BELIEVE IT OR NOT… WE’RE STILL HERE!

You’ve probably been wondering if maybe we fell of the planet… well, sure, we’ve been busy, but for the past nearly two months we lost our ability to get into the blog.  Just today, I had a moment and contacted our site server folks… HostM… great service and have had them for nine-ten years now… something like that… anyway, they got back to me right away and helped straighten it all out.  Somehow, the administrator had been switched and the password was nothing I had… bizarre… but thankfully fixable and no damage done.

So, we’re back… been a busy last few months… and during that time, I finally forced myself to build a website/blog for Chessofia™ … we’ve been teaching Chess for well over a year now using our own Reality-based teaching curriculum which we’ve been developing along the way and finally have enough experience to put up a website. (Yes, we’ll get this site updated within the next few days or so to look as nice… promise… but without the latin – ha!).

Last week was busy, busy.

We traveled to Cagayan d’Oro on Mindanao for Deaf Sunday at 1st Assembly.  Both of us spoke – Mindy in the moring service, Sterling in the evening service.  We visited, encouraged the Deaf Church there, talked and got ready for the next stage of ministry.  The following week, it was Deaf Awareness Week on Mactan and on Wednesday we had a school-wide Chess tournament as well as various artistic contests for the Deaf class.  That evening, Mindy took the reigns for the Deaf Prayer & Bible Study while Sterling went home to get T-shirts screenprinted (that story will follow in a separate post).  Saturday, we held the first Mactan Deaf Open Scholastic Chess Tournament and had students participating from Mandaue Deaf High School.  We served a hot lunch to all the players.  A long day, but the Deaf got to see a real and well-organized tournament, had serious fun, and we got to build on the all-important relationship with the young adults.

Sunday saw us at the Deaf Church at Bethel Temple AG… oh, that’s right, that’s happened since our last blog in August. We have moved up from the cell group meeting outside in a housing common area in the inner-city to a room at an established church not too far from there.  The Deaf indicated they were ready to travel to church on Sunday… so we made the move, thanking God and the Church.  We also wanted to be able to have a venue where we could minister to the hearing children of the Deaf adults… a couple of weeks ago, we had a puppet show to start the service.  It’s slow in getting a consistent group coming, but we’re moving forward whether it be inches or yards at a time.

We have a very eclectic ministry, as you may gather.  The best way to reach the Deaf is through education and direct, personal contact… in fact, we are moving to a more and more direct and personal approach even in Sunday meetings.  We have discovered that sitting around a table in a completely informal type of environment is far more effective in getting the Deaf to focus on what you are saying.  Fellowship time with some kind of merienda/snack is a vital part of any meeting… so much so, that we are inclined, as we said, to make the meeting more along those lines and less a school/professor kind of format where you “stand and deliver.”  Even in Chess instruction, Sterling has found out the same thing.  Focus seems to improve immensely when it’s like Jesus sitting under a tree talking with people, person-to-person.

And please don’t misunderstand… the teaching is just as focused and immediate as before, it’s only the way in which it’s presented is changing for us…

We will have our first Communion service at the Deaf Church this coming Sunday (we’re not sure if the name will be New Life Deaf Church or The Rock Deaf Church).  We’ve had to wait to get some of the basics of Biblical Christianity out there, because many of them are so influenced by the works-righteousness approach, if you know what we mean… to get to a place where even the idea of the communion elements not being the actual blood and body of Christ has been a seemingly long road… it’s so hard to know exactly what the Deaf here actually know and believe, since their signing skills are so localized and bare.  We’ve had to simply spend time with them to see what the Lord would show us concerning them… lots of time.

So, there’s more, but that gives you a good “gist of a beginning” as you might say.  Now that we have the password thing out of the way and the latest Word Press update, we should be having no more trouble.

We’ll have a separate blog post letting everyone know what the National Deaf Fellowship and one great friend and supporter in Mount Vernon who’s been dealing with some very stern stuff this past year and some, has enabled us to do… that blog will come in a day or two.  For now, God bless you all and may the riches of His inestimable glory and wisdom be yours today and in the days ahead.