Can You Hear Me Now?

    We have come across some interesting young men.  One of the young men pictured below (in the blue plaid shirt) is named Machave and is the son of Ines, one of our members.  You might remember her as the industrious women who did the logging project.  As a toddler, her son fell ill and became deaf as a result.  He is a teenager and very frustrated with school.  He has to walk about 1.5 hours each way to and from school each day.  It is a special school for the deaf.  Since he missed the formative years in school because of being ill, he cannot read well.  And there is no help for him at school with this problem.  His mother tells us that he weeps most days when he gets home for lunch, because his legs are so tired from the walk.  It really is a long way.  She says she holds him and comforts him until he regains enough strength to eat lunch.  You can imagine this story breaks my heart.  There is no public transportation except a bike taxi which they cannot afford.
     She told us one day that he has some hearing aids form a clinic years ago, that do not work.  We asked to see them.  They had a company name on them, so we thought we would see what help we could get.  It is called the Starkey Foundation. We finally got in touch with them and found them to be not all that helpful.  They found in their files, dates of clinics in Mozambique in 2009 and 2010.  They want us to ship them the hearing aids and they will repair them and then we must find someone or some way to bring them back to Mozambique. This would probably be through  DHL, for hundreds of dollars.. He felt sure that someone from our church went back and forth from the US to Mozambique all of the time.  And, as he pointed out, this isn't an emergency or anything.  He was hard to deal with.
     To my surprise, each Sunday for the last two weeks, this young man has arrived one hour early to church with several friends.  They all dig into their pockets and hand me their hearing aids, hoping we can get them to work again.  Today we saw him walking home from school and he pulled out another handful of several hearing aids from his backpack.  To us, they look like they simply need a battery.  Could it be that simple?  A couple are broken, but not many.  We are frustrated that this clinic was held, but that there is no way for the devices to continue working without new batteries.  It reminds us of too many projects we see and hear about that cannot sustain themselves.
     We will continue to research this, but I am amazed that these boys sit through hours of church and seem to enjoy it.  They don't really read lips, but I am learning much about the language of the spirit, which needs no translation.  They group of three boys below are close friends and wanted a special picture together.  Every day we see needs and just pray for discernment in what to care about and what we must not worry about.  That is easier said than done.  These boys are big on my "to care" list.