A great week is ending. We started on Monday with a group of signing (hearing and Deaf) visitors from Camuy PR. The rest of the week, we enjoyed the company of David and Mary Chase who are repeat visitors. It has been a refreshing and learning experience all around as we have enjoyed new and old friends.
Pray with us for the remaining 19 days of classes and our closing of the school year activities on May 21.
WOW Friday October 24 was so FUN!
Since we were having visitors from everywhere who had come a few days early to go on a Deaf Freedom Cruise leaving October 25, we had an open house and invited lots of Deaf from the island as well.
Here you see Juan – our youngest student at this time at 8 years old – and his Deaf distant cousin who was one of the first students here back in 1960. (to see any photos in a larger format, click on the pictures)
The string of people are students fro
m the past lined up by date of departure. It was great to see them and to know that these folks are doing well in their adult lives thanks to the staff of missionaries who helped them along the way.
(Below left) The students did a little story telling prompted by Peppy – a Deaf visitor who was helping them to learn a Number Story in ASL.
(center) A Sprint representative whose name I never did catch shared some news from Sprint introduced several other fam
ous deaf people like the iDeaf News guys.
(right) Super Deafy shared his story and moderated a time of celebrating success stories and encouraging my students to be all that they can be. Look for his movie – No Ordinary Hero! Let me know if you see it because we want to but it’s not around here.
We had lunch together. Some of the former students gathered in a classroom and shared stories. More visitors came. 
Our students showed them around and answered questions. It was great fun.
Even though we are a small ministry this year, we can see that God is using us for His glory. Our resident maintenance man and part-time cook pretty much ran the lunch program on Friday. Rosa, our dorm counselor, was all over the place keeping track of the 8 year old and helping with this and that. Betsy, our principal and teacher, was fielding questions, helping taxi drivers locate the school, delegating students to groups of visitors for tours and running her feet off.
We praise God for this little spot of time we had and pray that as our guests came and went they will have seen God’s hand at work here.
Next week there is a Deaf Cruise going out of San Juan. We get the pre-cruise visitors 🙂 how cool is this!?
Just had a phone call from a super hero! Super Deafy is coming to our school on Friday at 10 a.m.! And we are collecting Deaf people from the island and other places to join us for lunch 🙂
If you are around, COME ALONG! But do call or text to let Betsy know. She has to buy enough food for everyone.
Thanks!
The students prepared short poems about God’s faithfulness. Enjoy this compilation.
Running with the dogs is a great after lunch exercise for the kids and Delilah.
God’s Amazing Intervention – In 2010, we had a student named Selena from the mountain town of Orocovis for one semester. She was an amazing young learner and we were heart-broken to not have her return, though we were thankful she was returned to her family and removed from foster care.
A year passed without knowing anything about her whereabouts until David Mitchell of PRDM from the south side of Puerto Rico mentioned that the Orocovis family had been taken to their office. We were so excited to visit them and re-establish contact.
At that first visit in July 2011, we invited the family to Luquillo for a night. Teodoro, the Deaf father of the entirely Deaf family, recognized the school grounds from years when he came to summer camp. He motioned to our principal that he would love to have his daughters come to school here. And so for two years we visited them in the mountains and invited them to the school for events and tried to figure out how to get the girls into school.
In January, we issued a full scholarship to Maria (photo top left #1), the youngest of Teodoro’s daughters – complete with transportation. The family was excited to hear this news (photo on left below). The scholarship letter was submitted to her school and they accepted her transfer without question. Maria has been with us for 5 months now and she is as bright as her older sister. This scholarship was only possible because of people like you who have made contributions to our general fund.
There have been some ups and downs as with any 12 year old but Maria is generally content, cheerful and showing the possession of an amazing brain. In April during a Sunday evening church service in Aibonito, she mentioned that she had not yet accepted Christ as Saviour. As the pastor announced a time of personal prayer, a companion asked Maria if she would like to accept Christ as Saviour RIGHT THEN. Maria said, “I don’t know what to pray.” Her companion said, “Watch this“ and prayed a brief prayer including:
Maria took up the prayer herself and to those around her, her confession of sin, request for God’s forgiveness and victory over sin were clear and Biblically accurate. She has since, told others of her prayer and decision. Pray with us for this young lady. Pray for also for her older sister Yajaira (15) who is eligible to join us in August. Our present residence counselor, Rosa Soto, has plans to leave at the end of December 2014 and we are praying that God will provide a residential worker who would be able to take over of the dorm so that Maria (and Juan and Francis and Yajaira) can remain in school with us.
Pray that God will lead new students
through our gates and would lead us to
their homes. We know there are Deaf youth in the area –
pray that we would be able to locate them for education,
for discipling, to befriend and lead them to Christ and
into fellowship with other Believers.
‘Gather the people to me,
that I may let them hear my words,
so that they may learn
to fear me all the days
that they live on the earth,
and that they may teach
their children so.’
Deut. 4:10
Mizael and Joella still enjoy shooting off air rockets.
#4, on a Saturday, we visited Cueva Ventana in the Camuy area. Had fun trying to spell CAVE with our bodies.
We had a busy month in March with three work teams who came and gave us a fresh coat of BLUE paint. Our last paint job was 4 years ago and with the humidity and moisture of our rainy climate, we were growing lots mildew on the outside of the buildings. We also had several walls that had been retouched creating a patchwork of blues around our school.
Usually when we have THREE teen groups asking to come to work in the same month, we turn down two of the three. This year, we decided to have them all come to give their energies toward washing walls and painting them a brighter, cheerier shade of BLUE.
Tasks like these are normally expensive. The first trip to scout prices brought us back to the nearest store – Sherwin Williams Paints. There, the manager of the store gave us a 30% “quantity discount, and an additional 10% off (we suppose it was his employee discount) and THEN at the last moment an additional 10% off! Our final bill of just under $1500.00 was reduced to just a bit over $700. We had to return for a second purchase of paint and only got the 30% discount L but we are still praising God for the thousand dollars saved in the purchase of paint for the school. AND the team who came with 18 painters for 6 hours made a donation of $1000.00 to the Paint Our School fund.
Thanks to ALL who helped with the paint choice, the moving of pails and ladders, the power washing, the painting and the cleanup. Oh, and we are not quite done with this job so if you have a day or two… put on your paint clothes and come over to visit!
#6 – cute little owl baby FOUND on a coconut tree at dawn on Easter Sunday. We think his mama came back and showed him the way home that same evening. Nothing has been seen of him since.
