Misael takes to the skies

 In an effort to "catch up" on the past few months, I am working on updates.

Nathanael and Misael discuss travel before the big day

Aug-September were very busy months for us. On top of moving (which involved going through stuff in storage and downsizing significantly), a lot of events centered around Misael.  I know I've done posts with him in the past He has been a part of Jesus Deaf Church since Nancy started it.  He has been a part of family activities and discipleship since 2015.  It has been a raising-up process.  

Church at Jesus Deaf church Orange Walk

Misael grew up Catholic and was hesitant to get baptized. His father passed away last year. When baptism was discussed with his mother, she was very open to the idea.  His mother said if Misael's father was alive, he would have been opposed to the baptism. While we mourn the great loss, we are thankful for the openness of his mother. Misael decided to get baptized in Spanish Lookout at "Mennonite Beach".  You can view the Facebook live here:

Facebook live

On September 16, Nathanael and Misael trekked to Jamaica.   Due to it being the first time flying, and the fact that Misael is Deaf and traveling to a country where they don't use his language, Nathanael went along as an interpreter.  They flew from Belize to Panama, then to Jamaica.  

Misael walks onto the plane

They were able to do some sightseeing, and of course meet with Deaf in Panama. They attended a Deaf church service in Panama. 

Photo of the people after Deaf church

Arriving in Jamaica, Nathanael got to spend 4 days at the YWAM base with Misael prior to returning to Belize.

Playing a game with YWAM staff

Misael is on a journey of learning and growing.

Nathanael and Misael at the YWAM base

We are excited for him!!! 

The group of people at the YWAM base this fall. Please be praying for them

Cultural mixing

Yesterday I spent an agonizing 15 minutes listening to a woman in the park complain about Belize. She doesn't like the culture, the people are rude, and it's dirty here.



At home, Nathanael and I decompressed from this event. We have met with others like her. Untrained expats who are in culture shock. It isn't a pretty sight. They become bitter and ineffective. The current person talking to me was also from a distinctly "filtered media" country. That fact became apparent in her complaints about Belize vs her beliefs about her own country. If anything it was clarifying moment for me.

Nathanael hangs the Belizean flag on the back of our van to celebrate Belizean Independence day

I am thankful not to be in that place with her.  I am thankful that EMM prepared us for crossing cultures. (We highly recommend the book Foreign to Familiar) I don't think we always get right. There are times we experience culture shock. There are times we are bitter, dislike culture, or feel the sting of relationships we navigated wrongly.

Zion at church with one of her friends

It is also a decision making journey for us. We are grateful to have our home as a neutral ground.  We can decide what the culture in our home looks like. What in the culture do we enjoy and put into practice? What things do we disagree with? What things are not bad or good, just different?

Selah poses at the photo booth of our local supermarket

In the same breath, I realize I can't take my culture out of me. When we were celebrating Belize Independence day at Koinonia, the Pastor's wife spoke. She reminded us that even though she has lived in Belize for 20 years, she can't take the Guatemalan blood out of her.

praying at Koinonia

All of the cultures represented at Koinonia 

I am becoming aware that this is the same in the Deaf culture we share with those around us. We work with them, we visit them, but you can't take the "hearing" out of us. It's a delicate balance.

Zephaniah, Zion and Misael play Master Mind

What am I trying to communicate? Two years into this and we are still learning. We are still growing. As a cold culture family in a warm culture climate, we still experience culture shock on occasion.

Abigail entertaining children

Mid-September we celebrated all countries that attend Koinonia. It was a nice thing to stand in front and recognize that through it all, we are still from our passport country. We are also distinctly experiencing and falling in love with Belizean culture. Selah won't eat Mexican tacos. She prefers Orange Walk ones.

Abigail and a friend at Koinonia

We are still in a process. A lovely, hard, fun, sad process. We are growing. We are thankful.

Family photo with Belizean (and American) colors represented. Lucky us they are the same! 

Thanks for being with us on this Belizean, United States, mixed culture journey.


Spring

Relationships are key

About a month ago we noticed something cool. A woman who had suddenly stopped coming to church showed up.

the most recent movie night for "fun Friday"

Nathanael texts all of the Deaf people in the area each Friday/Sunday and asks if they will be coming. ( He has to plan his pick up route). Each time he would text, there would be an excuse about why she would not be there.

the youth wednesday

When she came, we really were not sure what prompted her to arrive.

If you only knew how full this van was.. and how HOT it was in the back!! 

During sharing time, we heard the story. Apparently there was a rift between two women in the church. One had decided not to attend. Both had gone to Carmelita (a local town) to the Deaf outreach that happens every 6 weeks.  The women had a chance to reconcile. I am so thankful for what God did in this situation.

A drama day at church, talking about the life of Ahab and Elijah

We have also seen this in the lives of two of the teens. They refused to both be at church at the same time. We saw the conflict but were unsure of how to be involved. Nathanael took time to pray for them and the situation.

Welcome to Jesus Deaf Church! 

The next week they were talking and sitting next to each other.

A wednesday Men's night, as they prep food for themselves

Gossip is a big issue in our church. It has damaged many relationships. It keeps some people away from church.

The ladies enjoy a rousing game of Apples to Apples Pictures on a wednesday night

It is awesome when I can report things of the opposite nature have occured!

Friday night Bible Study with the Orbans 

Please keep relationships in your prayers as you think about us. We are so thankful for your prayers!

You should be receiving a paper copy of our newsletter in your mailboxes within the next week. If  you haven't, and would like a copy feel free to contact us.

Spring

New Years Eve Party

One can still celebrate the New Year two weeks later right?

We are thankful for those who were able to come to the party. Some people joined us from Spanish lookout.  Others are Deaf but don't go to church.  Still others live in villages far out, and Nathanael was able to take our trike and pick them up.  Some people brought their whole family.  Some came alone.  Fun was had by all, except perhaps the three children that fell asleep.

Nathanael interpreted Charlie Brown Christmas for those who came. The children handed out pop-corn

Nathanael then had a Jeopardy game involving the past lessons that he taught in Church and Bible study.

Finally we played games and ate snacks

At the last minute we headed to the park to watch fireworks.

Thanks for joining with us this 2018 to support the Deaf in Orange Walk. You are a blessing!

Happy New Year!!

When God does something, you just sit back to watch

I have to admit I'm a bit hesitant about posting this. We live in the tropics. Palm trees are a part of our daily landscape. Before leaving on our internship, someone made the statement that we were "going on vacation".  I really shy away from sharing anything that would seem that we are on vacation, or that our life is a vacation. Honestly I wouldn't choose this life as a vacation, but perhaps you would.

The reason I am hesitant is we took a break. It was a planned break, planned around our visa renewal. It costs us 37.00$ (bz)to leave the country as a part of Belizean law. This is why we don't frequently leave. Our visas were due to being renewed. Last time we went to Mexico, we were able to avoid our visa renewal fee by leaving and only paying the exit fee.  Unfortunately we did have to pay both fees, but it was worth the try!

Where did we go you ask? Chetumal!  Most Belizeans, especially those more north, go to Chetumal to shop. While it is distinctly Mexican, it does have some vendors from the US.

















 Our first stop was Mcdonalds.  The kids had dreamed about this for 4 months!  I joke that I only let them go to Mcdonalds while in Mexico. We don't while we are in the states, and there aren't any in Belize.  I unfortunately got something. It made me suffer later. Mcdonalds and I don't get along. Of course this was a Mexican Mcdonalds, they had a variety of salsa to put on your food.



Shopping was next on our list. We walked across the parking lot to the mall. The mall! An air conditioned place to walk and peruse the thousands of things available to buy. Not to mention the food court!

After a day of shopping, looking and exploring things in Spanish, we looked for a place to stay. Someone recommended a the hotel behind the mall. Nathanael and I navigated checking in in Spanish.  As they were in the process behind the counter, Nathanael noticed that the woman was gesturing at a cleaning lady behind us.  Nathanael asked if the cleaning lady was Deaf. "Yes" came the answer.

Nathanael conversed with her some. The next day we took her and her friends who work at the hotel out for dinner.  It was a difficult time. There were 4 languages at our table. The children conversed in English. We ordered in Spanish. Nathanael attempted a combination of ASL, and the Deaf taught him some LSM (ligua de sordomudo) the sign language in Mexico.

We were in awe!  We could not have planned to meet these Deaf people. It was simply a thing we stood back and saw God do!

We were able to connect with them via what's app and Facebook. We are thankful for what God is doing and hope that we can see the Deaf again in our next Mexico visit.

Thanks for sharing with us. We pray you have a blessed holiday season!

Spring

commissioning x2

This Sunday we were commissioned, and Nathanael licenced as a pastor through the Hopewell Network.

Joel Kolb stood up front and talked about the fact that we are actually ministering to a community within a community. We are ministering to Belizeans and within that culture Deaf Belizeans. (or it could be looked at the other way around, ministering to Deaf, and Deaf within the culture of Belize. )

All of that to say we had 2 commissionings. We were first commissioned last week through our Deaf sending church: Connecting Deaf.

We were blessed to be a part of the service. Todd preached on all of our callings to the world. This can be right next door, or around the world.  They had a time of prayer for us. (Of course I neglected to get someone to take a picture.)


They then treated us to an awesome lunch at Mission Barbeque.

This week as I stated before was our commissioning through Hopewell. Nathanael was confirmed as a pastor. We then had a time of prayer. The elders and our families prayed for us.  

We had a time of goodbyes after the service. We were so thankful to those who came and spent this time with us!  

Here is a link to the service incase you wanted to see the prayer time: 

Live streaming Hopewell Telford Service, go to August 13th Service

The prayer and confirmation start about 1:45:10 

EAST COAST DEAF MEN RETREAT 2016

I had the opportunity to attend the East Coast Deaf Men's Retreat in Milan, New York. A little less than 40 Deaf men attended the conference. Pastor Randy Pringle presented at the conference.  It was a great time of fellowship and teaching with great Deaf Christian Men.  Enjoy some pictures from the event.

A bunch of us decided to climb a steep trail up the mountain.

While we were up the mountain we took the time to pray for each-other.  What an encouragement to be with these Spiritual Deaf Men.

Pastor Randy Pringle presenting to the group during a session.

Nathanael (Turtle) Davis

You are going where??!

In case you did not notice, Nathanael "slipped" in prayer requests about some upcoming trips we are taking.  It was subtle, so I figured I'd release the whole story.

About a month ago a friend of a friend contacted me through facebook. Her daughter worked as a counselor at Camp Good News.  She asked about one of us coming to Honduras on a mission trip this September. At first both Nathanael and I bulked at the idea. He is working as an educational interpreter so he really only has 2 days that he can take off during the school year.  We also just were not sure about the timing and the fact that we are raising funds ourselves.

The idea was held loosely in the back of our heads.

Nathanael spent some time praying about it. He then discovered that the student he works with will be taking some days off the next two weeks. Nathanael realized he would have unpaid leave at the same time that the trip to Honduras is happening. He really felt that God was opening doors for this trip to happen.  He will leave this Tuesday, (9/20) and return the following Monday (9/25).

Nathanael will be able to do what he's been able to do a lot of the past year: provide access. He will be interpreting for a Deaf MK.  There is a missionary retreat meeting in Honduras. What a great opportunity for him. Please pray with us this week for him and for the missionaries.


Since I spent the last blog post talking about why we feel called to the Deaf population, I thought I would share some multimedia things to help you greater understand.

National Geographic put out this video on lipreading. It was eye opening for me:

Remember Mandela's funeral? Something similar happened in Peru. A woman allegedly falsified the fact that she knew sign language. Did she?  Watch the video and judge for yourself:

Thanks for reading/watching.

Why Deaf?

As we are gearing up and starting fundraising again, I thought it would be a good idea to re-visit some of our "why's"

The first why:

  Why do we work with the Deaf population?

The answer begins with Nathanael and his story.

We met our friend's Deaf brother and Nathanael wanted to connect with him. This was his start to the path to becoming an interpreter.  Nathanael found his giftedness in learning language. God opened doors for him and he graduated from college as a professional sign language interpreter. As his wife it was a wondrous process to watch. Nathanael literally stepped into what I believe was a huge part of his calling.

I will be honest, it took me a while to see it.

I attended Deaf church in Philadelphia with Nathanael. I struggled (and am still struggling) with learning ASL. I had glimpses of what it looked like to facilitate communication.




Nathanael took a trip in 2012 to Jamaica with a team to a Deaf school. He testified to the fact that education in developing countries is lacking. His team is able to help educate teachers on how to teach Deaf kids. That team continues to visit Jamaica.

God slowly opened my eyes to two things: the lack of access Deaf have in developing countries; and the calling both Nathanael and I had to "Go".

There were many more steps in the process that lead us to go to Belize from 2015-2016. In order to streamline things for you, I broke down our "why" to a list:

So why Deaf?

• Less than 2 of Deaf people in the world to be Christians (Chad has a great article about this and this talks about why Deaf ministry is difficult) 
• In most developing countries, there is a lack of education for Deaf students
• there is also a lack of access to most services (due to the unavailability of interpreters) such as facilitating communication at work, going to the doctor, and visiting governmental offices
• since there is a lack of access, there is also a lack of people to disciple and raise up a generation of Christians
• many countries ostracize Deaf people. In Jamaica it was considered a curse to have a Deaf child

As a family we continue to pursue opportunities while we are here to be in the Deaf community. Recently Nathanael and Abigail volunteered at a Deaf-blind picnic. The pictures shown here are from that event.  

Thank you for joining with us in our vision, for praying for us and supporting us.  If you have any questions, please feel free to email/call/text/facebook them to us. 

Please note: Our prayer requests page has been updated. We are in the process if making speaking arrangements at different churches. If you are interested in having us speak, please contact us. We will have a full calendar on the blog soon.