Today was one of those "surprises" from the Lord, definitely a divine appointment. Just a few weeks ago, Mercedes saw an article in the newspaper here mentioning a needy school for the deaf in the town of Sonsonate, about an hour away from San Salvador. Since one of the key ministries here is to help/support poor public schools in rural areas, she was interested in knowing more, and knowing that our team would be working with the deaf school in San Salvador, and we had several team members who sign, she asked if we would like to include a visit to this school during our trip. So today we drove to Sosonate to the educational center for the deaf, and what a joy it was!
We were greeted with huge smiles and a bit of puzzlement. Apparently the only visitors this school has ever had were a few visitors from Spain. They had never had Americans there, and one of the first girls we saw asked why we were there, not in a cynical way, but just very curious about why we would come all the way there to see them. We explained that we wanted to share the love of Jesus with them and bless their school today, and I don't know who feels blessed more, them or us. We began our visit with the assistant principal who told us about the background of the school, and it was readily apparent that they had lots of needs. We then got to visit with a number of the mothers of the students. They have to travel such a long distance to bring their children to school (usually by public bus) that they can't afford to come and go morning and afternoon, so they wind up staying at the school all day to wait for their children. They talked with us about their children, the challenges, how they want to communicate with them, learn to sign better, and how much they appreciate the school. These are caring mothers who sacrifice much to have their children here. One of the mothers has two sons at the school; they have Usher's disease which causes hearing and vision loss. The older son is both deaf and blind now; the younger one has lost his hearing and will probably lose his sight as well. It is hard to imagine how difficult it is for this family. They have three older daughters as well. The pain and anguish they carry daily was obvious. We got to pray with and for these moms, thank them for all they are doing for their children and encourage them as best we could.
At first sight, the school is not impressive; the building and property is small. There is basically one long classroom because partition walls have never been put up. The playground was once just a muddy patch, but one of the teachers has worked with the older students to build a flower garden and pour cement for a small patio. The kids gave us a tour of the grounds, and they were obviously proud of their efforts. What playground equipment they had was old, broken, rusted and the area overgrown. Their "soccer field" was a dirt rectangle with make shift goals. Their water pump on their cistern has been broken for some time, so it is not functioning, and they only get water for about three hours a day that has to be stored and rationed. It's the "dipping system" for flushing toilets. Their supplies are meager, but what they have accomplished with what they do have, and that is dedicated teachers and amazing students!
We met with all the students (about 80 total in the school) in the main room. They wanted to share their thoughts about the school, their needs and desires, and as one by one stood up, the message was pretty much the same. These children come from very poor families; many of them live a good distance from the town, but this is the only deaf school in this state. They must pay for their own transportation to school, and this is very costly. Many times they can't come to school because they can't afford the travel. Each student said how thankful they were for the school, how much it meant to them, how much they want to learn and continue their studies. For now, the school only goes through 9th grade. There is no high school for them. They would have to go to San Salvador, more than an hour away, to find a high school that could accommodate deaf students. They talked about their dreams of completing high school, even going to university, studying computer science.....the sort of dreams most young people have, but these seem like impossible dreams to them right now. When education is usually taken as a "given" in our country, not a privilege, it was truly touching to hear how desperately these young people want to study and succeed. It was wonderful to watch their faces as they shared, so very expressive and animated. They "sang" their national anthem for us; very stirring. When they told us they had a band and wanted to perform for us, we weren't sure what sort of band that might be. What a wonderful surprise to see the boys playing all sorts of drums in perfect unison while the girls did a sort of dance team routine! Perfectly syncrynized, it was easy to forget that they couldn't hear the drum beats. Then our team got to share the Bible lesson and pray together. There is no way to express how very special these children are, the intensity of their expression, the joy of their laughter and the beauty of their smiles. They have so little; they long to come to school every day and are worried that they won't be able to complete their studies. They so appreciate their teachers, and it was wonderful to see the closeness of their relationships.
We found out right away that they used the Salvadoran sign language, which is a bit different from American sign, so it was interesting for our signing team members to try to communicate with the teachers and students. We had four languages going....English, Spanish, Salvadoran sign and American sign language. Now that was an interesting mix! In the afternoon, we got to be with the older students; there are 18 in grades 7-9. Our signers wrote words on the board in English, then got the students to show us their sign for it, the Spanish word, and then they showed them the American equivalent. That turned out to be quite a lesson. Hands flying everywhere!
After doing a craft, working on vocabulary, three of the team signed a song for them, and then they said they would sing for us. Recently there was an international festival for the deaf for which they learned a song with choreography. They performed this for us, and it was so moving, so beautifully done. It touched us all deeply. You would see in their faces their deep felt desire to be all that they were created to be. As we looked into their sweet faces, we could see the amazing potential each of them had and so want to see them have every opportunity to have a full, successful life.
We have found that most of the time, the most impacting experiences are ones that aren't "on the schedule." We didn't know this school existed until just a few weeks ago, and it was hard to tear ourselves away today. We ended our day praying over these students, hugging them, telling them again how special they truly are, how precious they are to God, and that He does have a future and a hope for them.
Our hearts are full; our heads are spinning with thoughts of the possibilities for helping this school and continuing a relationship with them. They need computers, playground equipment, scholarship money, funds for transportation, school supplies and more teaching materials. They have a silk screening machine that was given to them, but they don't know how to use it and want to set up a t-shirt printing business to generate funds for the school. They need someone to instruct them in this and help them get this going. They need friends, people to care for them and remind them that they aren't "flawed;" they are treasures. Pray with us as we seek God's direction for this school, how He wants us to be involved. Today was a gift; we are blessed and our lives enriched from just being with these amazing boys and girls, parents and teachers who few may know or care about, but we know are dear to God's heart....and now to ours.
