mr. Westra and his counterparts spend their time visiting current church members, recruiting potential members and reaching out to those who have strayed. The other day, Mr. Westra and Mr. Frost stopped by the dimly lighted apartment of Michael Powell, a member who hadn’t been to church in two months.
“How are you feeling?” Mr. Westra signed. Mr. Powell, a 28-year-old custodian at a McDonald’s near Yankee Stadium, signed back that he had been tired out by work and getting headaches.
Mr. Westra and Mr. Frost spent a half-hour with Mr. Powell, signing and reading Scripture. Before they left, they asked him if he knew any other deaf people nearby. “All around the area, there are many,” Mr. Powell signed back. “You just have to look for them.”
The missionaries are always looking. They saw a man signing in the library one day and got his address. They stop by apartment buildings and public housing projects if they hear that someone who is deaf lives there. When no one is home, they slip notes under doors. Someone once threw eggs out a window at Mr. Westra. He took it in stride and crossed the street.
Photo caption: "Jeffrey Westra, left, and Jacob Frost, Mormons on an unusual mission."
New York Times: In a Silent World, Seeking New Souls
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