This beats it all for Congo surprises: - I have been given the gift of a LIVE CHICKEN as thanks for my work with the Deaf School in Bunia!!! The Director of the school brought it to the door this afternoon. It was in his shoulder bag [unknown to me!] and I was totally taken aback when he produced a live white chicken from it! It is an honour to be given such a gift, and had to be placed in my arms! I later learned that the teachers had first wanted to give me a GOAT! It is supposed to be killed and eaten, but there’s no way that’s going to happen, please! I’ve hopefully talked Nancy into keeping it in the garden with their other chicken! Tonight it is at present in the chicken shed making friends.....and as we now think it is a young cockerel, this should be OK!!! And you can imagine the hilarity here on the veranda with me, Nancy, 2 students and the Director, as the chicken was given to me! And how do you sign language for “I’ve never held a chicken before” while clutching said bird to ones chest...!!!!
Nancy and I visited the” L’ecole pour les enfants sourd” (Deaf School) on Wednesday morning. 49 children age 5 to 18 were so excited to see us. I was introduced as ‘the lady who cut out all the beautiful Bible Story pictures for us’. It is an amazing experience to see a group of profoundly deaf children smiling and silent laughter with expressive faces and hand signs to go with it all. And all crammed together as 5 school grade classes in the smallest mud building imaginable! Small half walls separate some of the classes. But of course, it IS possible to teach like that when all is done in silence! But, oh how they need a bigger and better building, and better still to have a Residential School again.
The 6 teachers were once pupils at the Residential Deaf School in Nyankunde which was sadly closed in 2001 due to Tribal tensions, which resulted in the wars of 2002. These caring young people went on to train as teachers. The atmosphere was such a happy one, as you will see from photos.
4 children were pointed out as having sight problems, so Nancy examined them, and we’ve now set in motion for them to have a Hospital examination and pay for prescription glasses. To think that any of these lovely bright children could also go blind without help was something I couldn’t contemplate.
Teachers and pupils were highly amused with my British Signing on 2 hands for spelling, compared with their American one handed version. They all burst into trying to copy me when I spelled my name for them! I also used my hand puppet, Charlie the Chimpanzee, to show them pictures which I asked them to sign for Charlie. As usual with Charlie, I end with him ‘telling me’ he wants to show the last 2 pictures on his own! So I sit him down and wait!!....Then he ‘tells me’ he can’t do it alone, he needs me! Then the cross and the heart pictures tell them that Jesus died for them, and loves them, and wants to live in their hearts. Charlie needs ME to love and help him, and we need Jesus who loves and helps US.
Mary Cripps and the profoundly deaf friends at Church would have felt as emotional as I did to see these previously deprived children ‘released’ from their world of silence and taught by loving, dedicated teachers to live happy and useful lives. We have also given the teachers some of the Swahili Bibles [We exchanged 7 Bibles for one chicken this afternoon!!].
Today I have been at the Nurses College with John, after attending their weekly Church Service, where there was fantastic singing.....congregation, and 4 superb student choir groups. John is well into the Library programme, so I set to in beginning the relabeling of all the shelves! The existing labelling was the scrappiest you’ve ever seen! Pieces of rocks serve as book section dividers in places, which doesn’t help the dust factor! Excitement in the library now!!
Sunday morning John will be going to the Swahili Church with Philip plus one or two boxes of Swahili Bibles; and Nancy and I will go to the French Church, where I have a meeting with the Sunday School teachers before the Service, to show them how to use the Bible Story flannelgraph material, and they all want to thank me......but please pray that there aren’t any chicken or goats for thank yous!! We have also received photos from the Nyankunde Bible School showing the distribution of the Bibles there.
Janice.....still often on cloud nine!!
As Janice said, we had a good early morning service with the students, 7.30 to 9.00. We are not sure what the college Chaplain said about us but we had to stand up to waves and cheers from the students! We were driven there by Dr Nancy and left there as she had other commitments. None of the Directors were there so we had no transport on to the college so had to find someone to escort us on foot as I was unsure of the exact route never having walked it before.
The infected desktop is still resisting cleaning up and power failures don’t help. So I have decided to use stable power here tomorrow morning rather than go to the market. I think we have a visit to the tailor’s in the afternoon to get a shirt made out of material we have bought!
I managed to add (import) the students’ names (all 380 of them!) to the library programme and handed the laptop over to the librarian this afternoon. I then spent the afternoon showing him how to use it and keep it up to date. We will have further session next week and try to get it into use before we leave on Friday.
The battery power supply problem was only a blown fuse in the charger as I suspected. Unfortunately the inverter was taken for checking instead of the charger so that has delayed its use. They have been advised to get an electrician to set it up. I might have a go on Monday to see if I can set it up without blowing fuses!!
Have a blessed weekend and thanks for your support and prayers
John
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