A Little Down Time

These past few weeks have been a little bit slower, which has been a nice little break for me. We haven't had a vocational class going on during the week, so I have been taking advantage of the time to catch up on my own classes! Also, the owners of a grocery store chain called Bravo and of a hotel have decided that they want to hire pretty large numbers of Deaf employees. I have spent the last few weeks making, collecting, and sending CV's in hopes that some of these men and women can get jobs. Please send up some prayers for them!

The power inverter class in going well! God is so good and provided me with an interpreter for this Saturday class, which has allowed me to rest and work on my own studies. These men are learning a lot of really complicated stuff!

A couple of students from the Deaf school where I used to work got the opportunity to model and give a short presentation about an English speaking country (they chose Dominica) at the English Song Festival for this school district. They absolutely stole the show! They looked great, they modeled great, and they gave their presentations perfectly. These opportunities are so important for increasing awareness of the Deaf Community. Many students, teachers, and important people in the education system got to see these two Deaf students shine and were exposed to Sign Language.

Speaking of awareness, two Sundays ago, a hearing church nearby brought their children's program to interact with the Deaf and see how we worship God using Sign Language. All of the children and adult leaders were so enthusiastic, copying the songs, asking the Deaf questions about their lives and experiences, and are all interested in learning Sign Language. This experience was so important because I believe that educating today's youth about these diversity issues and sparking their interest in this ministry while young may be one of the best ways to change the future for this Deaf Community.

For yesterday's service, we decided to have our church service at a park in town and then spend the afternoon playing sports and enjoying the outdoors. The thing is, the weather has been terrible lately. It has been raining all day, every single day for the last week. But this was the only week we could do it until after the New Year, so we decided to give it a go. We had a very small turn out and right as the service was ending, it started pouring down rain. After eating in a gazebo and waiting out the rain a couple of hours, we decided to call it quits and head home. It was a very pretty service with the lake in the background, surrounded by trees and nature, and the fellowship was good despite the rain. Maybe we'll try again some other time!

Worship

Drama about the anointing of David

After months of being pressured by many enthusiastic people, I finally feel ready to start a Sign Language class for the hearing community. I already have a list of 40 people who are interested, and some of those 40 have told me that they have more friends who want to take the class as well.  Some of these are people who have Deaf family members, some want to learn in order to preach to and support the Deaf Community, and I'm sure there are some who want to learn just because they think Sign Language is cool. I'm not sure how this is going to work out with so many people and the fact that I have to teach the class in Spanish, but I know God will work it out.

Please send up some prayers for health! There are some nasty colds and bird flu going around right now, and a lot of people are getting sick. As always, thank you for your support and your prayers. God bless!