EMQ » Oct – Dec 2024 » Volume 60 Issue 4
Training the Deaf
Summary: Deaf people in developing nations around the world face formidable challenges. Deaf Ministries International (DMI) has found that education, training, and the love of Christ can help Deaf people overcome barriers, live productive and meaningful lives, and give back to their communities.
By Matthijs Terpstra (Deaf) and Andrew Miller (hearing) with In Yeong Heo (Deaf), Fabien Hamissi (Deaf) and Papy Kwabo (Deaf)
The challenges faced by the Deaf in developing countries are formidable, but they also highlight the need for the gospel. In developing countries, those born deaf or who become deaf through illness are afforded few, if any, of the support structures that the Deaf in developed countries now take for granted.
For many, government schools, family support, and community programs simply don’t exist. While some Deaf fortunate enough to be born into loving families can gain a basic education and find menial work, many others are ostracised from their communities, hidden away in shame by their families, beheld as a curse and disposed of as infants into pit latrines, or end up on the streets begging, stealing or in prostitution. Many don’t even know their own name.
Against this background, Deaf Ministries International’s (DMI) outreach to the Deaf over the last 40 years has seen 10 schools for the Deaf start, dozens of employment projects for the Deaf flourish, and 180 churches for the Deaf planted and grown. These developments were not the fruit of large missional backing or denominational planning. They had humble beginnings.
