Discipling the deaf by Vikki Wright
G
odfrey was born with good hearing. But, when he got meningitis at the age of 12, he lost half of his hearing. Since then, he has had to learn how to communicate with impaired speech and sign language, a language very few hearing people understand. Gatrude was born deaf. Right from the beginning she faced a major social barrier that cut her off from the rest of the hearing world. These are just a couple of young Ugandans who face the difficulties of life without hearing in East Africa. Some deaf people are seen as mentally ill while others suffer abuse. They are kept in the background and miss out on basic human rights such as education, love and acceptance. But things are changing. The deaf community has been mobilized under the leadership of Reverend Allan Aviah, a partially deaf and partially blind reverend working with the Church of Uganda. Through him new doors are opening for the deaf community. YWAMers Adam and Helen Fielder have felt a calling to work with the deaf since 2002, and began a ministry called Deaf Connections with the vision of developing partnerships to release the potential of isolated deaf people. Working together with Reverend Allan, the Fielders connected four members of the deaf community with YWAM Arua so that for the first time ever, we have four deaf students on our Discipleship Training School. They also connected two hearing advocates for these deaf students from the same church, who help Adam and Helen bridge communication gaps when they occur. It has been amazing to watch the deaf students interact with the rest of the hearing students and the YWAM staff. One of the
first things the deaf students did that seemed to begin bonding them with the rest of us was to give each of us a sign name. They studied each person’s face and head, and when they identified a particular feature unique to that person, they used that feature to represent the person. For example, my sign name is the sweeping of two fingers down the nose and lifting off upwards, to mimic my up-turned ‘ski jump’ nose. My husband’s sign name is a circular motion over the top of his head toward the back to mimic his bald spot. Some of the sign names aren’t very flattering, but they do help to identify who the person is speaking about. During the lecture phase, Adam and Helen spent hours signing for the deaf students and working hard to ensure they were together with the rest of the class. They took time to read and translate the assigned books, and to process the various challenges the students went through. It was an exhausting time for the couple, but their commitment made it possible for the students to successfully complete the lecture phase. Now the students have gone for their three-month outreach to Sudan and Congo. We look forward to hearing their testimonies when they return. And our prayer for these students is that they will see that God has given them each spiritual gifts to be used in the whole Body, that they have something special to contribute, and that they will grow in understanding their unique identity in Christ. These four students have brought many blessings to our base, and stretched us to consider things we’d never thought of before. May God use them mightily during their outreach, and may we as a base continue to be open to the new things God is doing in our midst.
If you would like more information about the Deaf Connections ministry, please see the Fielder’s blog at: www.deafconnections.blogspot.com
If you would like to learn how you can include deaf students in your DTS or other schools, please email us at: ywamarua@yahoo.com
10 aoqReportando os ritmos da JOCUM África