Togo--post 6

Yesterday Ryan and I had such a blessing of an experience. I got to finally meet a little deaf girl. Her name is Dorcas and she is 4 years old. Meeting her was sort of like a Helen Keller experience. When we first came she screamed and threw a fit and tried to hide from us. That is mostly because we are white "yovos". For a few minutes we just sat where we were and waited for her to calm down. She did not like me signing to her. Eventually, we found a ball and started tossing it back and forth with her. As we played with the ball we taught her the sign for ball and other phrases that go with it like "throw the ball." She began to warm up to me and I picked her up. We went out into her front yard and started to point to objects in her yard. "Where's the chicken?" I would ask. And she would point to the chicken. "Where's the dog?" Her favorite sign was the sign for corn. She kept signing it over and over. All this while her parents were with us learning the signs as well.

At 11:30am it was time to go home for lunch. We scheduled a time to meet with her family today and waved goodbye to our new little friend. As we were walking away tears came to my eyes as I realized that this is what my heart desires to do. Here this little girl had little to no communication with her own parents, and we held the keys to opening that door to her and her family. Her dad told us as he walked us back that he really hoped that we could come to Togo and teach the deaf to communicate. My heart flipped inside my chest. "Yes Lord, this is right."