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.
It’s great travelling with Neville. It’s not just his good looks, general charm and warm conversation (though these are all wonderful). It’s the wheelchair. Straight to the front of any line and all the pampering you need. And so it was we travelled in style from Myanmar to the Philippines for the second leg of our journey.
DMI has two schools and three dormitories in the Philippines, as well as numerous churches for the deaf. One school and dormitory is in Davao at the southern end of the country on the island of Mindanao and the other school and dormitory is in Ligao, at the southern end of the main island in the north. The third dormitory is in Bacolod, somewhere in between the two schools, on the island of Negros.
Our destination was the school in Ligao and as we flew in we got a magnificent view of the still-active Mayon Volcano. The whole Ligao area has a delightful country feel to it with an unhurried populace living amongst lush greenery and sprawling rice fields which stretch all the way to the horizon, typically under brilliant blue skies.
When we arrive at the school, we are given a tour of its facilities and I’m immediately impressed by the look and feel of the place. The generous giving of time and money from DMI supporters is seen almost everywhere you look. Recently, a short term mission team from South Korea had come and given the main buildings a fresh coat of paint, making them look very friendly and appealing. A generous donation from a supporter in Japan had provided two new classrooms which were in constant use. It was so encouraging to see firsthand the fruit of such generosity.
The one facility that remained in dire need of repair was the kitchen/dining hall. It was utterly dilapidated and the ‘kitchen’ was nothing more than a small fireplace. But this building, too, was soon to be rebuilt thanks to the spark and verve of Chelsea, a 14 year-old girl from West Gippsland in Victoria, who visited here in 2018 with Barry Cutchie’s STM team and decided to do something about it. On returning to Australia, she contacted businesses, friends and churches, then organised an additional concert with well known Australian singer and entertainer Colin Buchanan, to help raise the $20,000 needed to rebuild the hall! What a fabulous gift from someone so young!
This school property in Ligao has expanded over the years to include a piggery, rice fields, a cocoa plantation and a shop from which to sell the produce. The aim of these endeavours is to provide employment for the deaf and a means by which the school can move toward self-sufficiency.
We were joined on this trip by a short term mission team from the Huntington Beach First Christian Church in California who brought a whole lot of passion, fun and a desire to share the gospel. With them, we would enjoy fellowship, get to know the deaf students and staff in very moving and affecting ways, and play a lot of basketball.
As we walk along the edge of DMI’s vast rice field, Neville stretches his arm out over it all and tells me that he single-handedly plowed and sowed the entire field in one afternoon, so I know his pain meds are finally kicking in. By contrast, when we arrive at the cocoa field to spend the afternoon toiling in the tropical sun planting the saplings, we find all the holes have already been dug for us and the saplings are standing in tidy rows beside their holes waiting to simply be put it. Thanks to the work of DMI’s farm hands, it took us all of three minutes to plant the whole field. Now I know how Neville was able to plough and sow the whole rice field by himself!
The support we enjoyed at the cocoa fields enables us to spend more time stripping coconuts (another self-sustaining project), feeding the pigs and sampling the pili nuts and other produce at the shop.
On the way back to the main school grounds, we walk along a small but rushing stream where the locals wash their clothes and sit to dangle their feet in the churning waters. Some kids play in the torrent, splashing and giggling. They jump into the stream from one of the many small ledges that rest above it and get swept away in a squeal of laughter and delight before climbing out 30 metres downstream and running back to do it all over again. When they see us they wave before trying to splash us, too. They seem so happy without the aid of mobile phones or games to occupy them. I’m very, very tempted to jump in and float downstream with them. The same temptation seizes Neville and he has to be physically restrained from jumping in.
The school here goes by the name The Fishermen of Christ Learning Center and it accommodates about 80 students. That’s 80 lives that have been radically transformed from unlearned to learned, from ridicule to dignity, from hopelessness to hope and, in a very real sense, from darkness to light. The colourful buildings and fields and shops are great, but it is the lives of these kids and their teachers which is so utterly inspiring. It’s the lives of these kids that I want to get to know and as I do I’m blown away, once again, at who these kids once were, and who they have now become.
The stories of their lives continue to amaze me. Once again, share this journey with me.
In my last blog I asked if we could raise $5000 to build a new school fence for DMI’s school in Myanmar. Thanks to your generous support, the full amount has just come in! Thank you so much. Updates will be posted on this blog and in the DMI newsletters. To God be the glory!
If you would like to know how you can support any of the kids or teachers at DMI’s schools, or help meet any of DMI’s needs, please click on the donate button below, or mail to info@deafmin.org
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