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Tag Archives: Puerto Rico sordos

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.

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Welcome to 2019!

January 3rd, 2019
January 1 2019, meeting of the board of directors

We started 2019 with prayer. God is at work in our area and we are SO excited to see HOW God will carry out His plan using us.

You can read this at https://cscdluquillo.com/with-these-hands/ – we have been praying for quite some time now for God to show us His plan for this facility and for the Deaf of this part of the island to be reached for Him.

“Continue to pray with us for workers to realize an adult Deaf ministry on our northeast corner of Puerto Rico with CSCD as the home base.

The SAME needs that the first workers discussed in 1957 and 1958 before opening the Evangelical Deaf Mission are still the needs of today:

  1. the need for Bible teaching among the Deaf population (there are presently less than 10 Bible-teaching churches for the Deaf on the island),
  2. the lack of literacy skills among the Deaf population (how can God’s Word speak if God’s Word is not accessible?)”

We look forward to classes resuming on January 14. We have two new volunteers on our list of workers- pray that they will be consistent workers and willing to adapt to the needs of the Deaf children they will be working with.

We are SO thankful for God’s faithfulness to this ministry as we enter our 60th year here. None of the present workers has even been alive for 60 years- we draw on the heritage of the ministry and thank God for His vision in the beginning and through the years until NOW. He continues to provide and we continue to be blessed by His provision.

Happy New Year to all !

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15 school days into the 2018-2019 session

August 31st, 2018

This year, we have three students every morning.  Two are doing High School work and we are thankful to have English and Math volunteers working with them.  Our English tutor meets with the students two hours each week by Facetime while our Math tutor walks into the classroom when he has time free to do so. We are thankful for the ways God provides for morning assistance so that our principal, Betsy Hoke can work with our new 6 year-old student who is learning the alphabet, learning to sit in class, learning to ask before taking or doing things, learning to use his hands to communicate, learning so many life skills!

Pray for teachers as Diego (6) and the two older students all need full time teachers to be present in their learning times. We also have a little 18 month old girl who we would love to have full time – again the need of someone to be her guide and language model through the day is holding us back.

In our next blog entry, I will introduce you to our missionary staff for this school year. Busy busy busy days prevent me from getting the photos I want to post!

Next Friday, September 7 is Deaf Social Night – come if you are able and join in games and fun with us!

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Day 3 of the 2018-2019 school year

August 13th, 2018

The work continues – for the visiting team, they are pushing to get things DONE now that their work days are down to 3 days. Tammi Wolfe is doing things in the chapel to help out the school year while Joe Landis continues to weld in the carport.  And yes, we hang out the clothes the old-fashioned way. After more than a week here, everyone is in need of something being washed – even if it’s just to prevent the dorm rooms from becoming too scented by sweaty clothes.

Hayley and Shanna started a rhythm group today while the gentlemen started to put the panels on the carport.  Just a few minutes ago it rained quite hard so I am guessing the men on the roof were pushed to take a break.  God knows when they NEED to stop to prevent them from overdoing it.

Annette has been presenting some really good lessons in the morning chapel time.  We are thankful for her hard work in preparing – very different than for a hearing class.  OOPS  there is that rhythm photo again! Pray for Betsy’s attention deficit – she has a cold/cough this week and the medication is not helping her to focus!

Lastly, the older students are spending time with Danny Vidal, former student who graduated in May 1986 from ESD.  Danny has been on a recent mission trip to a Deaf church in Portugal and the students are learning some Portuguese signs and about life after high school… maybe one or both of them will catch the vision of serving God as missionaries or at least serving God in their local churches.

Pray for all of these and all else that God puts on your heart for our school.  Without your prayers and support, we would be struggling.  WITH your prayers and support, we are praising God and strengthened for more again tomorrow.

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Goodsearch.ORG

June 7th, 2018

Some of our friends have let me know that the goodsearch.com service is not working.  Yep.  They changed their site to goodsearch.ORG. https://www.goodshop.com/nonprofit/christian-school-and-chapel-for-the-deaf-inc-

I see that link says goodSHOP.com  which is an extension of goodSEARCH.org – if you buy online, they give a % back to us also.  So if you buy online, consider the possibilities.

Check out the earnings YOU and US together have made for the school! CLICK HERE

So go to the goodsearch.org website and enter our name as the charity  of your preference so your online searches can benefit our ministry here.

 

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the work continues

March 24th, 2018

While many people don’t understand it, or believe it, Puerto Rico DOES have a “winter” season. We don’t have snow but our temperatures do go down… on the average to the high 70Fs (21C) in Luquillo and to the low 40Fs (4.4 C) in the mountain areas. Some lovely quilters from New York state sent us three boxes of quilted blankets and throws and wall hangings. In the photo about, you will see how one student immediately adopted a blanket as her own.  One former student took a quilted blanket home for his mother who hugged it and cried. Thank you quilters for your gifts of love!

The work to return the school campus to it’s pre-hurricanes (P2H) state of functioning is continuing. As God brings us workers (from left above) from various places like Calvary Chapel,  independent families, and the local Internet installer, we are slowly beginning to get the grounds and infrastructure back to P2H normal.

A special group of workers has worked this past month to rebuild our sport/storage room as well as our awning at the dining room entrance. Additionally, some of the men in the group from Ontario Canada had some electrical savvy – they were able to work through the wires and restore power to parts of the dorm that were not powered up and were able to configure a solar backup for the school kitchen (not for every day purposes but in case of a power outage, we can now use the solar power system to run the fridges and freezer).  Their inventiveness will save us many headaches from generator issues in coming years… assuming their power cord remains aloft.

Oh and the phone line to the school office is now working again! AND the CableTV company has restored the service to the TV in the school library – a donation of their service for educational purposes.

Mail is arriving as it had been P2H and our little corner of the world is fairly back to normal.

Please do not misunderstand me, the rest of the island (and our little part) still carries the scars and still has delays.  Since the FEMA satellite link ended, it has taken a few weeks to get back online so our e-giving donors have not heard from us this month (yet).  We will be working on that this coming week.

Trees remain broken and the ones that will grow new leaves are working on it. The DTOP guys are out there trying to get the traffic lights working to restore order – yesterday I was in Carolina and after a few blocks of non-functional traffic lights on the business roads, I was glad to get back to the autopista and take the bypass from all of the tangle.

Some stores have not re-opened and some have announced that they are not planning to reopen. OurSam’s Club is one of them.  The two nearest Sam’s are both about an hour’s drive away so we will have to rethink the cost effectiveness of that choice. But, meanwhile, we have plenty of fresh produce again.  Plenty of meat in the grocery stores.  Plenty of options to enjoy choosing from.  And the students have been enjoying choosing the Monday Make Your Meal Menu option that has been given to them this year.

Thank you for your prayers and for your assistance and your parcels and your partnership in our ministry.

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Mail Run!

October 29th, 2017

Most schoolday mornings, I hear HOOT HOOT from the mail man and say RUN!

The kids love charging to the gate and carrying back the parcels that are coming in.
I have to tell you, YOU and your boxes are making these kids lives (and MINE) so much fun. And FUN seems to be a little lacking.  We are still in the shadow of the storm… trees are just beginning to grow leaves again. Stores are beginning to have meat again. Some people have electricity —intermittently as it shuts down again for another reason or fault in the line.

But a box arrives and WOW! LOOK! Beef jerky was once a foreign word and now it’s a great delicious surprise inside the larger box. Trail mix!! Who knew that would go over so well?  And we mix our own from the tins and jars you send when there is no “trail mix” in the box. A few nuts from New York.  Some dried apricots from Kansas.  M&Ms from Pennsylvania.  Cashews from Maryland. All tossed into the classroom container.  Then someone’s mother says, “Hey that looks good…” and a ziplock baggie of it is given to the family!

Batteries!  We still collect them – AA for some flashlights, AAA for others, D for the larger lanterns. When our collection overflows the confines we have delineated, we give the overflow to people in our churches, the students’ families, random visitors who mention the need.

I took several packages to church  one Sunday with baggies of Starburst candy. Imagine a child being more excited for the batteries than the candy!  One little girl held up the 4 pack of AA batteries and said, “Mommy look.  My flashlight stopped working last night and now I have new batteries for it!” Praise God for YOUR generosity in sending.

Stores are not stocking up on batteries.  They are sold out almost as soon as the boxes are opened. School lunches are most often dehydrated foods or rice and beans supplemented with canned meats or ‘refrigerate after opening’ meats.

Thanks for making the morning mail run so much fun! You brighten the lives of our students as you serve God with your creative parcel making.  We are trying to respond to each parcel received – the students are practicing HOW TO WRITE A LETTER and so is their teacher because while is it more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35), we as receivers feel SO blessed and want to give you our thanks.

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Student Author: Larimar

October 26th, 2017

Larimar wrote this in English class today as we were practicing the verbs JUGGLE, JOT, JUMP, JOIN, JOKE  and JEER:

In the morning, the man jumps up from the bed. He goes to the bathroom and he sees his face in the mirror and then he washes his face in the bathroom.

Next, he will have a new job and he will try to join the job as a writer. He will jot smartly.  And he will have a lot to juggle as a writer.

So one night, the writers told him, “Hey, we were writers so now you are the new writer?”

He said, “Yes, I am the new writer.”

Then the writers tried to joke with him about being the new writer. They said, “Will you come with s to go for beer?”

He said, “No. I am not going to drink beer and I am a Christian and I am the follower of God.”

So the writers laughed and jeered at him.  But he knew they are not good writers for the people.  He knew he will tell people about God’s love for them and that God is with you.

The End

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hurricane Irma closes CSCD for the week of 5 September

September 5th, 2017

Three weeks into the school year and we have a MAJOR HOLIDAY on our hands.  What was to be long weekend for Labor Day has become a longer break due to Hurricane Irma.

Predictions include 175 mph sustained winds and the word “catastrophe” is being used a lot. At least our students don’t KNOW the word CATASTROPHE yet.  (what a teachable moment we are having without them here – booo) They are looking forward to life without electricity so they can see the stars better! That made me smile when a student told me that!

Other predictions include not having electricity restored to the entire island for 4 to 8 months. We normally have 40 days without electricity.  Hopefully that will be the norm again this time.  Asking the parents, they all agree that school can happen in the cool of the dark classroom and that life without iPads can happen.

We hope to be in class again on Monday morning, September 11, 2017.  Betsy, our main teacher, is preparing lessons which rely on BOOKS and PAPER rather than electronic devices.

Thanks for your prayers.

Since some have asked, our link for donations for hurricane relief is HERE.  Or at the top right corner of this page where the word DONATE resides.  Our policy is to use your gifts first for repairs at the SCHOOL and if there are designated hurricane relief funds above those needs, we will pass those donations on to student families or neighbors of the school or other Deaf families in need of financial aid.  Sometimes, we will make the purchases for the families in need so that we can KNOW the money is being used for THAT purpose and not for other things.  You understand.  Anyway, if you want to help, that’s the easy way.  A little harder, you write a check and mail it.  Scroll down on that page for the mailing address.

Of course, you can always just send a letter.  The mail box is a huge encourager when the electronic mail box is inaccessible.

We hope to update you as soon as electricity is restored.  If that’s in a week or a month… then it will happen.  Of course, we can always go to an access point that HAS electricity even when our campus out in the country still is without that blessing.

Thanks for your prayers for our safety and for our students’ and friends’ safety as well.

 

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Handbell Choir

April 12th, 2017

April 7 2017 we had our first and only spring performance for the handbell choir.  It’s been interesting getting our two younger boys to multi-task as required by musical instruments.  Looking at the director.  Looking at the music.  Remember which hand is which color according to the color code we use to teach note reading. THEN remembering no matter who is in the audience, still watching and focusing on the director and the music. Serious skills required!

These two did well and so thoroughly enjoyed the snack box provided by the group we performed for. The other members of the bell choir were packing the bells and van while these younger guys were hanging out. The largest issue of the day was Edgar’s tie which had some smudges on it. Yep.  Not acceptable to him.  We’ll try to get those cleaned before they are needed the next time.

How many more coconuts would be able to be in this truck before the tires pop? As we drove, we passed cautiously lest the tailgate let go and the coconuts cascade out.  Driving here is always a challenge.  Praise God that day, there was no challenge other than passing safely on the highway.

Thanks for your prayers for our ministry!

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