Dear friends,
I am so, so super-excited. ECM is starting a ministry to deaf children & families in Congo, and I am really pumped about it !!!

Here’s the story: 
Through the years I’ve had the privilege of initiating a vision and then planning several new ministry outreaches for ECM. In some cases, I was able to participate in the launch. In others I organized the initial planning, created interest in it, and others carried it out. Project Planning is one of those gifts I discovered along the way in the course of active ministry, and I found that I really kind of ‘groove’ on it. 

Frankly, though, I thought that part of my ministry was over. I’ve been fully devoting myself to my assigned ministry and not looking to be involved in others. After all, just writing kids’ lessons through the whole Bible is a pretty big challenge in itself! That changed this last month, but I haven’t felt free to tell you about it until now. The new project needed the full approval of our director, Mark Luckey, first. Now we have that approval, and the ‘go ahead’ to talk freely about the new project. 

Let me get to the point: I recently discovered that the deaf are among the most spiritually isolated and therefore largely unreached people on earth. One night late July, John had gone to bed early, and I was flipping through TV channels, trying to find something to listen to while I worked on visualizing Sunday school verses. I noticed one Christian channel mentioned "Finishing the Task” of reaching all the world’s people groups with the Gospel. That interested me. Rick Warren was being interviewed. I’m not a big follower of Rick Warren, but I am very interested in finishing the task, so I began to listen.

Warren gave a website address about remaining unreached groups, and I looked it up (finishingthetask.com). There was a tab where you could click for a list of groups they considered unreached. When I looked at it, I was shocked to see numerous deaf communities at the top of the list, and when I saw Congo-Brazzaville on the list, I recognized a familiar tugging in my heart. It was that tugging of the Spirit that said, “You can’t go on past and pretend you didn’t see this. ECM is well situated to meet this need. You can work with the Congo staff to plan and develop a project. I have positioned and equipped you to do this.” It was like I was driven on. I could hardly stop until the initial research and report were complete. 

From the moment I first learned this, I felt an inner compulsion to learn more. As I explored, I learned that 35 of the unreached people groups of the world (no Bible, no church, no access to Christian witness) are deaf ‘communities’. Because they cannot hear the language of the culture around them, many of the world’s deaf are entirely cut off from society, from the church, sometimes from their own families. Six of these groups are in Africa. 

One is in Congo-Brazzaville, just across the river from “our” Congo, and sharing a common ethnic and linguistic heritage, once part of the great Kingdom of Congo along with "our" Congo, until separated by the colonial powers. 

This fact seared into my heart. I began doing research on the status of the deaf in “our” DR Congo, and asked our Congo staff to do the same. I learned about a wonderful African- American man, deaf through childhood sickness, a missionary and educator named Andrew Foster, who in an earlier generation overcame great obstacles to get an education in still-segregated America. Though he was told that black deaf people could only go through sixth grade, he eventually earned two Masters’ degrees. He became a missionary to the deaf in Africa and started more schools for the deaf than anyone else ever, anywhere. Best of all, his schools also taught about the Lord, and churches were often established alongside them. One of the 22 schools he started is in the eastern part of Congo and is still operating today. 

Using Facebook Messenger, I was able to correspond with one of the pastors of the ministry Foster started. I was deeply inspired reading about Foster. Then I got Pastor Mupepe’s report (he is the ECM Congo Director). He was able to locate five groups of deaf in Kinshasa, visited some of them, and interviewed their leaders through an interpreter. The largest group remembered that they were started back in 1979 by Andrew Foster. Bang-zoom! 

Foster had begun to evangelize that group and appointed a deaf pastor to shepherd them, but that pastor eventually died. Foster himself died in 1987 in a small plane crash travelling from eastern Congo to Kenya to visit one of his schools. I am sure that if he visited Kinshasa today, he would be disappointed at the spiritual level and climate of the group, although some still remember his ministry. 

The more we learned, the Congo staff and me, the more we knew we had to create some kind of a ministry outreach to the deaf in Kinshasa, hoping that once it is established, we may encourage the deaf of Kinshasa to reach out to the totally unreached deaf of Brazzaville. Mupepe and I collaborated on an extensive report to Mark, with suggestions for including deaf ministry and a dedicated staff member and helper in next year’s budget. 

I knew this project was much in line with our director Mark’s concern for the handicapped, who are so often neglected, abandoned and abused in Africa. This week I had a chance to talk with him about the project. Like Pastor Mupepe and myself, he was excited about it. He saw it fitting in also with his vision for community-based projects. He explained, and I agreed, that all communities are not geographically- based. The deaf are certainly a community of their own. 

Mark agreed with our vision and burden to see ECM minister to the deaf community, which includes many children. This becomes even more feasible by the fact that Foster taught ASL (American Sign Language) in his schools and ministries. So, the deaf in Congo sign in ASL with a few adaptations to the French, which is the national language. This means that signers from the US could participate at least on a short-term basis.

We are at the beginning of this project and still have much to learn and many decisions to make, but I am excited and encouraged as I look back at how God has led us this far. My main ministry will continue to be the Mwinda Project with the development of Sunday school literature and all that entails. But I know in my own heart that I want to do all I can to help get this project started even though I won’t be able to be one of the main players in bringing it about. I hope you will enjoy hearing updates on this new project as it develops. 

The deaf need to “hear” the Good News that Jesus can save, even if they “hear” it with their hands and eyes. Don’t you with their hands and eyes. Don’t you agree? We invite you to pray with us that God will guide in every decision as this new area of ministry gets started in Congo. 

With SO much appreciation for your prayers, encouragement and support, 
Lorella with the Congo staff
(And with strong support from John, as always)

PRAYER & PRAISE specific to this project :

PRAISE! for the unity & cooperative spirit shown by everyone involved so far.
PRAISE! for good beginning contacts in the deaf community of Kinshasa and with some hearing ASL interpreters. 
PRAISE! for approval for me to begin talking about the project & for Congo staff to begin organizing the next steps. 
PRAYER for God's guidance in every decision involved as the project gets started. 
PRAYER for God to open the hearts of many in the deaf community to Christ. 
PRAYER for Christian leaders to emerge in the deaf community. 
PRAYER for one of the five groups of deaf who are basically homeless street kids and have become accustomed to theft as a way of life.