Meet Marianela...

Let me introduce the third member of the threesome I have mentioned previously. Marianela is 17 years old, is in seventh grade, and attends the nearby public school with Irlanda and Melvi. Her favourite colour is sky blue. She is from the the town of Montenegro, known for its sugar cane, which is located a couple of hours away in the department of Santa Cruz. She usually makes the trip home every weekend. I think she is the only girl here at the centre who comes from a Christian family. She has also been here at the centre longer than most of the girls and knows all the ropes around here.

I will always remember Marianela as the one who helped me out and made me feel at home when I first arrived at the centre. I arrived late in the evening on a Tuesday. The girls were all chopping up vegetables when I first arrived. I thought I should join them and help. Marianela told me not to worry about helping them and to go ahead and get settled in and go to sleep, as I was sure to be tired. The next day she was also extremely helpful in explaining how things were done, as I was completely lost.

Marianela likes to take care of me. She's always telling the other girls to respect and obey me. Whenever she notices I'm really tired, she tells me to go and get some rest. She also has a "take-charge" personality. For dinner we always eat leftovers from lunch (which is the main meal here in Bolivia). Marianela likes to be the one to serve up the food, and she is very good at dividing up the food evenly between the nine girls.

The girls here at the centre are typical girls and love to get dressed up and look pretty. Marianela is the exception. She doesn't seem to care much for skirts or dresses and seems happiest in sweat pants and a soccer shirt. Also, unlike the rest of the girls, she dislikes knitting and crocheting.

Marianela is a gifted communicater and often helps me out when I am having trouble understanding one of the girls. When I encounter a sign I am not familiar with, she is very good at giving me examples to help me understand the meaning of the sign.

RANDOM INFO. (about my life here): As many of you probably know, I tend to be quiet and reserved. One of the things I love about my nine girls is that they bring out my goofy and silly side. One of our private jokes is the "crab" joke. When the girls taught me the sign for "crab," I adapted it and acted it out really silly. I cracked the girls up, and since then they will often ask me to please sign "crab" and give them another good laugh.

PRAISE (Blessings):

-Marianela's life!

-A safe trip to and from Potosi.

-A special weekend spent in my hometown seeing old friends!

-God has provided the money so one of the founding missionaries who continues to work here at the centre can have her hip replaced.

-God speaking truth and comfort to my heart as I went through a very painful experience/situation here at the centre.

-Seeing God use the horrible situation here at the centre for good.

PRAYER REQUESTS:

-Please pray that God would continue to bring healing and restoration after the horrible situation that took place here at the centre.

-I have been struggling with feeling very bored with my life here at the centre. Please pray that God would take away the feelings of boredom and replace them with joy and fulfillment in serving Him here.

Meet Melvi...

Melvi is 18 years old and her favourite colour is pink. She, like Irlanda, forms part of the threesome that is in seventh grade and attends a nearby public school. These three girls (I have yet to introduce the third) are inseparable. In the mornings they are the first to leave for school, as they have the farthest to go. When they return at lunch time, they always sit at their own table in the corner separate from the rest of the girls. After lunch they go to one of the classrooms at the centre along with their interpreter, Cecilia, and they work on their homework for a couple of hours or so. When they return to the dorms, they often still have more homework to do.

Melvi is from a small community/town in the department of Cochabamba about two hours or so from here. She doesn't often get to go and see her family, but she spends a lot of weekends at her aunt and uncle's house, who leave in the nearby town of Quillacollo.

Communication is always a bit of struggle between Melvi and I. Her signing tends to be very fast and abrupt, and I find her very difficult to understand. Often another one of the girls will have to step in and repeat what Melvi has just told me.

I feel like I don't have a lot to say about Melvi. She is probably one of the girls I have gotten to know the least, partly because she isn't around a lot between homework and her going away on weekends. Our struggles communicating and her being a little more standoffish than the rest of the girls doesn't help either, but she is a sweet girl, and the girls' dorm would not be the same with out her!

RANDOM INFO. (about my life here): We have several lemon trees on the property here at the centre. One evening the girls got permission to pick a bunch of lemons and take them to the dorm. These lemons are very interesting, because they look rather like oranges but taste like lemons! Life at the centre can be rather sad and bleak, and at the end of an ordinary drab day, we had a lemon party! It was amazing how something simple like a bunch of freshly picked lemons brightened up our day! We had so much fun eating lemons (with puckered faces) and making lemonade. It brought to mind the old saying: "When life gives you lemons--make lemonade!"

THANKSGIVING (Blessings):
-Melvi's life.
-God's grace and forgiveness in my life.
-Lemons!

PRAYER REQUESTS:
-Melvi's spiritual life (only God knows her heart, and if she has a genuine relationship with Him)
-The spiritual salvation of Melvi's family.
-I will be teaching the Bible lesson for the first time at the Thursday night meeting this week. Please pray that God would help me to communicate effectively, that I would put into practice and be an example of the lesson (I am teaching a lesson on love), and that the Holy Spirit would speak to the children through the lesson.
-Safety as I travel to Potosi (the city where I grew up) and back this next weekend (there have been a lot of bus accidents lately--like the one Irlanda's dad died in). I may also be taking Irlanda with me, so she can see her family.

Meet Irlanda...

I have been trying to introduce the girls going from the oldest to the youngest. Irlanda is not next in line to be introduced, but I have a reason for introducing her this week, and I will explain shortly.

Irlanda is 15 years old. Her favourite colour is purple, and she forms part of the threesome who are in seventh grade and attend a public school with their interpreter Cecilia. Irlanda is very intelligent and hard working. For the 6th of August (Bolivian independence day), she got to march with her class because of her good grades. Her dream is to be a teacher one day. To fulfill such a dream, she faces some practically insurmountable challenges--her deafness and a poor educational system, which at best offers her a poor education through highschool and then no options as far as post-secondary school.

Irlanda is from Potosi, the city where I grew up. She and I actually knew each other years ago when I would volunteer two afternoons a week at a deaf institute. Occasionally I would take my sister Elisa with me to the institute, and I remember Irlanda and Elisa playing together.

Not long before I left Bolivia there was a guy, Pablo, who started up a deaf ministry at his Baptist church. I was so excited, because there had been no deaf ministry in Potosi previous to that. A group of the students I knew from the institute started going to the Baptist church with Pablo, and among those students was Irlanda. I remember visiting the church and seeing how excited she was about church and learning about God, etc. All these years later, I can really see God still working in her life, and I am quite confident that she has been born again.

Let me share a story from the other week. It was a school day, and I was calling the girls to breakfast. I couldn't believe it when I found Irlanda was in the shower--she was supposed to be at the gate meeting her interpreter to go to school in about 15-20 minutes! She ended up not having enough time to sit down and eat breakfast. She gulped down her drink, and came to give me my goodbye hug. I was frustrated with her for not showering earlier, and I am ashamed to say I showed my frustration and hugged her rather coldly. At lunch time, I went to ask her to please forgive me. She would not acknowledge anything had happened that morning, but that day and the next I felt she had distanced herself from me. She would not make eye contact with me and seemed to avoid me. I felt horrible! Usually Irlanda and I are very close, and she is always giving me big bear hugs.

The following evening, I was sitting in the common area watching the news on television. (The girls like me to watch the news and explain to them what is going on in the country. Right now there is a lot of news on who the candidates are going to be in the national elections in December.) Suddenly Irlanda came up to me. She told me she had been angry at me for what had happened the previous morning, and she asked me to forgive her. In turn, I asked her to forgive me, and we gave each other a BIG hug!!! I was SOOO happy and grateful to God for restoring our relationship!!! It also made me happy to see signs of the Holy Spirit working in Irlanda's heart.

Now I come to the reason why I chose to introduce Irlanda this week. Last Thursday night Irlanda's uncle showed up at the centre. He came with the news that her dad had been in a terrible bus accident and could possibly die. He rushed her off with him to Potosi. Later I found out her dad actually died in that accident. Please pray for Irlanda right now!!! Apparently she was very close to her dad. She was the only girl with two brothers, and she was the apple of her dad's eye. Please pray that her faith would not be shaken and that she would find strength and comfort in God. I understand she arrived back from Potosi this morning (I think she was taken straight to school, so I didn't get to see her).

RANDOM INFO. (about my life here): Every Tuesday the secretary of the centre buys the vegetables for the week. The vegetables are then divided up between the boys' dorm and the girls' dorm. We then chop up vegetables till our hands are stained green! One thing I never thought of before, but chopping vegetables is not an activity condusive to conversation when you rely solely on sign language! You are using your hands to chop, and you kind of need to keep your eyes on the knife or you might end up chopping a finger!

PRAISE (Blessings):
-Irlanda's life and God's work in her life.
-A three day weekend spent in La Paz!
-Getting to see Rachael and to talk till past 3 am!

PRAYER REQUESTS:
-Comfort and strength for Irlanda as she grieves the loss of her father.
-For the spiritual salvation of Irlanda's other family members.
-That God would provide for the needs of the centre, which is really struggling financially right now.
-For the health of little Priscilla (the almost one-year-old of a couple who works at the centre. Priscilla was in the clinic for the past few days very sick with vomiting, etc. She is home and doing better, but please pray that she would continue to get her health back.)

Meet Mercedes...

Mercedes is 19 years old. She comes from a large family of seven children who live in a small rural community in the department (instead of provinces or states, Bolivia is made up of 9 "departamentos") of La Paz. Her brother Luis, 15 years old, is also deaf and lives at the centre in the boys' dorm.

The centre offers classes to kindergarten through grade five. Grades four through eight attend nearby regular public schools with interpreters. After grade eight there is nothing for the students here at the centre. Though she is 19, Mercedes is in grade three and attends classes at the centre. Most of the girls, though they are in their teens, are still in elementary school. For some this is due to the fact that they were put in school a lot later in life. You also need to take into account that these girls are studying in a "foreign" language (learning to read and write in Spanish is a challenge, because they have never heard it spoken!) and sometimes it may take them more than a year to get through a grade.

Mercedes does not find learning easy. It takes her a while to process new information. I think God wants to use her to teach me patience. Only yesterday her eyes filled with tears as I impatiently tried to explain a math concept to her for the third or fourth time. Later on I had to go back and ask her to forgive me for my impatience!

Mercedes may find learning hard, but she posseses other talents. Mercedes' favourite colour is white, and she loves to crochet! In the above picture you can see her working on a beautiful off-white "poncho." My aunt sent me some money to spend on the girls, and with it I was able to get them wool, knitting needles, and crochet hooks. The girls were all quite excited, and Mercedes especially has proved to be very good at crocheting! She is also very good with hair and doing braids. The other girls are always getting her to do their hair for them.

With Mercedes I have been reminded how wrong it is to judge people! One day I was playing a game of yengha with Mercedes and Jhesica (one of the other girls), and Jhesica and I determined that the punishment for losing would be to run back and forth through the dorms five times. I was quite disgusted when Mercedes lost a game and refused to run. I thought she was just being overly prim and proper. Then, when she refused to go to her physical education class I thought she was lazy and disliked physical exertion. Well, later on I discovered that a few months ago she had surgery on her leg and isn't allowed to run or take physical education! I felt very bad! I also didn't understand why she would always cling to my arm whenever we would go somewhere at night. Just recently I was told that she has weak eyesight and cannot see very well at night!

RANDOM INFO. (about my life here): The other day I saw a piece of mud on my bathroom floor. I thought it kind of looked like a small frog, and when I stooped to pick it up, it moved and made me jump back! It turned out it was a frog! I trapped it with a clear plastic cup, slid a paper underneath and took it to show the girls before letting it loose outside. The only way I can think it could have gotten into my bathroom is by coming up the drain!

THANKSGIVING (Blessings):
-Mercedes life.
-The beauties of nature that surround me (e.g. the beautiful surrounding mountains, the clear blue skies and sunny days, the moon and stars at night!)
-Breaks from the routine and monotony of my days (e.g. a trip into town to see the psychologist for a psychological assessment yesterday afternoon was a welcome break after working the whole weekend. It ended up being a bit of an adventure, because some of the roads were being blocked by protesters, and we had to go a round about way on this crazy dirt road through countryside that made Patty--a co-worker-- think of the wild west.)
-The lessons God is teaching me through the girls.

PRAYER REQUESTS:
-Spiritual salvation of Mercedes' family who are not believers.
-Mercedes' relationship/walk with God.
-That I would learn how to be a firm yet loving disciplinarian.
-For strength and wisdom in facing a complicated and disagreeable situation at the centre.

Meet Manuela...

I thought you all might enjoy getting to know some of the girls I work with. I want to try and feature one girl each week...we'll see how it goes.

Manuela is 44 years old. Not only is she deaf, but she also has a developmental disability, which gives her the sweetness and innocence of a child. Despite being half toothless, Manuela has the most beautiful smile, which lights up her whole face. She also has a real servant's heart. One day I found her in the kitchen washing the pots, a chore that belonged to one of the other girls.

Every morning, when the other girls head off to school, Manuela heads over to the kitchen where she helps the cook make lunch. In the afternoon, while the other girls are doing homework and such, Manuela often likes to keep herself occupied with her attempts at embroidery and knitting.

Manuela is really quite intelligent, and she understands when she is asked to do something. She is also able to communicate in sign language. I confess, to my shame, that at first I assumed she didn't know how to sign properly and assumed that her signs made no sense. As I have gotten to know her, I've begun to understand some of her signing. One of her favourite subjects is her teeth. She often points to them and asks us to take her to get them pulled, because of the terrible tooth aches she suffers from. The only problem is that if she gets them pulled, she will have no teeth left to eat with. As it is, she finds it hard to eat some food items. At breakfast the other girls are always considerate enough to find the softest bun for Manuela.

Manuela sometimes will talk about her "mom." Sadly Manuela has no family and lives here at the centre year-round.

At Thursday evening meetings and on Sunday mornings, the children usually take turns going up and leading a song. Sometimes Manuela is asked to go up. I love to see the love and joy that shine from her face as she shines: "Thank you Jesus!" I don't know how much she understands about God, but I believe she loves Him.

RANDOM INFO. (about my life here): It's very convenient living with deaf people when you have a sore throat! There's no need to tire my voice by speaking, because it's all signs! In fact, I didn't even realize I had gone hoarse last night until I got a call from my mom and I could barely talk!

THANKSGIVING (Blessings):
-Manuela's life.
-I got to see my dad briefly on Friday morning as he was speaking at a pastor's retreat in Cochabamba.
-This last weekend was my first weekend off, and I had a very special time going into the city and spending time with friends!
-Apart from a sore throat, I have been healthy!
-God is giving me joy and contentment!
-The girls are responding positively to my attempts to read the Bible together in the evenings after dinner.

PRAYER REQUESTS:
-That God's love would be very real in Manuela's life.
-That my life would be an example to the girls in everything I say and do.
-For lots of wisdom and patience in my role as a "mother."
-For continued joy and contentment.