Deaf School

We finally got to visit Najib, the Deaf boy we sponsor and other Deaf friends from our church in WI  chip in to help us sponsor him.  When I met him on our first mission trip 4 yrs ago, he wouldn't look at me, buried his face in his mom's lap and cried every time he saw me.  Today I was soooo blessed to get this amazing smile:

It truly melts my heart because getting a smile out of him is rare.  This was our first attempt at getting him to smile (he did the sign for "smile" instead of actually smiling ;)

He is still extremely shy but at least now he looks at me, answers my questions, signs back to me, and even gives me hugs! When I first met him when he would cry and hide his face every time he saw me, so 4 yrs later we've made a lot of progress! (Below with his mother who accompanied us to visit him at school).

Najib went from having no language when I first met him in 2011 (he was 5 yrs old) to now fingerspelling his name, telling me how old he is, identifying & spelling simple vocabulary words:

and even doing multiplication!!!!!

He has made a lot of progress since I last visited him at school 2 yrs ago.  I'm soo grateful for the access he has through sign language to learn about his world! 

Here he is trying to teach me how to form a sign in Lugandan Sign Language:

I get such a thrill being in this deaf class! There were many new students but all the old ones remembered me!!! 

Lugandan Sign Language is about 50% the same as American Sign Language.  It's fun to teach the kids our American signs for various things...and vice versa. They are sooo fascinated by the difference in the signs.

(I'm signing "girl" in ASL and the teacher is signing it in LSL)

(Here I taught them how to sign "mom" & "dad" in ASL)

 (The girl is signing "school" in ASL, all the boys are signing it in LSL.)

(We are showing each other how we sign "bird ")

(I'm signing the number 8 in LSL).

The alphabet is the same except for 3 letters (you can see "p" in this photo):

This was a new Deaf teacher who graduated from the only Deaf college in Uganda, with a teaching certificate!  To actually have a Deaf teacher of the Deaf is a rare gift indeed in a 3rd world country!  She is a sweetheart and a very good teacher.  She told the students "if I can learn to read so can you!"