Summer camp, upcoming workshops, location search

Thanks for your patience. The blog didn't get much activity because I had no internet at home for a month, due to my move, but I'm finally back on line, PTL>

We ended the school year as planned, with a five day camp for the children. It was great having deaf people and some signers come through Vision Trust; they also helped us out with transportation. And we sure do appreciate the folks from Florida who sponsored the camp.

The kids absolutely loved it. It was wonderful for them to have a whole week where they knew they had enough to eat, were surrounded by friends and adults who could communicate with them, including some deaf adults, and that they were able to have daily exposure to God's word.

Swimming was a big hit. The kids cheered, and the adults cried, when Leslie, who is wheelchair bound, came down the pool slide.

There were the normal VBS activities of learning Bible verses and making crafts. One night there was bobbing for apples and another time a team had to find bubble gum in a pie-plate full of whipped-cream---no hands allowed! Elizabeth was the first to blow a bubble, winning the race.

We thank the Lord that there were no broken bones, and no homesick kids. One of my favorite things was to see how loving the kids are to one another. Oh, they have their little spats, but for the most part, they take care of each other, and accept each other's strengths and weaknesses. The older ones watch out for the younger ones. Our students are mostly obedient to authority as well, which made for a very pleasant time for all of us. We did have a few new students who haven't quite gotten that part down, but are confident that the example of the others will be their best teacher.

If you'd like to see pictures of the camp, drop me a line and I'll send you a guest pass. You can reach me through gmail. My account name is deafschool.

Now we are looking forward to a small group of teachers who are coming here through Vision Trust to do three days of teacher workshops for us in July. We are inviting Christian teachers of the deaf nationwide to this activity.

Maria is actively looking for a place for the school. This is a very big issue. It is hard to find a location, given our special needs and limited funds, and we don't have much time. to do it in. Please pray that something will open up. The government had offered us some classrooms previously, but it seems the person who owns that private school they were to rent for us, has put it up for sale, so we are back to our search.

Please pray for: a good location, workers for this harvest, and our upcoming teacher workshops.
Blessings!

Moving

Friends,

You haven't heard from me in a while because I've been in the process of moving.

I haven't had internet for close to three weeks, and probably won't have it for another couple of weeks at least, despite the fact that I'm told "3-5 working days" each time I go to the phone company. :( Please pray that I'll be able to get that soon. I have a friend who has been waiting two months for hers!

The apt. I moved into had some major problems upon my arrival. During the first week, as the landlord was putting finishing touches on the plumbing, he managed to cause a major water leak which caused water damage to every single room--ruining the recent paint job. So the whole place needs repainting! It took about a week for the walls to be mostly dry. During that time, every door in the house, and the refrigerator grew a fine dust of mold over them. But thankfully, the walls didn't. So a little lysol did the trick, getting them back to normal.

Next there was a power surge that burned up my refrigerator motor. That took three days to repair, because the electricity must be on when the technician comes. The electricity is very unpredictable. Unfortunately, he would come, and it would go off. He would leave, and it would come on again!

Then came dealing with the rats, cockroaches, and the swarms of mosquitoes with bug spray and rat poison. The rats are still there, and they are big ones. I have found that they like spaghetti, crackers, and pretzels, because that is what they opened in my closet.

After that, the pump that pumps the water up to the rooftop tank needed fixing...I was using buckets meanwhile, in place of running water.

All of my plumbing had to be pretty much redone, with external tubes running around the outside of the house, and the plumber is only a part-timer, so he could only work on weekends. So every weekend he comes over and does a little more. Most of it is done, although dripping pipes and faucets remain.

And so it has gone, on and on.

In school news...

School is over at the Ozama campus, and on its last week, doing final exams at the Sabana Perdida school.

The kids are very excited about their week of camp coming up the 15th through 19th.

One of the children came to school with welts across his back from being beaten by his dad. There isn't much you can do about that here, except talk to the parents.

Another child was in an automobile accident in which his eye was injured, but I understand that he will not lose the vision in that eye, thankfully.

Our current biggest prayer request is for a new location (or locations) for the two schools. We definitely will need to leave both places. Sabana Perdida is no longer going to offer afternoon classes, and their mornings are full. The school in Ozama has needed to move for a couple of years. The Secretary of Education insists that we have more space, in order to have an office and a library. That's not possible where we are at.

We've been offered some space at two different small private schools, which the public school would pay for. Maria went and looked them both over, and said they were not adequate to the needs of the school. One was located in a high drug area. The other was simply too small.

Dominican schools generally pack kids in with large numbers in small spaces. You cannot do that with deaf children, because each has to be able to see the other children, as well as the teacher. (Imagine this: the teacher asks a question. A student in the back row answers it, but those in the rows in front of him/her are unaware of the answer.) So classrooms for deaf children must be larger, to allow more of a semicircular seating.

Prices for renting have skyrocketed, but parents have less money than ever, because of the tremendous inflation going on here. Many of our students have a partial scholarship through Vision Trust. This is a tremendous help, but for deaf students this does not pay the entire cost. Deaf students are much more expensive to educate, both because they need smaller class size, and because they need much more visual materials, as opposed to the normal chalk and chalkboard method used here. Specially trained teachers must be paid reasonably or they will move on to the public school. The parents pay an additional supplement to tuition as they are able. Many pay nothing at all. It is hard to raise the payments when most cannot even afford the minimal charges. This very much factors into finding a new location.

Eventually, we will either need to get our own classrooms, or we may end up having to close the schools, as the economy worsens. All these are in our thoughts.

I'll try to get another blog post up in the next month. :)

Thanks for your prayers.

Moving

A personal note...Not only are both schools moving next fall, I'm also moving into a new apt. shortly. This one is larger, which is a good thing. We have very little storage room at the schools, so my house ends up being a repository for our materials. I take them back and forth, swapping them around between the two schools and my house. The school stuff has been slowly but surely taking over my place.

Last week I was given the opportunity to look through bunches of boxes and take what we could use at the school. We got some picture books--okay, they are in English, but mostly pictures--and some math manipulatives, wooden toy trains...lots of cool stuff for the kids. Most of it is sitting in boxes in my living room right now! I don't want to take it to the school just to have to bring it back, as we are nearing the end of the school year.

Moving in the DR is tricky. There are all kinds of pitfalls you have to watch out for, and strange things you have to arrange. For example, I have to buy a pump to pump my water up to a storage tank. This is because we only have water for maybe an hour or so every day or two. Then I have to buy and arrange to have a meter installed for my electricity. Oh, and the hook-up to the house. The electric company doesn't do that last little bit, to hook it up; you have to get an electrician to do that. Then there is the inverter, which is my back-up system, that has to be installed through the breakers, so that when the lights go off, mine stay on--except any kitchen appliances. These days almost everyone has inverters.

I can hope that the phone company will take less than three weeks to actually install my phone this time.

The new apt. is a short walk from the church that I've been attending, where we have a new deaf ministry. The location seems like it will be good, based on the areas I expect to work in next year. A friend from church lives just down the block.

There is a hair salon the next apt. over, and that is about as good as having a security guard. The neighborhood is supposed to be fairly calm. The place is on a dirt road, so it is muddy when it rains, and dusty when it doesn't, but probably doesn't get much traffic coming through.

Some of the boys from the school have promised to come over and do all the carting of boxes for me, and that will be a great help.

Thanks to all who have been praying for an appropriate apt. to turn up. Please pray that the move will go smoothly now.

Good progress

Some of the teachers have begun to use Cued Spanish with their classes during the part of the school day they teach Spanish, reading and writing. Sign Language is here to stay--that goes without saying. The students have a great desire to learn to read, which is the point of their becoming bilingual via Cued Spanish. All the teachers are reporting surprising progress for just a few weeks of work. The kids themselves, are enthusiastic and hungry for more.

Today a mother came in and asked about signing her son up for classes. He is ten years old. He's never been to school. But the unusual thing is that he became deaf just a year ago, due to a high fever.

According to the mom, he is of normal intelligence. She will bring him in on Monday so we can get acquainted, and evaluate what his particular skills and needs are.

The new deaf ministry in Invivienda is doing well. It is totally Deaf-led. I attend the hearing church which meets at the same time, and my role is to be the interpreter as needed for communications between the hearing members/leadership and the deaf members/leadership. The church is also asking me to teach a Sign Language class. I've agreed to do that once I find an apt. and get moved in.

One of our teachers has volunteered to be the Sunday School teacher for the students who attend church in Sabana Perdida.

Most, but not all of the students are back from Easter vacation. It's not at all uncommon for parents to keep them out an extra week at both Christmas and Easter.

Chicken pox!

We had several of our little ones out today. It seems they've come down with chicken pox. Several of the hearing kids at the school have it, so I guess we are going to have a mini-epidemic. Probably for the next couple of weeks attendance is going to be down--maybe longer, since the incubation period is two weeks.

Frequent hand-washing is recommended to keep the virus from spreading. Well, our kids probably don't wash their hands twice a day! I know that sounds awful, but they are not taught to do so at home. At school, as at home, bathrooms often do not have any running water. We have to open a heavy cistern door in the floor, and pull water up with a bucket. Younger kids cannot do that. That's just one of the realities of living in a developing country.

Sadly

Dominican culture has long regarded deaf people in a negative light. Many times I have been with deaf people on the bus, signing with them, and been mistaken for being deaf. And in this situation, I've heard the ugly comments.

I've seen deaf children be ridiculed--not only by other children, but by adults, who should know better.

But the most difficult blow is always when it comes from the church. Christians here often don't see the need for deaf people to participate in the church. We've been told we are "profaning the temple" for having a group of deaf children doing a daily 15 minute Bible study in the church building. Announcement: deaf people also have souls that need Jesus.

Twice we've been invited to leave for only one reason: because the children are deaf.

This is one of the reasons we've always wanted to have our own school building. We want a place where the children will be safe, and will not have to leave due to someone's prejudices.

For now, we have a place alloted to us. It's not a really nice place. It's not in a good location. But it has four walls and a roof, and we are grateful that the dept. of education has at least allowed us that.

We don't know if we will have it for a year or for ten years. It all depends on the person who comes into power next, whether s/he be favorable toward the deaf.

Freduar

One of the most rewarding things for a teacher is to have the opportunity to see her students all grown up, and with a fond memory of being in her class. This happened to me today at church, when I saw Freduar, whom I hadn't seen for about 15 years.

When he was seven, I taught him how to sign. He learned his name at school. All the things that hearing kids know by that age, he learned with us. The alphabet, colors, counting, and so much more. Amazingly, he can remember all this! He even reminded me of exactly how I taught him the days of the week!

But the best thing of all was to see him in church. The most important thing he learned, was about Jesus.