Toes and Chairs

We have a three month volunteer, Karen, a deaf woman from Florida, who is helping us by teaching math in several of the classrooms. On her second day, one of our little wild boys ;) threw a rock the size of a football, and it hit her foot. Ouch. She was limping around for a few days, but nothing was broken, just bruised.

This year we have about five kids that are new to school, and used to being on the street unsupervised most of the day. They fight each other constantly, and they don't fight gently. Fortunately they are still little guys, so they usually don't hurt anyone seriously. We have had kids like this before, just not so many at one time. They gradually calm down and adjust to having to obey a teacher. Pray for these kids. They need most of all to know the Lord. Right now they are learning a language for the first time, and will be able to understand the gospel before long.

One little boy in the first grade class likes to break things. He prefers to break crayons in small pieces then throw them at other students, but he will break pencils to throw if crayons aren't available. He also enjoys tearing things, like flashcards. He draws pictures of monsters and tells me that they like to come out at night. There is always a moon in the picture to indicate that. He is wonderfully creative, and he is intelligent, but probably has ADHD. The other kids lose patience with his throwing things at them, and then there are fights. These kids don't know how to talk anything out. Every little offense calls for revenge, preferably way out of proportion to the original offense.

The children were so happy when they came in and saw new desks and chairs this morning. And the teachers were happy to see new high quality blackboards. All of these were provided by the Secretary of Education (like the Dept. of Education in the States.) We are so happy to see the government taking responsibility for deaf education.

They are also committed to giving the kids bread and milk, for a morning snack each day.

We are up to 65 children right now, and more are still signing up. We know this means having some teachers start without a knowledge of Sign Language. That is upsetting, but the fact is, that there just aren't any teachers to hire that do know Sign. So we take them in and train them on the job. The older kids are good teachers for their teachers. But we would love to have more signing volunteers to come over and help out.

Here are some prayer requests: Pray for personnel, for those we have, and those we need. Pray for the new kids to be able to adjust. Thank God for his provision of much-needed school furniture.

Blessings!