A wonderful yet humbling day

 Today we had the opportunity to return to the Ngala School for the Deaf. This is a government-run school for deaf children from age 4 & 1/2 to 28. There are 223 students in the school, and they are grossly underfunded. They have to compete for resources with everything else in the education system, and the deaf are not regarded as worthy of the effort. They are marginalized and forgotten by society. We were told in 2023 when we last visited the school that some children when they start at Ngala don’t even know that they have a name. I can’t wrap my head around that! They come from families where even their parents are unable to communicate with them through signing or any other method. When they enter the school, they need to be taught absolutely everything. I have zero desire to bring politics into this or imply anything about western cultural issues, but they often don’t know that they are male or female. They need to be taught absolutely everything from scratch. There is no better way to describe the teachers and administrators here than as absolute heros. They are some of the most dedicated and caring individuals I have even witnessed. We got a tour of all the facilities today and to see various classrooms full of students and to hear from the teachers. They deserve sainthood! Their classrooms, in spite of the age of the facilities and leaks in the ceiling and holes in the walls, are bright and cheerful and decorated with teaching aides: “talking walls” of visual resources. They teach through constant repetition and positive reinforcement and feedback. It is so obvious that the teacher have passion for their students and take seriously their role in bringing learning and self esteem to their students  

Start With One Kenya did not have the Ngala School for the Deaf on their radar screen when the monumental needs of the school was revealed to them. But when Bill and Chat became aware of the great need and the word that the government was planning to shut down the school because of lack of funding and the significant deficiencies in the facilities, they stepped forward and stood in the gap. They are dedicated to running SWOK as the Lord directs them, they don’t walk away from a challenge no matter how daunting, and they frequently stand up for the marginalized. And they have made substantial progress in bringing up the standards of the school. They have done major upgrades to the kitchen and dining hall and continue to make significant improvements to roofs and classroom facilities.

In the afternoon, we got to spend time interacting with the students and to work on various construction projects. Teams worked on painting outside walls of classrooms and the dining hall and replacing seating surface and backrests of a lot of classroom chairs. An abbreviated vision clinic was run to screen the vision of students recommended by the teachers as needing vision help. Refractions were conducted and prescription glasses were made for 18 students, including for several who required very significant correction. The smiles on their faces were the evidence that they were going to be blessed by improved eyesight. Having the significant disability of deafness is hard enough by itself without the compounding difficulty of decreases vision. 

We were all blessed and humbled to be able to serve in this capacity today. We felt like we were extended the blessing of not only being the hands and feet of Jesus but the eyes are ears in some small way as well.