Lydia's video testimony - Becoming a Deaf Pastor Signed, subtitled and voiced over

‘You are the salt of the earth!’

‘You are the salt of the earth!’ was Jesus’s assertion to his listeners (Matthew 5:13) and the theme of Uganda's Sixth National Deaf Youth Camp held in Arua last week. It was a success in many key ways despite an exhausting camp preparation week.

Arua’s Deaf Youth Camp Organising Committee was hosting the event. The committee was made up of signing members of the Diocesan Special Needs Committee, St Phillips Signed fellowship and YWAM Arua Deaf Hearing United. The Arua Camp Committee team were responsible for financing, planning, setting up and co-managing the camp venue, accommodation, cooking facilities, food, follow up workshops and recreational activities.


The team from Immanuel Church of the Deaf in Kampala compiled and delivered the teaching programme and provided most of the interpreters. Every member worked really hard, stayed united and grew in confidence and appreciation of other camp youth’s needs, abilities and limitations. The two committees met most days to review and preview progress and challenges.

Deaf youth from all the major regions of Uganda, even Karamoja district in the NW attended. In Karamoja, young men, like Simon Peter above must publicly wrestle the woman they want to marry to gain their community’s permission. If the woman wins the wrestling match, his request is rejected!

Deaf youth at the camp represented all of the surrounding nations. This led to some great talent/comedy acts and beautiful dances at the mid camp culture night.

The teaching and follow up discussion groups were very interactive. Everyone left with a much more practical understanding of how followers of Jesus are can be like salt IN, and TO, their own communities...

Living HIV positive  was the workshop topic guest speaker Charles spoke about. He took many questions too!  Charles, has kindly given permission to me to post my video interviews with him online, including another how his family of deaf and hearing members have adapted to one another.  Available shortly. 

Other workshop sessions looked at having our identity in Christ rather than in other things, and Non-communicable Disease Prevention. 

Other highlights included the recreational games which whilst new to most, developed core lifeskills such as numeracy, strategy, anticipation and team spirit.

Our Tour of Arua included a visit to former Ugandan President Idi Amin’s former local residence by the airstrip was very pouplar.  One of Amin's descendants gave a brief resume of his lifestyle there. He apparently had a deaf son... 

The airstrip visit was popular with the departure of the Ugandan prime minister’s helicopter, and a close up look at some of the aircraft and weather station equipment. For many such experiences were their first.

On Thursday deaf youth from the camp and Arua took on one of Arua’s hearing youth teams. If the deaf youth team had scored their late penalty, the scorte would have been 3-3 and there would have been a penalty shoot-out, but alas it was not to be. Both teams enjoyed a soda and the victors walked away with a the prize of a new football.

Friday ended up being special because five camp youth, including two from Arua decided they wanted to be baptised. We couldn’t find a local river which was suitable and permisssion from the surrounding community. At the last moment, one of the town’s only hotels with a swimming pool allowed us to use theirs free of charge. Then another divine intervention as YWAM Arua elder John Wright offered us free transport to get to the hotel and back.
























During the camp closing ceremony Rev Allan, Diocesan Special needs coordinator  and pastor of Arua Signed fellowship received a motor bike from Deaf Action Uganda. Now he can reach far more of the vast region he's called to pastor . He's been praying for one since 2009.

The final camp meal was a feast for which a goat was slaughtered. Camp menu had been grain/vegetarian based all week. This is very typical across much of Uganda for budget reasons.

There was hope to match last year’s record attendance of 110+ but with day visitors we were about 80. It seems this was due to a number reasons. Arua is in the extreme North-west of Uganda, involving an eight hour bus journey from the capital Kampala close to Entebbe where the last camp was held. Secondly, several earlier promises of indigenous financial  support were not fulfilled. So some deaf youth locally and from across Uganda who’d hope to attend could not afford to do so. The support would have supplemented their typically very low incomes to pay the modest the camp entry fee. Others needed a subsidy to  attend due the travelling distances involved or because they are on such low incomes.

 The camp preparations were intensive and stressful because there had been a major misunderstanding between local partners, a month before I arrived. However, with a concerted effort we, the Arua Deaf Youth Camp Committee sorted out many practical issues and fund raise just enough to retain the go-ahead for the camp from Stephen(deaf), the Camp’s overall coordinator and pastor. The Kampala camp committee were great role models and many friendships have been forged.

Overall the camp was a success. Deaf and hearing campers went home with a fresh sense of purpose, solidarity, confidence and cross-cultural awareness. My thanks and that of all the campers goes out to our UK DHU partners who also helped to make this camp possible. Arua has been invited to host the national camp again in 2019.

National Deaf Camp Preparations in Arua

Following a brief update meeting with the Nationanal Camp Committee in Kampala, I was asked to get to ARUA as soon as possible to help their preparations. We visited the venue Monday morning to assess the facilities and ho they would need adapting for the camp.

Since then its daily meetings to gather all the resources needed to host and encourage up to 150 youth.  We had a grea\t turnout on Monday afternoon to set out the week ahead with local youth and the committee have been great.

Now the food and Av equipment and mattresses are sourced more time is being spent to finalise songs and workshops etc
 

New Life, Fragile Life

 

On the ARUA base I was sobered to see several YWAM staff from South Sudan because its no longer safe where they were. Other staff cannot flee.. 

Our YWAM Arua colleagues here Waru, from South Sudan, and Susie, his wife from UK,  have been staying in the Arua house  we lived in 2009-2015.  A few days Susie gave birth to their son Lemuel in the UK. Waru was unable to get a visa to be with her for latter part of the pregnancy or delivery.

Waru has not heard from relatives there for several weeks and knows their village has been over-run.

Yesterday YWAM Arua base received a large number of children fleeing conflict over the border in Souh Sudan. Read more at https://www.facebook.com/john.s.wright.75

~I believe this IS the Day the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it!

Food for thought

 

It was much easier to stomach the local Ugandan food on arrival in Entebbe than the conditions I saw in Kampala's Namuwongo Slum a few hours later.  There, our local partners, Ariane and Protais, a deaf hearing couple from Burundi are sharing sign language with a deaf youth Frank, his family and neighbouring kids who live there. Franks growing confidence and his friends willingness to sign with him is wonderful to see. 

 

I'd like to pay tribute to Joseph Commiskey and the project ' Hands of hope' that he started an d has run for several years to help improve the lives of slum-dwellers. His team made us aware of Frank's family. Two slum-dwellers recently drowned in one of its open sewers during a flood after heavy rain which hid where the drainage ditches were.

 

 

 

 

 

What if no-one shared your language?

That was the question Jacques , my fellow passenger and I got chatting about on the flight over. Jacques and I both have Belgian blood we discovered but I had no real understanding of my Belgian heritage until we chatted over 11pm eve meal.

 If he hadn't spoken English as well our exchange would have been limited by my rusty conversational French. The language we shared deepened our understanding of each other, our selves and our ancestry.

The dialect Jacques speaks is Walloon and its under threat of extinction because the language of stronger neighbouring economies are  preferred by his younger relatives and neighbours. They no longer want to share his mother tongue. He feels his identity is in some ways being rejected.

Many  deaf and hearing relatives, friend and work colleagues we meet in both UK and in Uganda struggle to maintain strong partnerships because of a lack of shared language. We see that both deaf and hearing could do more to enjoy shared language. Sometimes the solutions are technical, but usually there is need for both deaf and the hearing to admit they could do more to live, learn, earn and serve together.

Arua is hosting the  National Deaf Camp and some deaf attending will gain their native language for the first time. The gradual transformation in their mood as they can begin to form new and deeper relationships is very moving to watch. We are encouraging hearing who want to build stronger friendships with their deaf relatives/friends to attend too. The effects are similar.

Think of the last time you were in a place where you didn't understand the alphabet let alone the words and then met someone who understood both that language and your own. How did your mood change ? That's why the camp is important. Thanks to those who partner us to help the camp happen. Ad









 

National Deaf(and Hearing) Youth Camp Arua,this Sept 4-10th: Urgent Request

At Immanuel Bible Training Centre I was invited to join the National Deaf Camp Planning Committee which is scheduled for Arua, for the for this Sept 4-10th.

Arua has never hosted the event before and our YWAM Arua DHU team is partnering the diocesan special Needs Committee to help make this possible. Well done guys!
                             

For the first time, the committee embraced Deaf Hearing United's belief request that hearing relatives and friends and well-wishers should be explicitly invited so that  they are able to communicate better with each other.  We've repeatedly seen that stronger deaf-hearing relationships result in greater family unity, productivity and prosperity.

This is an exciting development. I need to book flights this week, and the camp director needs reassurance that key camp costs are covered.

Thank you.

Adam.

PS We are grateful to those who prayed for us. Travel is often less safe than in the UK and we were humbled by our close shave at Istanbul Airport. we left it only six hours before armed protesters used guns and bombs killed more than fifty and injured more than two hundred and fifty.