Reaching the Deaf in Africa - a God Sized Challenge

Consider for a moment how you would describe picking up  a telephone and dialing your personal number.  Every action step that you think of passes through your conscious mind in your native or first language - probably English.  If you are Deaf then neither English nor any spoken language is your native language.  English may be your learned 2nd or 3rd language.  English is an auditory language intimately related to the sounds of speech.  When you think of the action to “push” or “punch” a button, you hear a word beginning with the letter “p” in your mind.  Can you even think of the “push” action without the sound of the letter “p”?  Yes you can, but now your thinking process is different.  You need to think in a more pictorial way as if you are watching a silent video.  Even thinking of a particular number that you push takes on a different characteristic.  Imagine the number 9 not starting with the “n” sound, and in fact having no associated sound.  It simply represents a concept of quantity with no associated sound.  If you are Deaf, you may have never heard this thing called sound.  Actually, very few Deaf were born Deaf.  The majority became Deaf during an illness such as meningitis with high fever at age 0-3.  Sound, especially the sound of speech is a far distant memory.

How much of your thinking takes place in auditory form?  You perceive many things visually, but as you think them through and make sense of them, you use your auditory language.  Certainly the self talk and conversations running through your head take place in your first auditory language.  Now imagine never hearing speech.  There is no way for you to think in terms of an auditory language.  You can certainly think and make sense of your observed world.  Your thinking must take place in terms of visual or symbolic sequences.  Finally, imagine reading this very sentence with no concept of sound in your mind.  For hearing people the task is nearly unimaginable.  You learned to read by sounding out words.  Without sound, the words are just a sequence of symbols.  Welcome to the world of the Deaf, and the origins of Deaf culture.

My wife Beth just retired this year from a career teaching the Deaf and Hard of Hearing at the elementary education level, and later at the high school.  As we joined team #3 traveling to Johannesburg, South Africa in October, Beth wanted to learn about the services offered to the Deaf population in terms of education and support, and to explore the potential of a Saddleback church plant reaching and helping the Deaf population.  We met with Dr. Kim Wallmach, a Coordinator for Translation and Interpreting at the Witwatersrand University Language School, and then with a married couple, Bascom (Hearing) and Willie (Deaf), serving with the IMB - International Missions Board, and focused on the Deaf as an Unreached People Group.  

The lack of services for the Deaf in South Africa is best described as dismal.  The number of Deaf is estimated at 300,000 to 400,000 (0.5% of the population).  Deaf adult unemployment ranges from 70-95%.  The Wits University records only 8 interpreters in all of South Africa qualified to serve at the conference interpreting level in SASL - South African Sign Language.  Interpreters for court hearings typically do not qualify at this higher level.  Is justice served for the Deaf?    Interpreting for medical care is hit and miss.  A few Deaf day schools function in the Johannesburg area.  Most of the residential Deaf schools have closed, leaving students with fewer Deaf role models and far less Deaf interaction.  Teachers typically operate with limited formal training in SASL.  Only 12-14% of the teachers of the Deaf are considered fluent in SASL.

Beth experienced the radical changes that followed well-intentioned competing theories during her own career in the U.S. as an educator for the Deaf.  Her formal training was in the Oral education method, emphasizing lip reading and speech training.  Under this method the use of hand signs was discouraged.  Meanwhile many schools were transitioning to a “total communication” paradigm that integrated hand signs.  Some schools experimented with “Cued speech”, a technique employing handshapes indicating sound source to enhance and supplement lip reading.  Other schools adopted “SEE signs” or Signing Exact English as a link between sign language and spoken/ written English.  Students often made the transition from SEE to American Sign Language (ASL) in the upper grades and high school when they had adult role models.

SEE is slow and inefficient for casual person-to-person communication.  ASL signs are pictorial symbols that are not presented in English sentence word order, and do not follow English grammar structure.  ASL is a completely separate non-auditory language.  The road for Deaf students is tough, even in a well funded and equipped school system.  In the United States Deaf adults educated in the public schools read English text at an average competency level equivalent to primary grades 3-5.  In doing so they read combinations of symbols with no sound associations.

Deaf education developed in South Africa with an ironic twist.  During the Apartheid years the privileged white Deaf students attended oral method schools.  The use of hand signs was discouraged and punished.  Teachers in the colored and black schools were free to use sign language as the method that they found best to reach and communicate with Deaf students.  When Apartheid ended and use of hand signs was recognized as the most effective method in Deaf education, consistent with world-wide understanding, the black schools served as the best repository, preserving the purest form of SASL.

The Midrand area where Saddleback Church proposes to sponsor a church plant has very few Deaf people.  Most of the Johannesburg area Deaf are black and live in the surrounding townships.     Employing an interpreter to translate a message given by a hearing pastor is not likely to succeed because language limitations severely limit the communication.  We heard that the most effective way of reaching the Deaf is in a small group setting.  A leader will tell a Bible story through SASL.  Each attendee is asked to answer questions then retell the story.  The leader interacts to clarify where needed.  In this way, a story is  repeated several times until all understand.  

An essential key to reaching the Deaf is the development of personal relationships through one-to-one interaction.  With high unemployment the Deaf cannot afford the traditional church organization with a paid pastor and staff.  Successful Deaf churches are very small, and typically voluntary organizations that rotate the responsibility of pastoring.  A small church may have 5 or 6 members who all assume pastor duties.  The strength of this organization is built around the church body and not dependent upon any one individual pastor.  

We did hear about one small Christian Deaf church that operates in the Johannesburg area.  The most effective approach for a Saddleback campus may be to seek out these Deaf churches and to partner with them, lending a helping hand of resources and materials.  The Deaf churches surviving as voluntary small groups already have the concept of “every member a minister”.  They should prove to be quick adopters and adapters of Saddleback Purpose Driven materials.  Through helping build strength in existing Christian Deaf churches, Saddleback can help them reach out further to the Deaf communities.

Where are the Joburg Unchurched?

One of the goals for team #3 visiting Johannesburg was to meet and greet people in the Midrand area not currently attending a church.  We seek to learn from these people the reasons  that keep some people from attending.  We hope that if we design a new church plant to address their needs, it will draw these people in.  We specifically want to avoid drawing people away from other churches.  The mission of the Saddleback regional is to become a healthy model that will also provide help to surrounding churches.   

The downstream goal is to build up a strong core of Christian churches in the Joburg area.  One local advisor from IMB told us that if you win Johannesburg for Jesus Christ, then you win South Africa.  Strong churches working together have the capacity to send members out on mission in a coordinated strategy.  This is the goal of the PEACE plan that will address the five global giants.  The global giants are: 1) spiritual emptiness, 2) self serving leadership, 3) Poverty, 4) Disease, 5) Illiteracy.

We went into malls, the “Mugg and Bean” cafe, public squares and parks to find these people.  All people we encountered were quite friendly and very easy to talk to.  The problem was that most people we encountered claimed that they were church attending Christians.  We decided upon a bold plan.  On Sunday afternoon, we went to the Shisanyama beer garden where young professionals like to unwind and hang out before  the new work week.

A team of nine grandparent age white people entered a hot spot of the young blacks and colored.  The House music was throbbing.  It was difficult to hear, but we did successfully greet and speak with several people.  Once again we found them friendly and easy to get along with.  To our surprise most people that we spoke to said that they attend church.  Some stated that they had attended that morning, and were now relaxing in the afternoon.

People of Johannesburg, we love you.  You are inspiring.  You face tremendous problems with grace and dignity.  We hope to provide a fitting church home for some who do not now know Jesus.  May we partner together for God’s kingdom.

Contextualization: Our Challenge

What is the largest challenge that we face for planting a Saddleback regional campus in Johannesburg, South Africa?  In a word, the issue is contextualization.  Seeking understanding of world views, and guidance in our approach to lay plans, we interviewed people on the streets and also sought counsel from seasoned professionals in the Joburg area from organizations including churches, schools, and evangelical outreach.  

To contextualize is to adapt the visual appearance, the music and arts, the language, the terminology used, and the social references so that they are well understood by the local audience.  Most importantly the presentations, songs, stories, and prayers must be from and of the local community.  The gospel preached with integrity remains the truth.  The bible based principles for growing membership in spiritual maturity and growing the church remain the same.  The style of implementation adapts to the local culture.

The largest stumbling block reported for black South Africans, especially the young professionals that a Saddleback regional in the Midrand area wants to serve is the issue of animism and specifically the practice of ancestor worship.  Only in close relationship can this strong influence be effectively countered.  The first missionaries in colonial times tried to completely do away with African culture and to replace it with a Christian culture.  This might seem like an easier approach, but it is a disastrous destruction of identity.  There is no substitute for growing spiritual maturity through discipleship.

On one Sunday afternoon our team visited the Shisanyama (beer garden) to meet local young adults and to learn something about their culture.  My wife and I struck up a conversation and immediate friendship with Dr. Sambelo Mhlomi, who is a trauma care doctor in Kagiso Mall medical center.  He described how young black professionals live simultaneously in two different worlds.  The traditional beliefs and practices are closely tied to home (your birth village), and to your family.  Your education and professional work probably displaces you to a location far from home, and gives you knowledge and principles quite foreign to your origins.  Sambelo described that most of African culture is positive and good.  He has systematically excluded any practices that run counter to Christian principles.  

I asked Sambelo if one could recognize the bad practices because they tend to create fear or somehow trap and enslave the individual.  He agreed.  The nature of the gospel truth is to free the individual.  There is true freedom in Jesus Christ.  Practices that run counter to this freedom are to be avoided.  

Sambelo also confirmed that marriage is complicated for young black professionals.  Africa has the tradition of labola.  The groom must give a sizable payment to the bride’s family.  In most cases, there is a traditional wedding, followed later-on by a Christian ceremony.  This represents a double wedding expense.  Sambola had already gone through the traditional ceremony back in the village.  The Christian ceremony for Sambola and his fiancee is scheduled in a couple of months in the Midrand area.  Due in large part to the financial hurdles associated with marriage, many young professionals now choose cohabitation as an option.

Navigation

Our team left the hotel in Sandton early on Wednesday October 18, allowing for a generous time budget to arrive safely on-time to the start of a Purpose Driven Church conference for local Gauteng east-side provence pastors.  The conference, organized by Pastor Titus from Memelodi was held in the township of Springs at the Covenant Christian Church.  We planned for an on-time or early arrival because our team promised to help with the greeting and registration process.  We also planned to engage the pastors in supplying information for a spiritual and ethnic mapping of their district.  As advised and requested from a few sources, this mapping can help churches and evangelical groups to plan and to work together effectively to reach the communities.

After quite an adventure, we arrived early for a late starting conference.  Our drivers had GPS navigators, but they proved useless after leaving the highway and turning into the neighborhood.  No street signs and no house numbers exist in the neighborhood.  We immediately resorted to cell phones, calling the event organizers for directions.  Unfortunately the organizers were from out-of-town and not familiar enough to really help.

We happened upon a local police station.  The drivers went inside to get help.  The information given was vague and not sufficient.  Continuing on, we stopped a few different locals to ask for directions.  The locals were quite willing to help, but their directions led to no success.  

Finally, we ran across a police car on patrol.  We asked them to please lead us to the Covenant Christian Church.  We followed as they led us out of the maze back to a recognizable start point.  The police then instructed us to call once again the church pastor on our cell phone.  Tell the pastor the named street that we are on located between the gas station and a sports field.  The pastor should then then guide us to his church.   

Wow.  What would happen if a shooting, or crime in progress was reported at the Covenant Christian Church?  Would the police be able to respond?  The instructions from the pastor did successfully navigate us.  When we arrived, we saw that the church had no sign identifying itself.  In this community, churches, homes, and streets are not identified.  Local knowledge is essential for getting around.

This navigation scenario is strange and cumbersome, but represents a good metaphor for life.  We lose our way and often rely upon our own instincts and possibly ask advice from whoever we run across.  What did the police finally do?  They took us back to a recognizable place and instructed us to communicate with a source of truth.  When we are in trouble, we need to retreat to a known good place and communicate with God, the source of truth.

One Man’s Inspiration: Energy and Hope from Trash

Since the gold diggings opened in 1887, Johannesburg became a magnet for the poor and disaffected over the African continent.  The South African district encompassing Johannesburg is given the Sotho language name Gauteng which means “place of gold”.  Drought, disasters, and war over the African continent have fueled the source of cheap labor for the mines.  In the traditional scenario, desperate men left their villages and families behind, trekking by whatever means available to Johannesburg seeking work.  Today that trend continues.  Johannesburg is a melting pot for people groups spanning the continent.

The mining infrastructure served as an economic base to build Johannesburg into a modern city.  Driving along the highway one sees major corporation facilities from high tech to major manufacturing.  All of this enterprise can not keep up with the demand for employment.  Joburg holds the extremes from the super rich to the very poor.  Security is a major concern in all areas.  Half of the crime in South Africa occurs in Joburg.  Fences around neighborhoods and around individual homes are capped with high voltage wires.  Often a combination of barbed wire plus electric wires is used.  An atmosphere of constant fear and concern is evidenced by people with means defending their property, life, and possessions against attack by the desperate.

The ANC has failed to deliver on promises.  The current government is self-centered with ministers taking more than giving.  Six out of ten workers who can’t find jobs now will likely never find one.  What is Gods plan?  Is there a way to stem the tide of desperation?  On Wednesday October 12, members of our team had an interview meeting with Mr. Jimmy Furstenburg who is now managing director of CEP - Clean Energy Projects.  Jimmy is a member of the Methodist Church and a business leader.  He takes his role seriously as a member of society, blessed to be a blessing.

Jimmy obtained a double volume copy of the Purpose Driven Church, and Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren.  After reading it cover-to-cover Jimmy felt compelled to exercise the concept of “every member a minister”.  He wanted to do something real and tangible to make a difference.  Jimmy got in touch with a woman from the town of Mamelodi who was trained in the operation of clean burning incinerators that produce electricity.  Together they formed a business venture following a model that will not only feed much needed electric power to the grid, but will create jobs, enhance education, and promote the church.  

The raw fuel used for energy production is the waste that would otherwise clutter the townships.  The waste materials are however broadly distributed.  Collection and sale of trash at centers will provide useful work and some income for those who otherwise have no job.  Schools used as collection points will provide an incentive for students to earn some income and also to attend school.  The local churches as well may serve as collection centers.  The churches can reach out and engage with the community through hosting this community based enterprise.  In John 6:12 Jesus said after feeding a multitude:  “Collect the leftovers so that nothing is wasted”.  The collection of waste for  clean energy production is certainly in the spirit of this passage.  We are trusted to become good stewards of the earth.

Once collected, the waste materials require sorting into categories for use.  The necessary activities involving pick-up from collection centers, waste sorting, and operating of the incinerator-generators opens new full-time jobs in the townships.  

Jimmy has pledged that 20% of profit from the enterprise will go directly back into the local community to make improvements.  The impact is described as win-win-win for the schools, churches, and the community.  Imagine the impact if more people asked God to reveal a plan, then became passionate and used their creativity, talents, and abilities to advance God’s kingdom and the well being of society.  This example of one man multiplied by the number of available and ernest people over the African continent could make real positive change.

Madala Rules

Madala is the Zulu word for old man.  It is a respectful word.  The “old guys Rule” or “old men rule” joke does not resonate in the African culture.  The joke is actually a call for respect.  Since the African culture respects the elderly, Africans don’t get the joke.

On Wednesday evening of our first week in Johannesburg we celebrated Ron Sipus’ 68th birthday.  Planning a mission trip that spans over your birthday date represents an additional sacrifice.  One gives up celebrating with family and possibly enjoying a favorite restaurant or activity.  

Drawing upon his professional experience as Head of Schools for Capistrano Valley Christian Schools, Ron has served as an indispensable team resource and leader for efforts to find out how the neighborhood schools work, what they offer to the community, and what the most pressing community needs are.  Ron is also a very enthusiastic and skilled photographer.  He has taken many of the excellent photographs that are documenting our trip.  With all due respect, Ron is our Madala for this trip.  Come to think of it, I will hit the milestone age of 65 next September.  Maybe I should have a custom “Madala Rules” tee shirt made.

Just Get Over It and Let God Work Through You

There I was at the Mugg & Bean restaurant, full of young professional customers on their lunch break.  We had some business cards printed up with the Saddleback Johannesburg Facebook site and Blog site to serve as hand outs to anyone expressing interest in our exploration for planting a new church.  Ron had already struck up conversations with a few people.  He found friendly responses.  He was on a roll.  How do I begin?

I was standing near a sidewalk table where two young attractive ladies had finished their meal and were casually talking.  I did not want to appear rude or pushy.  I certainly did not want to act like someone using a pick-up line.  There I was with my stomach in knots not finding any good way to reach out and engage these people.  

God must have had a good laugh.  He sent a gust of wind to blow the receipt off of their table.  I retrieved the receipt and said hello.  I told them that I was from the U.S.  as they might tell from my accent.  It is a strange feeling realizing that you are the one with an accent.  Anyway they were quite receptive to the idea of a new church in their area.  They agreed to having their picture taken with me any any of our team, and posted on Facebook.  The idea of networking through Facebook is quite natural to this young generation.