O is for Outreach: Finding Deaf children and their future sponsors
This year our new student outreach teams reached 68 neighborhood districts, hours from the nearest paved road, carrying survey forms and portable hearing screening equipment.
When the weather closed the roads, they waited until they became passable. When parents were away at work or not at home, they came back a second and sometimes even a third time.
They screened over 5,000 children. They found 1,222 with ear conditions needing a specialist, and were able to refer them for care. Even ear infections can permanently destroy hearing. Twenty-four children were identified as Deaf for the first time, and now many of them are enrolled in IDEA-supported schools.
Thousands of Deaf children in the Philippines still live in isolation, unaware that an education exists for them. Many of their families do not even know that their child is Deaf.
That is the O in Show LOVE: Outreach. Identifying Deaf children in remote communities is the first step to building a new future with them.
“Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?” (Luke 15:4)
