Isaiah 55 Deaf Ministries

Welcome Texas and SC teams!

We welcomed thirty-one people here at Casa Verde this Saturday! On Sunday we had church here at the building and then spent the afternoon visiting with the kids at San Fransisco orphanage. The team brought some crafts and balloons to share with the kids. 

On Monday we divided the team into three groups.  One group is working at Zach and Kelly's site with 24/7 prayer. The other construction group is working out at our new land. And a third group is going to a school teaching ESL (English as a second language).

The people working at the construction sites have been working hard out in the heat. Today they were going to be working with a lot of cement out at the new land. 

The ESL team at the school has seen improvement even over the course of two days. The students have learned numbers, colors, shapes, and body parts already. Yesterday they played bingo with shapes and colors that the kids really enjoyed. Erwin, our pastor here on staff, has been teaching a Bible lesson each day. The kids have learned about the stories of Noah and Jonah, and how God was faithful to them.

Thank you so much for your continual prayers for Isaiah 55!

Welcome AC Bluffton and others!

We are thankful for our second team of the summer that arrived this past Saturday, June 20th. It is a group of mostly college students from several places who all belong to the AC church.

On Sunday we had church at Casa Verde (our 6 story building where the teams stay), ate a yummy lunch, then headed over to the orphanage to play with the kids for the afternoon. It was fun to see everyone loving on the kids despite the language barrier.

The team has been working hard in the hot sun since Monday. We have been getting some rain on and off down here, which has been a nice relief from the sun. Most of the team is out at our new land working with lots of cement.

Please be praying for safety and the health of this team the rest of the week!

Exciting news

God is at work!

After years of praying for the deaf community in Reynosa, starting construction on the school, building the school and holding classes, teaching the kids that they have their own language (Mexican sign language), building relationships and loving on the students and families, we are seeing some results! We knew that God was working in the hearts of our students but had no idea what was going on in their heads. YESTERDAY, one of our oldest girls Daniela accepted Jesus into her life (our first student to do so). She told her teacher Karina "I want Jesus! I want my life to be changed."

All that to say- the whole reason behind the deaf school is to share God's love with them. It has been a long process because understanding the concepts of the gospel and communicating them in sign language is difficult, but God is bigger than any obstacle.

We are excited to see how Daniela will have an affect on the other students, as she is already one of the leaders in the school. Please please please be praying for the deaf school and everything going on in the students' hearts.

7 Rivers week

Our first summer team :)

I hope you were able to follow along with the 7 Rivers blog posted below during their time here.

The team from 7 Rivers worked extremely hard and got a lot of work done. During the week, one of the groups even stayed out over 2 hours late to make sure all of the cement was finished that needed to be poured. The positive attitudes and high energy of this group was such an encouragement to all of us! On Friday we had "share night" where anyone from the team could share how God had worked in their life this week or new relationships formed etc. It was a really neat time to listen and witness God at work.

Unfortunately building on the expansion of the school has stopped for the time being because of some government issues. Please be praying that things would get straightened out so we can continue building.

Thank you for your continual prayers for Isaiah 55! We are truly grateful.

Seven Rivers update link

Here is the team blog Seven Rivers created to communicate with their friends and family:

http://srpcmexicomissionstrip.blogspot.com/

faces

The summer team season is off to a great start as 37 volunteers from Seven Rivers Presbyterian Church (Lecanto, FL) arrived on June 6th. Since Monday, they've been working hard under the hot sun on the three aforementioned projects. What a blessing their presence and enthusiasm has been!!!

This evening, we are hosting a cookout where all will have the opportunity to meet and interact with some of our teachers and students and their families.

Enjoy a few snapshots of the summer interns:

Jeff

Sam, Chris & Spencer

Anna Grace

Amy                                                              Tucker

Summer Staff 2009

Isaiah 55 welcomes their summer staff for 2009.  They are:

Amy Reinke - Florida, Anna Grace Flowers - Indiana, Sam Hutchinson - South Carolina, Spencer Hutchinson - South Carolina, Jeff Varner - Georgia, Chris Ahn - Maryland, and short-term staffer Tucker Cortese - Florida.

Already they have been super busy getting the dorms ready for our first team and preparing the site where we will be building additional classrooms at the school.  Our big three projects for this summer are: The new addition at the school, the dorms on the new property, and finishing up housing for 24-7 Prayer leaders Zach and Kelly Tietsort.

You can be prayerful that we can get the tons and tons of fill dirt we need to get started on our dorm property.  We need to locate both the fill as well as a means of transport.  We are very excited to get summer teams underway.  Please join us if you get a chance this summer!