Book Alert!

Our beginners class in Sabana Perdida is showing progress. Yesterday I told the children a story with a picture book, Good night Gorilla. In the book were animals, and one was an armadillo. Now in the DR, you won't find any armadillos. I decided to fingerspell the word, rather than invent a sign, because I want them to know that sometimes that is the best choice.

When I finished the story, I asked who wanted to retell it. Almost everyone did! I chose Meri Luz first. She went through the story, doing an excellent job for someone who has only been signing for a few months. When she got to the armadillo, she spelled random letters. F-L-X-Y. I was very impressed to see her try her hand at fingerspelling. Her doing that is very similar to baby sign language, where babies wiggle their fingers to indicate they are spelling something. It's a good sign that she gets it.

The kids loved story time. Unfortunately, I only have a couple of picture books for that class. We really need to add to the collection. There are no libraries to visit here, and good children's books are very rare. Dr. Seuss hasn't come to the DR. So if you have picture books your children have outgrown, that are still in reasonably good condition--even board books--we would be glad to provide a new home for them. Let me emphasize that the books I'm looking for are specifically for the beginner group. They should be either totally wordless, or just have a few words per page (English is no problem when it is just a word or two.) The preferred book size is large enough to read to a group of 4-5 students.

We have a new teacher trainee. Well, we did have one for a day! One of the hearing teachers is out sick, evidently with something serious, so they pulled our trainee to go work with her class. Silvia will be working with the teens, if she ever comes back to us.

But we do have another one starting at the beginning of April. Her name is Julia. She has a deaf brother, but she does not sign yet herself. She is a Christian. She would like to learn Sign. She has a teaching degree. She'll be working with the younger class.

We are still turning away students for lack of qualified teachers. I hope I'll be able to fully train Silvia and Julia to be ready for the fall semester, but even so, we will need at least one or two more, if we are to avoid turning students away.

We are beginning teacher workshops tomorrow, to enable current teachers to improve their skills, and allow new teachers to learn the basics. There will be teachers of the deaf from several cities outside of the capital attending. We plan to have these half day workshops twice a month.

A little of everything

We were very blessed to have two teachers here from the NC school for the deaf this past month. They were a great help at both schools. Jana worked primarily with teaching the students how to use the video camera, and making some videos of them. Mary Jo worked with individual students on cognitive skills, and gave me a personalized teacher workshop as well.

The audiologist is visiting today, to do whatever is necessary (new audiogram, earmoulds etc.) for any children who are in need of a hearing aid. There is a group that comes from the US annually, that provides this for the deaf students here in the DR. They will be coming soon, so all the preparation must be ready, in order for the children to be eligible for the hearing aids.

We are still suffering from a shortage of teachers in the school in Sabana Perdida, and turning away children as a result. Please pray that the Lord will send us workers. There are many more deaf children in the area in need of an education.

The church services for the deaf in Sabana Perdida have begun, headed up by Yulissa, our deaf TA. There are 8-10 attending weekly right now, which is a good beginning. They are telling me that they are learning a lot, and are enthusiastic about the meetings. A few have made professions of faith. This is the first time they have had the opportunity to attend church services in their lives, apart from the Bible studies which we offer them at school. This is a reason for great thankfulness to the Lord.

The Assembly of God has several small schools for the deaf sprinkled around the country. Many of the teachers are untrained, but have a heart for working with deaf children. As a rule, these schools are the only option available for these children. We are planning to begin bi-monthly workshops with some basic teacher training, to help support these schools. Our teachers will participate in attending and/or giving workshops monthly.

Many of these schools have as their main materials, chalk and chalkboard, and not much more. We hope to actually make some good usable, inexpensive materials in the workshops, so that teachers will take away a knowledge of how to make and use their own materials, without breaking the bank. We want these workshops to be very hands-on and practical, but not devoid of underlying teaching principles.

Our prayer requests:

1. That the children will come to know the Lord, and that those who know him will grow in His grace and knowledge
2. That we will have the teachers and funds needed to maintain and expand the ministry to deaf children
3. Electricity! We have had almost zero electricity in the SP school, and CCES has electricity only 2-3 days per week. As the temperature rises, we need fans, and it is very nice when we can use the computer to teach.