MHI the next Decade
On 5th October
2002, we will celebrate our 10th Anniversary. Exactly how long MHI
has since started is anybody’s guess. But it does not matter because when we
started, we did not expect that we would go so far. On 28th September 2002, which is
International Day for the Deaf, we will also have Deaf Awareness Sunday within
Wesley Methodist Church.
Many things have changed again, even in the short space
of one year. We received our Drop In
Center in 3rd February 2001 last year at the Singapore Shopping
Center. Now we will be moving to our new premises at the YWCA Level 8 on 31st
October 2002. Who would have thought
that we would be moving to a better place and within a Hotel?
In retrospect, God has been blessing MHI abundantly. The demographics of MHI have certainly
changed. There are no more Youth Council
and JR. Many of them have since moved
on. Even the Deaf youth leaders who help
administer the social activities provided by MHI, many have left. Some of them
are in Polytechnic, some have started work and some have even started families.
Sunday Fellowship
Instead another group of people are still holding strong.
This group comes from the Sunday Fellowship.
On 14th March 2002, 3 girls were baptized and 1 was confirmed
from the group. Unfortunately, for the
last one-year, we have seen very few new faces. I guess most of them are
challenged in a different way, that which is to surrender everything to
God. Most of our friends are still not
sure about doing that. Our activities may seem meaningless and boring to them,
but I believe that it has built them spiritually to face the spiritual
challenges of the next decade. Deaf
ministries come and go. I have heard of
many deaf ministries started by young undergraduates who are keen to minister
to their deaf friends, but after a few years, having gone through the
difficulty of getting other volunteers to rally around them, they sadly slip
away. Some have suffered the emotional
stress of the malicious gossips within the Deaf Community. Some have become
disheartened and disappointed with the Deaf Community, which initially seem so
peaceful and so beautiful with its sign language. But underneath that surface,
lurk a lot of heartaches and disappointments.
I have often wondered what keeps a ministry together? Is
it the strong leaders? The good activities or is it the financial backings of
the church or the organization behind the ministry so that activities can be
made attractive and new. What keeps the
ministry relevant? Is it a group of dynamic young vocal people to sustain the
group together or recruit more to join its ranks? I have seen even church
ministries melt away; Sunday Schools lose their ardent fervor and spirit when
leaders leave.
I do believe it goes beyond that. The young people do get
tired, disappointed and grow old. Those who are single and have little family
commitment do get married and settle down. Leaders can be enticed to another
ministry. Financial support can overnight be whipped away from the ministries
they run. But the steadfast love of the
Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every
morning. Great is the Lord’s faithfulness.
I believe that if Sunday fellowship hangs on to the Lord
they will not veer very far away. But
the challenge of the group will be to become a fragrance to those around
them. It is not good enough to enjoy the
Lord for them, but it is our Christian obligation to share the Lord. A Deaf missionary came one day from the
Philippines and encouraged us to produce fruits of a Christian. It is to produce more Christians. To remind one another the reason for
worshipping the Lord each day and to sing praises to His name. If we lose that reason, we would become like
those around us presently, to view our practices as boring and useless;
completely redundant.
New MHI, the next step?
I feel a need to introduce New MHI to be able to
decentralize the care and concern by the few to adopt the rest. We need to see
the importance of multiplying and edifying one another. What we have done in the past by centralizing
our network, we tend to rely on only a few leaders. The rest just follows. When
we break into groups, we can reach out to more.
Furthermore, the motive of the group is to encourage one another to
grow. The group is a dynamic organism
capable of multiplying.
New MHI will not change our practice, but it will
revolutionalise our thinking and practices.
We will continue to worship and study the Bible together in Sunday
Fellowship. We await the day we can have a pastor to preach and minister to us
for Sunday Fellowship then we can turn into a Deaf Church. But before that, we
will still have to depend on one another and help one another in our spiritual
walk. The development of Home Fellowship
outside Sunday Fellowship is important because we know that not everybody can
attend Sunday Fellowship due to work commitments. Home Fellowship on the other hand is in a
neutral setting, attracts other people to come.
After 10 years in the Deaf Community, MHI has collected a lot of bias
social baggage. Some may be true and others mainly gossips which turn others
away from joining MHI. It is amazing
people avoid Sunday Fellowship not because of religion, but because of the
people they think are in Sunday Fellowship.
Lately we have been telling others that the old is no
longer here. A new MHI has arrived. We are concerned about the lives and needs
of the people. Unfortunately it will
take a few more years before they can finally see that what we are saying is
true. In the meantime, Sunday Fellowship
will have to carry all those bias social baggage around.
If New MHI Home Fellowship is successful, a few selected
ones will take on the responsibility to show care and concern of the people
within the group they are in. They will
be able to network amongst themselves and encourage one another to grow in the
love of the Lord. New MHI still has the
flexibility to tap on the resources of MHI in terms of the ability to organize
activities by the volunteers and even evangelistic programs organized by the
church. The group will be able to
nurture new leaders who can share in their vision and the group is able to
split and multiply.
Our target will be to get those who were from MHI
previously to come join us as well as those who feel that our Home Fellowship
may benefit them in the future.
Arrival of a new breed, Hard of Hearing
MHI has attracted a group of hard of hearing students and
their parents and families from the schools.
Our full time program coordinator has done a good job in relating to the
families to encourage them to bring their children for tuition. The challenge
for MHI for the next decade is to integrate them into MHI.
I foresee a few hurdles we have to overcome. Most of these students are hard of hearing.
They do not use sign language. They do not see our Deafs as their role
models. It would be a challenge to
integrate them to our activities and to mingle with our original group.
Not every hard of hearing student is a success in their
education system. I am starting to see
those who cannot catch up with the system and because they neither sign nor
speak properly, they will become side streamed.
How are we going to deal with these children who cannot communicate
properly with either their tutors or Deaf?
It would be our challenge.
Like in the past, many of them come from non-Christian
homes. We are very fortunate to work in an environment like DIC that is
neutral. How do we plan to integrate
students, plus their parents and siblings into the lives of the church?
Now tutors who used to worry they cannot sign to their
deaf students have a bigger headache. How do you teach a child and improve him
academically when you have no mode of communication with him except though
gestures?
Will it hinder our dream?
If our hope is for the Deaf in MHI to become independent
leading each other spiritually, the hard of hearing will be another hurdle for
us to overcome. That means, we have to
revert to the hearing to help them progress in their spiritual life. It would be difficult for us to see somebody
using sign language to preach to a hard of hearing congregation. Will it mean
that these group of children will eventually be integrated directly into the
lives of Wesley Methodist Church and not into Sunday Fellowship?
Having said that, does that mean that our dream of
establishing a Deaf Church be just wishful thinking? On the economics of supply and demand, how
many Deaf do we have to produce to show to Wesley Church that we deserve a Deaf
pastor? If there are no longer an
increase number of Deaf people we can win into MHI, instead we are winning Hard
of Hearing people instead? If for some
reason we do get a Deaf pastor, then he would just concentrate on a
congregation which will have little potential of growth, not that the Spirit
has not touch them, but just that demographics.
There are fewer and fewer Deafs in Singapore. Will Deaf and Hard of Hearing coexist side by
side or will they integrate? Do we have
the right to implement what we may think is good for them? These are important questions, MHI has to
seriously think about for the next decade.
Integrate or coexist?
I have to admit that I see some of these hard of hearing
people willing to learn sign language and integrate into the Deaf Community.
Perhaps even though their parents have hoped that they integrate well into the
normal community, they still have the barriers as someone with a hearing
disability. We will have to take notice
of these people and train them in sign language so that they can integrate very
well into Sunday Fellowship and Home Fellowship.
For those who are not keen to attend Sunday Fellowship, I
foresee the day that MHI cannot but branch to provide for the hard of hearing.
Perhaps the day will come when we see MHI renamed as MHI-HH Ministry for the
Hearing impaired and Hard of Hearing. MHI-HH will cater for the spiritual needs
of the Hard of Hearing as well as their social needs. That will be the challenge for us in the next
decade. Everywhere, people like to learn
sign language and they go back to their own churches and start up their Deaf
ministry, but there is none at this moment for those who are Hard of Hearing.
Wesley can be the first to start this ministry by starting them early.
Is sign language still relevant in a Deaf Ministry?
Sign language will always be an attraction to the hearing
world. It is a beautiful silent language involving mime and body language used
by people who seem free from the mundane stresses of the hearing world. People will always be attracted to a ministry
because of the opportunity to learn this language and to be able to communicate
with the people who use this language.
Sign language is also a good Deaf Awareness tool. Lay people are not keen about how expensive
or the intricate details of the workings of a Cochlear implant. Besides, interacting with a hard of hearing
child is like talking to any normal children theoretically. So why is there a need to promote sign language?
I do believe it has to do with publicity and financial backing. The more people
empathize and sympathize with the disability, the more they will touched in
their hearts and the deeper they will dig into their pockets. MHI will always require conducting sign
language course. It must always provide prominent sign interpretation. Otherwise, there is no evidence in Wesley
Methodist Church that there is a group of people with disability.
Having said all the above, we must not forget that the
conduct of sign language is not equivalent to recruitment. We already know that
only less than 10% of the students who attend the sign language course stay
behind to volunteer their time with the Deaf.
Conducting sign language courses should not be neglected by MHI. Furthermore it can be first step of
interaction between the Hearing world and the Deaf world with the Deaf tutors.
Selection of Hearing Volunteers
As Sunday Fellowship progresses, the spiritual maturity
of the Deafs increases. It is important
for hearing volunteers to adapt. Gone
are the days that we learn sign language to sign “to” the Deaf. It is time we
“listen” to the Deaf. Not only do we interpret from speech to sign language,
the next challenge of the hearing volunteers is to interpret from sign language
to speech. With the increasing
globalization, there is a need for some of the Deaf to be multi-lingual. Those
who are comfortable with other sign languages should start to think about
interpreting from one sign language to another.
That will be the challenge of Sunday Fellowship if we are to progress
beyond what we are already doing.
I think we have much to learn from one another Deaf and
Hearing. We have different perspectives in lives. I feel that the Deaf Community is what
hearing people want them to be. Of
course the few have rebelled and been different. Even for the spiritual maturity of the Deaf
Community for those who are Christians, many are quite contented to stay as
they are. The challenge is for them not
to only know Jesus. But accept personal salvation for Jesus. After accepting
personal salvation, not be contented but to take up the cross and follow
Jesus. That is the challenge of those
who are in Sunday Fellowship. For the hearing, the challenge is for us to
realize that they can achieve what we do not believe they can achieve. The
challenge is for us to encourage them in their pursuit of God; to appreciate
that they too can Experience God independent of assistance from us Hearing
people. To widen their knowledge in the
Bible and allow them the opportunity to share with their own Deaf people
without overbearing or too protective over them. To some of us, it is a risk we have to take,
but the rewards will be great when we can see the day they walk side by side us
rather than we have to hold their hands and lead them.
The question of recruitment and development of hearing
volunteers still looms like a black cloud above MHI. For many of the chairman who led, it is a
constant challenge. Previously, we do
not have Deaf people within MHI. We worry we cannot offer the hearing
volunteers opportunity to serve the Deaf. Now it is the opposite. We have Deaf
people and we do not have enough hearing volunteers to serve them.
The administration of MHI requires close planning and
supervision. It is true that there is
less and less need for good sign language ability. If we go with the direction of increasing
number of hard of hearing students, in the end, there is no need for sign
language at all.
In the past, MHI concentrated mainly on social activities
to attract the Deaf. To run these activities, we need volunteers. But recently we found out that the Deaf can
volunteer as well as these hearing volunteers, in fact there is more
interaction between Deaf volunteer and Deaf guests. But if MHI is going to emphasize on spiritual
discipleship, there is another hurdle here.
How do we ensure that as the spiritual maturity of the Deaf increases,
the hearing volunteers who help out with Sunday Fellowship are in fact the same
level as the Deaf and not instead back-slide Christians looking for a reason to
hang around in church?
In the past, we have often portrayed ourselves as the
spiritual leaders in the ministry. But who screens those who come through the
doors of Sunday Fellowship? Who ensures that hearing volunteers are spiritually
full and not themselves spiritually starved?
For those Deaf new Christians, how do you explain that not all hearing
is a spiritual leader within Sunday Fellowship?
It is the challenge of the Deaf themselves to identify
wolves in sheepskins coming from both their own community as well as
hearing. They are to test everything
that a person says and to see if the actions of the person reflects what he
says or in his heart. Spiritual
discernment will be the next step that all Sunday Fellowship members need to
learn.
What should
be our expectations of volunteers in the next decade?
So what should we train our
volunteers to achieve. In other words, how should we guide them and motivate
them? I think the most important is to
inform each person who even thinks about coming into the ministry that they
must become a member of MHI. If we
expect our Deaf friends to become MHI, why then do we call ourselves volunteers
and members of Wesley? They have to come
into the Ministry that they have a share and they are prepared to stay at all
costs.
Next, if their hope is to come and
learn Sign Language, then it is the wrong purpose. Like I mention above, organizing Sign
Language Classes is not equivalent to recruitment. To put it bluntly, they must know they are to
become servants in the Ministry. If
Jesus is not shy to put on his loin cloth and wash his disciples feet, then why
must we protect volunteers and package the name nicely as volunteers requiring
recognition? Recognition is a perk, not
a right.
The desire to serve the Deaf and
Hard of Hearing is the correct heart in entering the Ministry. No longer is the weakness of sign language be
a setback of the volunteer if we continue to have a supply of Hard of
Hearing. Each group presents its
challenges. With or without sign
language all is welcome to serve these friends with hearing disability.
For both groups, volunteers
ministering to the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, communication is the key factor.
Not to tell the Deaf what to do, but be able to achieve the aspirations of the
individuals together as a team. Two-way
communication is number one. The volunteer should be humble enough to accept
that the person they are helping can teach the volunteer just as much. Organize with the groups. Not for
the groups. No point organizing an
activity and stand aside and watch the Deaf and Hard of Hearing enjoy
themselves. That is not participation.
For those who are comfortable with
sign language, they must not stop just in learning the language. They are
expected to listen; then interpret from spoken language to sign language. As
more and more Deaf people mature spiritually, there may come a time that we
have to translate sign language to spoken language for our fellow hearing
volunteers.
For those who work with the Hard of
Hearing, this is a new and special area. The emergence of this group of people
who are supposed to integrate almost seamlessly with the normal stream, I am
sure there are special needs about this group of people. The challenge for those who work with them is
to understand how much they are like us hearing people and how much they are
like our Deaf friends, or are they going to form a completely different
culture?
Those who want to help in Sunday
Fellowship, the hope is that the Deaf develop their gift of discernment to
separate out the real ones who have a heart of God and those who profess they
belong to God.
KODA
Kids of
Deaf adults, the emergence of this group of children is not so much that they
are a new breed, but because if MHI were to follow on for 20 years, those whom
we first loved when their parents were younger. They came into the equation
because we loved their parents. I feel
that Wesley instead of MHI has a special place for them. We cannot deny the fact that MHI is part of a
bigger family Wesley Methodist Church that is again part of the Methodist
family in Singapore.
I feel that if we can love their
parents when their parents were younger, we can love their children and share
the love of God with them in the same context.
I don’t profess that the Methodist system is the best for them, but it
is a system that has worked with their parents. In 10 years time, some of these
children will be at least 10 years old. They would be able to attend the usual
Sunday School with the normal children, while their parents attend Sunday
Fellowship.
Conclusion
The next
decade will be a challenge for those who chose to stay in MHI; whether to
support it in Sunday Fellowship or in other ways like tuition, social
activities, etc. We have not really
achieved the day that Hearing and Deaf work side by side without a barrier
between us. We must not forget that we
are all created in the likeness of God and thus all are important in the eyes
of the Lord. A new breed of Deaf has
emerged because of improved science and technology. Even as we struggle to work
together, we have to learn to work with this new group of people.
MHI may or may not survive another 10 years. Its direction and aspirations will depend on
those who stay on to decide which directions we want to take. How the story ends will depend on everyone.
But most important it is the grace of God that we continue to serve the Deaf
Community in Singapore and lead God’s disciples in the way He wants.
May the Lord continue to bless us.
Victor Keng
28th
September 2002
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