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Tag Archives: lenguaje se senas

MidOctober Days’ work

October 15th, 2022

You can check out the newest newsletter here: WTH_Fall2022 (1)

The middle of October and we are still feeling the summer humidity. Someone thought playing outside on Friday was a good idea.  And it was.  But getting back into the school chapel was a better idea!

We always enjoy our friends from Young Life come for some fun and games and the challenge from God’s Word. Jerry and Christina are amazing and we love having them and our friends from the Palmas Community Church.

There are four of us on staff now – we welcomed Dave Markle (white shirt) as our maintenance and Go To Guy for all things dysfunctional. Valie is enjoying having another guy around who knows how to fix things.  Last week Dave installed a new hard drive on the school ZOOM CLASS laptop.  This week he fixed leaks in the east wall that allowed Hurricane Fiona waters to enter the preschool classroom and kitchen.  Imagine finding water in the breaker box! Only God knows what next week will bring to his plate!

Similarly in the classrooms – as teachers, we can know ourselves and prepare but we never know what will be behind the faces that enter. Our morning students are pretty settled into their studies and arrive knowing we will be doing SCHOOL work. Afternoons, we face ZOOM class with a teenaged girl and Tuesday Thursday with a Kindergartener girl.  Oh dear.  Pray in the afternoons if you think of it!

We love a weekend to do prep work and gardening but one Saturday each month we have Deaf Fellowship Day.  The ladies have taken an interest in Diamond Art which is very tiny work. They got a little competition going to see who can complete the Christmas pieces they are working on.  For me (Betsy), this project is too small and I took the paper sample to the printer and made an enlargement to help explain what we were doing.

There are already plans for more Christmas themed projects.

We also enjoy a night at the movies each month – coming up November 4 will be MOSES by Sight and Sound Theaters. Love their productions and the way the play shows us more of the character of the Bible person and times.

Pray with us for more opportunities and more hands to help with reaching out to the Adult Deaf community. Thanks for stopping by today!

 

Read the Fall 2022 newsletter at our webpage: https://cscdluquillo.com/with-these-hands/

 

Ministry Continues

January 23rd, 2021

Our 2021 year began with offering a community ASL class.  We are excited to have several families and mothers attending the class and look forward to God working through this to reach more with His love.  Mizael appears above – as our model for the activities we are planning for the class.   You can play the game here! (only through Feb 192021)

We have left our First Friday evening activity time in 2020 and moved to a Second Saturday activity for our Deaf Adult Fellowship.  As our population ages, we have to accommodate.  Night vision problems were inhibiting some attendees. So now, on the Second Saturday of each month at 1 p.m., we hope to gather in small numbers for indoor or outdoor games – horseshoes?  frisbee? dominos in the pergola? Come join us for an afternoon of fellowship in safe numbers and a safe setting.

Summer Workshop 2019

August 7th, 2019

Last week, we held a week-long ASL workshop.  We were pleased with the attendance and outcomes – more people signing with a little more confidence and new connections we have made with a pre-school were our little student Natalia will be attending!

Our school director, Betsy, was assisted by Valie Carrillo (our maintenance man) and Jennifer Woods (visiting ASL teacher from the States). With the occasional assist of Mike and Glenda Coupe, the class had plenty of models for great signing.  We played lots of games to keep everyone’s attention – the morning sessions were 3 hours – and to keep everyone learning. What a great week!

We are already thinking and scheduling for the 2020 version of the workshop so if you are interested in learning ASL and wanted to join us, let me know!

TALLERES en ASL

July 27th, 2019

We have the multi-purpose room ready for our summer workshop.

Estamos listos para los talleres de señas ASL.

 

 

 

 

 

Esperamos 12 personas a las 9 a.m. el lunes para el taller de maestros y/o personas aprendiendo ASL para sus professiones.

We are expecting 12 people at 9 a.m. on Monday for a workshop for teacher and/or people learning ASL for their jobs.

 

 

Por la tarde, tendremos un taller SILENCIOSO planificado para cualquier persona interesada en ampliar sus destrezas expresivas en señas.

In the evening, we will have a SILENT workshop for anyone interested in adding to their expressive skills in signing.

 

Si tiene interes, ven el lunes para juntarse con nosotros.

If you are interested, come on Monday to join us.

Pray for some little friends

March 7th, 2019

 

Needed:  one (or more) 7(ish) year old hearing-impaired or Deaf children to accompany Diego on his educational journey.

His teacher is older than his grandmother and she needs some help in the PLAY department… The other students are older too and don’t exactly want to swing and play baseball during recess time. Pray with us for the next group of little ones to join in the learning fun.

Needed: one (or more) 2ish something hearing-impaired or Deaf children to accompany Natalie on her educational journey.

It’s just more fun to learn with a friend and have someone to talk with other than the older people around you.

We truly know that language is best learned in community.  We have established an environment that is linguistically rich and visually accessible for our students. Pray with us for the little ones in the area – we hear of some in public schools where they are not linguistically stimulated, where they are developing delays in their linguistic development due to the non-accessibility of a visual stimulus accompanying their language experience. Deaf children learn by SEEing and DOing.  Hearing children learn by hearing.   English and Spanish are but auditory languages.  They do not reach into the brains of a child who has a hearing loss of any significant levels.

And hearing aids don’t FIX things the same way glasses can fix things. My students all have hearing losses into the orange region of the audiogram at this LINK. They do not hear most of the speech sounds without extra help – that means raising my voice, using a hearing aid or other amplification. Most parents don’t take the time to look their hard-of-hearing/Deaf child in the face to have a conversation.  So the child misses out on 82.9% (totally off the cuff estimation) of what is said. They are left wondering, guessing, trying to fill in the blanks.

On the other hand, most parents don’t raise a HAND to help their hearing-impaired child:

About 90%of the deaf population has two hearing parents and 88% of those parents do not know sign language. LINK HERE

And so I know there are children experiencing LANGUAGE DEPRIVATION simply because someone told their parents that having an interpreter is the answer.  Suppose you don’t know ASL (American Sign Language) and you travel to China and you are given an ASL-Chinese interpreter.  How much are you going to learn about China from watching the ASL interpreter?

Exactly what a child who doesn’t KNOW ASL faces when watching someone batting their hands around in first grade.  The child MUST be in a place to learn the language so that they can then access the materials of learning. How does one learn a language? Come on, you know.  You learned a language.  You are reading this.  YES!  You learned by listening to your world from the time your ears developed (about week 16 of gestation inside your mom) you were learning the language of your world. But a child born deaf missed out on even that opportunity. Of course, some babies are born hearing and then lose the sense through trauma… but alas, without a language, they are left behind.

And so, would you pray for those children who are in this area, on this island?  Because we have some lovely little ones here beginning to learn ASL and speaking and communicating in glorious ways… and my heart breaks every time I meet a small child who is SO isolated because the significant forces at work for the child haven’t grasped the idea that LANGUAGE development is IMPERATIVE to life experience and learning.

Thanks for praying.  Thanks for your interest.

THAT was a fast month!

January 30th, 2019

The first Friday of every month, we have OPEN HOUSE and invite ANYONE in to play games with us in the school multi-purpose building. WHAT FUN it is to catch up with our friends in the area!

Our games night in January was led by Mike and Glenda Coupe – our new Outreach and Chapel Program Director. We had loads of fun games and plenty of conversation and snacks when the group games ended.  Already we are looking at the next games night this coming Friday (February 1).

How did that happen?  It seems we just had our first social night… time surely does fly.

“For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.” (Psalm 90:4)

Thanks for praying for our school and our other ministry programs. We are seeing God at work as He answers prayers prayed since 1957 (or before) for the Deaf of the island to have churches that teach His Word in a way that is accessible for the Deaf. Pray for our students as they have opportunity to learn from the Bible and have opportunity to shine His light in their homes. Pray for our island as crime is increasing and many are still rebuilding their homes and lives 16 months post-hurricanes.

We take time to pray for our supporters – if you have a request, please send it along (by e-mail or snail mail) so that we may pray for YOU.

standing in AWE

September 3rd, 2018

God’s goodness never ceases to amaze me.  I stand in AWE of our great God and His wonderful works. There is a link to a song there if you are interested in listening as you read.

As we organized the newsletter (late because May was just too busy and honestly, overwhelmed by the past school year, it was difficult to know what to write in a newsletter) God brought SO MANY amazing memories of His great provision and strength to our minds.  It was hard to know what to include and then what would be left out… so we included very little other than praise for God and what He is doing here.

This past week, seeing our new little 6 year old begin to understand that LETTERS make WORDS and WRITTEN WORDS have meaning was another AWEinspiring moment. We are made in God’s likeness… what DOES that mean? Our ability to communicate on a level deeper than sniffs and barks? Our ability to use WORDS to express our thoughts? Our ability to love beyond words? Nonetheless, watching little Diego learning about WORDS has brought “The Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us” to my mind again and again.

In the Beginning was the Word…

In Diego’s beginning here, he has many words he can say. But when the words are written, they hold no meaning for him.  He is slowly learning that the sounds of the words he is saying are paired with letters… and he got 100% on his 4 word spelling test on Thursday.  WOOHOO!

Pray for Diego.  He is in class part-time simply because with only 1 teacher,  she can’t teach him and the high schoolers at the same time. And so he comes part time.  While he is here, the high school duo are working semi-independently on reading and writing.  They have a video vocabulary tutor twice each week.  They have a math tutor who comes in as he is free to do this. Their other lessons are all in the after lunch times when Diego has gone home.  As Diego learns to do some things on his own, the teacher will be able to do more with the high school students in the mornings.  We will be able to do some group activities.  But until Diego understands that the planet really revolves around the sun and not him, things will be more structured and less spontaneous!

Thank you for your prayers.  Please keep an eye and a prayer on the Atlantic Satellite during hurricane season.  If you see something developing, please ask God to spare the little islanders who still are living with blue tarp roofs and no electricity.  While most of PR has electricity, Dominica for example is still repairing their infrastructure. And many roofs have been unrepaired here due to lack of supplies and slowness of FEMA and insurance companies.

Thanks again for stopping by, for reading, for praying.

back to school 2017

August 18th, 2017

August 14 – first day of school!

We had one student.  The other three were at appointments or simply had difficulties arriving in a timely fashion.  Nonetheless, we were blessed by the Palmas Community Church as they brought backpacks for our students and their siblings. (picture on left below)

August 15 – second day of school!

Everyone was present!  We kicked off the first day of full attendance with our Science emphasis focusing on the eclipse that will be happening on August 21.  All week (well except for Day 4 which saw only one student again as the others were flooded away from the school) we have been talking about galaxies, sun, rotation, revolutions, stars, planets… It has been a fun week in the classroom.  While speaking of creation and God’s workmanship, we visited the apartment kitchen above the classrooms to see the workmanship of new cupboards that took place during the summer (center photo above).

We have explored the age of the universe by reading the Bible, created models of the sun, earth and moon to walk through what is a solar eclipse and had a guest speaker who has an interest in astronomy.  Our chapel is decorated as if we are walking in outer space (see backgrounds in the photos above and below)— heads in the stars and hopefully provoking the imagination of the endlessness of our universe as well as the endlessness of God’s love.

We created our own stars by making constellations of nails and then wrapping string around them in patterns or in arrays.  We read articles about the solar system at readworks.org

We have downloaded various apps to our devices so that we can “view” constellations in daylight and watch as the moon moves closer and closer to the sun.  Excitement is mounting as we await the eclipse on Monday at 2:11 our time.  We have had some RAIN this week so homework assignments of “observe the stars” were incomplete but we are hopeful that Monday will bring sunshine and blue skies for the event we have been hoping to witness.

Friday afternoons are often a little messy here as students go home early and our adult handbell ringers arrive for practice. This Friday, the students asked questions they had been formulating all week – Aliens? Diamond planets? Blue stars? – which we looked up on the Internet and youtube. How wonderful to have access to those resources! We also had art class and drew very inaccurate representations of the solar system.

All in all, the school year was kicked off and celebrated well. We are thankful for the students we have and prayerful about the staff we need to be able to reach more Deaf children for Christ.  The task is daunting as we meet Deaf adults and children with very limited understanding of signed and printed languages… there is the need to begin with the basics of WHO?  WHAT?  WHERE?  before we can begin to speak of GOD and SALVATION.  Pray with us for the continuing ministry among the Deaf here.

Thanks!

week of November 04 2016

November 6th, 2016

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Our week started with students who wanted to “celebrate” Halloween.  Well, I am not opposed to candy but I am opposed to many aspects of Halloween’s “religious” traditions.  So we got around it by doing “Crazy Hair” and playing some games.

Thanks to our two stylists to their crazy input on the activity!

This year’s handbell choir did their first performance on November 1 with a surprisingly good repertoire. With three fairly young and new ringers, the director of the troupe was nervous but everyone came through with bells on!

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We had some workers around this week – installing a new white board, installing a generator interface for power outages, and power washing everything it seemed.

How beautiful are the feet that bring good news! Isaiah 52:7 and Romans 10:15 both remind us that Good News comes by way of personal delivery.  How eager we were to receive our guest workers and their news of jobs well-done!  How eager we are to continue to teach the Good News to our students and plant the seeds of God’s Word in their hearts! Pray with us for their hearts to be fertile fields as we plant that precious seed.  Pray for their minds to desire to obey Him always.

Science Month!

October 23rd, 2016

if a picture is worth a thousand words, I’ve already said too much!

Hope you enjoyed looking at the October Update.  Pray for the students and workers – everyone is learning more daily.  Pray that we will continue to serve the Lord with gladness.