33. Maria

The DMI blog aims to let people know about the deaf kids, teachers, pastors, schools and churches that DMI supports in developing countries, and encourage support for them by telling their amazing stories. Please share this blog with your friends.

On the top of a mountain, amidst a jungle of palm and banana trees, bamboo groves and vines is a small timber hut with a roof made of anahaw leaves. The surrounding greenery grows lush and wild. Birds chirp loudly, ducks waddle around and two dogs lie sleepily in the warm shadows. This hut is miles from its nearest neighbour and a thirty minute hike across a river with a broken bridge to its nearest ‘store’. It has no electricity, no gas, no running water, no comforts, and only two rooms. Eight people live here. 

Outside this hut is where I meet Maria for the first time. Maria is a 13 year-old Filipina, the second eldest of six children. She is painfully shy. She sits on a small pink plastic chair (which looks totally out of place in this setting) and wonders who I am and what I am doing there. With Maria’s mother looking on, Anabelle, the school Principal introduces us and Maria finally looks up at me. But only for a moment.

She is wearing a pretty pink dress. I tell her what a pretty dress it is to try and break the ice. A smile peeps out but then her eyes are back to the ground. I ask her how many dresses she has and she looks confused at the question. She has a couple of items of clothing and has never owned a pair of shoes. When she treks into town she wears a pair of plastic flip-flops on her feet. They have no possessions.

I’m struck by the poverty here yet Maria looks healthy and well.

She also seems happy. This is incongruous to my consumer-twisted western mind. Maria lives a very simple life here. Almost primitive. She plants flowers and sweeps the earth around the hut and helps to feed the dogs. The rest of her time is spent helping to care for her younger siblings, aged 8, 7, 3 and 1. Without any toys or games, Maria appears profoundly content. So far in her life, she has remained free from that great tormentor of souls: comparison.

Oh, Maria is also Deaf.

She is the only Deaf person in her family which, she says, beginning to open up, is hard. She thinks again about that and adds, “But it’s okay. It’s who I am.” She has such a sweet nature.

I’m really touched by Maria’s spirit. A question rises in my mind. If Maria is so content, so untainted by the ways of a sordid world, then why disturb her? Why not leave her in this idyllic setting? 

The answer unfolds, subtly, as she tells her story. 

She was born and raised in this hut, which is where she has also been living since the pandemic began eighteen months ago. Two years before that, however, she started at DMI’s Fishermen of Christ Learning Center in Ligao, Philippines, a life-changing move after floundering in the local hearing school: three years in kindergarten and then part of grade 1. Maria lived in the dorm at FCLC from Monday to Friday before her mother would come and pick her up and take her back to her jungle hut for the weekend, a trip involving a motorbike, a relay of trikes, and a long hike.

Maria loves the school and longs to return to it. She loves her friends and she loves her teachers. When I ask her what her favourite subject is she looks a little confused again, as though that’s a really strange thing to ask a person. A favourite class? The teachers prepare them and she just does them. Principal Anabelle pushes her a little on this one until she finally admits that she likes art and drawing but the impression I get is that she still thinks it’s a silly question.

I mention church and Maria starts to beam. This sudden animation surprises me but she tells me how much she has loved the services and found Pastor Arnel’s sermons captivating. They’re also life-giving. 

Why not leave Maria alone in her idyllic setting? Because it’s a jungle out there and no-one – no-one – is untouched by the brokenness of the world or the ugliness of sin. Maria doesn’t need possessions to be content but she does need the love of God and a Saviour, and a good education goes a long way, too.

Jesus told a parable about a sheep that left the flock and ended up alone and in the middle of a jungle. I might have the details slightly off here but I think the sheep’s name was Maria. The shepherd loved Maria and went looking long and hard until he found her, and then he put her on his shoulders and carried her home with great joy.

That’s what we do at DMI. Carrying the vision of our founder Neville, we go to the bustling cities, the county towns and the remotest jungle huts to find the Marias and the Desires and the Marie Claires and we tell them about Jesus who loved them so much He died for them, and we give them an education and a job – real hope for this life and the next. 

Help us with this.

If you would like to sponsor Maria, or support any of the students, teachers, pastors or staff with DMI, please click on the donate button below, or mail to info@deafmin.org”

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Thank you to all those who contributed to a Desire’s computer (Blog #32). He now has a brand new computer which he is using for his computer studies at university! Thank you so much!