Back at last!

It is so good to be back at school on a daily basis! My arm is officially healed, although it is going to take some work to get back my full range of motion. The important thing is that I can now sign two-handed again, pretty well, as long as the sign doesn't involve lifting my left hand very high.

The new teachers are still working on their Sign Language. If you can imagine, it is like it was in the USA 20 years ago, where basically there were no Sign classes, and no hearing people except those with deaf parents knew Sign. (Here even a lot of CODAS (Children of Deaf Adults) in their 20's don't know formal sign.) So we have to hire people with no Sign skills and get them signing as well/fast as possible. If there were deaf college (or even high school) graduates available to hire as teachers, we would gladly hire them. So please pray for our teachers: to learn well and quickly, to be teachable, and to have a real heart for their deaf students. Also pray for the Lord to send more workers into the Harvest.

In January we'll be having a Sign class co-taught by Yulissa (deaf) and myself. This will be for parents, and other interested parties.

This Friday is our monthly teacher workshop, where we invite teachers of the deaf from the various little Christian schools around the country to come and learn how to do their job more effectively.

One of the deaf students had a problem recently. Her cat had disappeared. She searched and searched for it with no result. When she asked her mom if she had seen the cat, her mom told her that her grandma had eaten it! Not too many people eat cats here these days, but 20 years ago it wasn't uncommon at all. Grandma was from that era. I hear they taste like chicken.

Although the economic crisis has presented many difficulties, it has helped us in one way: gas has gone down, and thus bus fares, have gone down. Since many of our students take public transportation to school, low fares are essential to their coming. Right now it is 45¢ to take most buses, and 39¢ to take a public car (just like a bus but smaller--goes on a regular route.) Some students take more than one vehicle to get to school.

We are getting close to the Christmas break. There is so much to teach, and so little time! Thank you for your prayers for us.