Meet The Shluchim: Rabbi Avrohom and Cheina Dyce

“About 3 years ago, we moved to Portland, Oregon to teach for a year in the Chabad school there. Even though the job was only for a year, we decided to jump in and go for it. After that year when our job was up, I got a position in the Nigri Shluchim Online School and we started looking into Jewish life in Gresham which is a town about an hour out of Portland.

Using Facebook, we started reaching out and visiting people which led to putting up Mezuzos, putting on Tefillin and making connections with Jews in the area. Once we found a pretty sizable number of Jews, we moved out as the first Shluchim to Greshem.

There’s a man that lives here who’s from Brighton Beach, who went to Tzivos Hashem, Camp Gan Israel, and Crown Heights for Shabbatons when he was younger. He even went to Farbrengens at 770 and got dollars from the Rebbe. He still remembers the Rebbe’s intense look when saying L’chaim, standing on the bleachers.

This year, he went to Paris and met a Shliach from California and they struck up a conversation and he ended up putting on Tefillin. It was his first time meeting another Frum Jew in over 30 years. A few months later, he was in Mexico and next door to his hotel was a Chabad House and he connected with the Shluchim there. When he came back to Oregon, he realized how he keeps meeting religious Jews in his travels and maybe he should check out what’s in his own backyard. He looked us up online and the rest is history.

Now he learns every week, is almost done learning Hebrew and puts on Tefillin almost every day.

Most recently, we printed the first Tanya in Gresham, have had Bochurim here for Merkos Shlichus and made Kosher deli open to the public for a day. In addition, we began a project which reaches Jews and non-Jews alike in an effort to increase goodness and kindness in the area of charity through the ARK Tzedaka boxes. We’ve received a great response from this new initiative and have seen how it’s inspired so many already. We are looking to keep growing, make new connections and continue spreading light here in Oregon.”

Rabbi Avrohom and Cheina Dyce, Shluchim to Gresham, Oregon

Source: The Shluchim Office Instagram