The Gift of Hearing

For the past few months, I have been serving as the project coordinator with an organization called Starkey Hearing Foundation to help bring hearing aids to over 2250 Rwandans with hearing loss. It is amazing how things come together..considering this is my true passion, training, and experience. In graduate school for Speech Pathology, I went through an intensive track to specialize in working with children with hearing loss. I spent a few months doing specialized training at Beth Israel Hospital/NY Eye and Ear in New York City, and then moved to Little Rock to work at Arkansas Children's Hospital for three years in the Hearing Impaired Speech Department. This is literally what I have been trained for...and then this project just falls in my lap in Rwanda. This has been a a few months of blood, sweat, and tears...but the week is finally here and in a few days I get to witness all of these children receive hearing aids. And I get to host a few familiar names from my favorite American sport, as many NFL football players are volunteering on this mission. Adrian Peterson, Vernon Davis, Santonio Holmes, Roy Williams anyone?

More updates to come....

Here is an article that I wrote about the project that was published in the Rwandan Newspaper today which explains it a little more....

"Over 2,000 people will receive the gift of hearing next week through the efforts of Starkey Hearing Foundation, an American-based charity that donates hearing aids in developing countries around the world.

Although Starkey has contributed over 60,000 hearing aids in approximately 15 African countries in past years, this is the first major gift to Rwanda.

Starkey Foundation was recruited to Rwanda through the request of the Minister of Education, Dr. Charles Murigande. He reached out to Starkey in February 2010 and encouraged them to extend their humanitarian actions to Rwanda.

With no avenue for purchasing hearing aids in Rwanda, this donation is of immense benefit and value to the hearing impaired community. The total number of individuals with hearing loss who will receive hearing aids is approximately 2,250 people from all over Rwanda, with over half of that number being children who suffer from hearing impairment.

The recipients of the hearing aids were gathered over the last few months through Rwanda’s schools for deaf children, local hospitals, faith-based communities and other organizations serving individuals with hearing loss.

Each person registered to receive the aids has previously been fit for custom-made ear-moulds, which will attach to the hearing devices they will receive next week. Starkey Foundation will donate two hearing aids to each person, totalling a donation of over 4500 hearing aids to Rwanda.

The President and Founder of Starkey, along with a team of hearing professionals, will be visiting Rwanda March 21-25 to fit each individual patient according to their degree of hearing loss. In conjunction with the Starkey Team, another US non-profit called PROS for Africa will be hosting a group of NFL (National Football League) professional American football players to volunteer with the hearing aid project. Many well-known professional athletes will be visiting Rwanda for the first time through this mission.

Several local organizations have also been instrumental in coordinating this substantial project, including Bridge2Rwanda, Liliane Foundation, and Hope International. MTN contributed by donating SMS messages to inform the recipients and other essentials to help with the distribution. Participating hospitals included King Faisal Hospital, CHUK, Butare Hospital, Ruhengeri Hospital and PIH Rwinkwavu Hospital, in which they assessed and fit patients for the custom-made ear-moulds.

The distribution events will take place in Ruhengeri on March 21-22 and in Kigali on March 23-25. Starkey Hearing Foundation plans to return to Rwanda on an annual basis to distribute hearing aids and continue to give the gift of hearing to Rwandans with hearing loss."

http://newtimes.co.rw/index.php?issue=14568&article=39320

"What I have planned, that I will do." Isaiah 46:11

God’s faithfulness amazes me. I am so overwhelmed with how He fulfills His promises that I can’t even begin to describe the awe that I have in me.

For the past 6 weeks since I have been back in Rwanda, I have been sweating and slaving over two rather intense projects (hence my lack of blogging). Working in a developing country is not all joy and smiles and fulfillment all the time….it is extremely hard at times….it is foreign and far from home and there is so much to do and you can’t even run away from it because the need just stares you right in the face. At times I wanted to curl up in a ball and quit because things got so frustrating. I became so overwhelmed with trying to get tasks accomplished that I completely lost sight of why I was doing it in the first place. I allowed myself to get too caught up in the daunting tasks that were before me that I even started doubted that any of it would actually pull through. And then God steps in and slaps me out of it and wakes me back up. He reminds me that He is really in control and doesn’t need me to accomplish His tasks afterall.

One of the projects I have been working on is developing the first US University Test Prep Center in Rwanda. My time teaching at Sonrise High School led to the development of this idea, as we saw how many brilliant, hard-working young Rwandans are pining to go to America to get a great education and then come back to serve their country. I look at them and I feel guilty….because I know that although I embraced my education, I often took my opportunities for granted. I never appreciated what I had in front of me until I saw how badly these students wanted that same opportunity. So, I made it my responsibility to help them get there. This past year, I helped a handful of students take the necessary standardized tests and apply to several US Universities. And then we (my organization, Bridge2Rwanda) started thinking…why aren’t we doing this all over the country? This is a huge need for this country…but no one seems to be stepping up to the plate. So, although we resisted at first, we kept feeling like this was what the Lord wanted us to pursue.

Although it seems as if we have been spinning our wheels for the last 6 weeks, I finally look up today and see what God has done while I have been wasting time fretting about it all. I see that we have recruited several highly qualified international teachers to teach prep classes on SAT, TOEFL, GRE, and GMAT. We have connected with Kaplan Test Prep to potentially partner with us, and it looks as though they are going to provide ALL of the hundreds of books, resources, and curriculum that we have asked for. We have asked for more classroom space from the government, and they have agreed that we can get another entire wing in the same building as our current office. We have started recruiting students and already have a long list of students wanting to sign up the minute we say “go”. And just today, we received a $50,000 check from some incredibly generous donors to build a first-class computer lab/resource center with about 50 terminals. All this in 6 weeks! We hope to launch the program in April….and it sure seems that God is on our side, so I am hopeful that we will actually meet this goal.

Again, it is times like this when I actually see God putting all the pieces together that I wonder how I even have the nerve to worry. God is good and fulfills His promises…and I hate it that I seem to forget this and have to be reminded so often.

Some of the faces hoping for opportunity...