May 28, 2007

Dear Friends in the United States,

In the 2007 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study (your church probably has a copy), there is a story about “Beatrice” in São Paulo. She is a profoundly deaf woman whose disability was apparently not understood by her mother. She became a street child at a very young age and succeeded in staying alive, in part, by prostitution. When she came to the attention of CISM, a city-funded NGO, she knew only her first name, had forgotten her mother’s name and address, lacked an identity document and could barely communicate her most basic needs. CISM persuaded a judge to issue an identity document that was of necessity based entirely on fiction: She acquired a mother’s name, a birth date 42 years ago, and her own last name. With the ID she was able to acquire two very strong hearing aids without charge from the government. One of the women at CISM became her legal guardian and helped her to buy a shack and make it habitable in a shantytown on the eastern perimeter of São Paulo. In the meantime CISM trained Beatrice to be a fine artisan. She produces high quality sewn and woven items that are sold in fairs in which CISM participates.

Beatrice only recently began school, where she is one of seven deaf adult students. Her guardian reports that Beatrice is academically behind the other students, who presumably had more fortunate backgrounds.

We have been very aware that Beatrice has great difficulty in speaking. She can hear somewhat since she acquired the hearing aids a couple of years ago. But hearing and speaking are two distinct skills—just ask this mission co-worker who still has problems hearing and mimicking all the Portuguese sounds! The language challenge is of course more profound when a 42-year-old begins to hear for the first time. Her current school is beginning to teach her sign language, which certainly helps her social life among some other people who are deaf, but has distinctly limited usefulness if she is to be able to sell her marvelously made products with the other women from CISM.

Beatrice’s guardian has been trying unsuccessfully for some time to find a place for her in a school that teaches people how to speak. By happy accident, I walk once a week with a woman whose daughter is a professor in the University of São Paulo’s phono-audiology department. (This is not the first time that being a mission co-worker has given me useful access to different classes in the highly stratified Brazilian society.) Today my walking partner’s daughter gave us a letter of introduction to the special school, which we hope will mean additional opportunity for Beatrice.

Last Friday, as I accompanied Beatrice to be audio tested at the university—it was more than an hour-long city bus ride—I saw that she was working on sums. She carefully wrote two numbers, both sevens, one above the other, with a plus sign at the side. She stared at it, made motions like erasing a blackboard, and finally wrote her (correct) answer. I leaned over and wrote two more numbers, six and seven, for her to add. That was much more difficult. But she got it right. And she and I continued for some time. This is clearly an intelligent woman, struggling with basic sums! I thought, how on earth would I have learned, or even today, how could I—or anyone—do math without saying in our heads what the numbers are, without saying “six plus seven” (or some variation on that)? Yet she is clearly learning—math and so much else. It is thrilling to watch.

Before Beatrice started her classes, I became impatient with waiting and tried to begin instruction by making flash cards with picture of a dog, a cat, a baby, etc. and the appropriate word in Portuguese written longhand and computer printed on the back. This exercise made no sense to Beatrice. And I decided that it wouldn’t make sense for a Brazilian to learn to speak even a few words in Portuguese with an American accent. But the experience made the success with math even more satisfying.

I thank all of you in Presbyterian Churches who support long-term mission work. Much of what I do is less immediately gratifying than my small interventions in Beatrice’s life. Most of last week, for example, I spent working over a proposed contract with another city government, not exactly inspired, but necessary for another project that deals with shelters for women whose lives are threatened by domestic violence. In a fundamental way your mission support is an expression of a faith that makes all our lives—yours in the United States and those of very poor women here—intertwined. Thank you.

Warm Brazilian abraços (hugs),

Linnis

The 2007 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 41