Tim Foster

Dear Friends,

Celebrate with Us!

February 24 marks the 70th anniversary of Christian Mission for the Deaf. Truly, the Lord has been gracious to us, and it is a privilege to continue serving Him through this unique ministry to the deaf in Africa.

We currently have several pressing needs at our school in Chad, located on the edge of the Sahara Desert. The water pump that was installed about 15 years ago has been deteriorating for some time and needed replacement. We thank God that we were able to rebuild it last month and maintain this precious resource.

Another need relates to our new multi-purpose building, which serves both the deaf church and the school. Until recently, we had been making do with aging furniture from our previous building, much of which was in poor condition. We are thrilled that Mission Project Fellowship has stepped in to help meet this need. They have raised more than $4,000 to purchase chairs for the building. Praise God for that!

Director Pililo reports that the border between Uvira (DR Congo) and Burundi has reopened now that the militia group M23 has withdrawn from Uvira. For the many weeks that the border was closed, desperate Congolese attempted dangerous crossings into Burundi, often lashing together plastic jerrycans or air-filled trash bags to float across the river that separates the two countries. According to a report by the BBC, more than 20 people are known to have drowned during these attempts.

One of our former students, Debaba Esimba, has recently started a school for the deaf in the small town of Luvungi, near the Burundi border. In order to maintain connections with family, friends, and students, he has made the river crossing several times. He sent me several photos and videos of people attempting the crossing. We are thankful that he has been able to travel in relative safety. We are also grateful that conditions in Uvira and the surrounding region are beginning to stabilize now that M23 has withdrawn from that region. However, the situation farther north in Bukavu and Goma remains very unstable, as M23 still maintains a presence there.

Truly, your prayers are coveted.

Tim Foster
Director

M23, a Congolese militia group in the eastern province of Kivu, has relaxed their hold in the region. They’ve withdrawn from the city of Uvira, where we have a school for the deaf. A few months ago, we were concerned that they would continue southward and take over the city of Baraka, where we have another school. Thankfully, this never happened. As they withdraw and move back northward, we’re hopeful that official government and police will return to the region and that life will go back to normal. Pray for our Brothers and Sisters in Bukavu and Goma, two major cities in the Kivu province. M23 has not relaxed their grip on those cities, and life there is still very difficult.

We’re grateful that Mission Projects Fellowship has agreed to help us with a special fund-raising project in Chad. Our new multi-purpose building is in dire need of new furniture, and MPF is helping to raise $4,270 towards the cost of 200 new chairs for the sanctuary. We’re excited to see this project reach maturity. Pray with us that this endeavor will be successful and the chairs will be received and put in service soon.

In Baraka, we’re also in need of new furniture for our classrooms. Despite rising costs of construction during Covid, we were able to complete the construction of the six new classrooms and administrative office. Unfortunately, that left no money for furniture. Enrollment has doubled since we’ve moved from our previous location, and our staff and students have had to make do with the meager furnishings from our old building. Students have to squeeze tightly on benches, or sit on the floor during class. We were hoping that a local Norwegian NGO would help sponsor this project, but that has yet to materialize. Pray that this need will met soon.

Indeed, your prayers are coveted.

Tim Foster
Director

Dear Friends,

I’ve just returned from two weeks in Kitwe, Zambia. What an awesome time! Although we have many Congolese pastors and evangelists who are grateful for the theological training we provide, sometimes I feel some of the advanced training that we offer could use better local long-term structure and support. But providing this kind of structure is a challenge, and any attempt to do so has been complicated by the recent surge of civil strife in the eastern Congo. Quite out of the blue, God answered our prayers in September by introducing us to Central African Baptist University (CABU), in Kitwe, Zambia. They have an amazing passion for reaching the deaf with the Gospel! Not only do they have several deaf students enrolled (and full-time interpreters on staff), they also offer a 2-year Deaf Ministries program for their hearing students. I’ve never heard of such a thing in Africa! We don’t run into anything remotely like CABU in the countries where we minister to the deaf; it seemed almost too good to be true. What an exciting reminder that God’s plans are better than my own!

Not only is CABU an excellent accredited institution, but their doctrinal standards are impeccable, and their vision for evangelism and church planting humbled me. I attended their EQUIP conference in the first week of December (featuring speakers like Conrad Mwebe, Tim Challies, HB Charles, and more), and in the 2nd week, I taught a block class to the students in the Deaf Ministries program. I had about 35 students in the “Foundations of Deaf Ministries” class, and it was a fun mix of lecture and hands-on practical application. We explored methods of communicating complex doctrinal material to deaf audiences with limited vocabulary- which is typical for many deaf believers and pastors alike.

CABU also has a Theological Seminary by Extension (TSE) program, bringing theology classes to remote churches across Central and South Africa. The material they’ve developed for this program looks like it will be a good fit with several programs that we’ve been developing for our deaf ministers.

I’m excited at the prospects that lay ahead of us as we continue to forge a deeper relationship with CABU, and start preparing some of our deaf leaders to enroll!

Truly, your prayers are coveted.

Tim Foster
Director

Dear Friends,

The militia group, M23, continues to expand their control over the Kivu province in the DR Congo. And with their spread, violence follows. Their most recent expansion pressed southward from Bukavu, and took over the city of Livungi. Surely they’re going to contiue southward towards Uvira. We have a school in Uvira, so pray with us that things will settle down soon.

One of our deaf graduates from our school in Uvira, Fazili Esimba, has established his own school for the deaf in Livungi several years ago. He has about 20 students. With M23 headed his direction, he had to shut down his school and quickly evacuate his students to safe smaller towns in the outlying region. The carnage in the wake of M23 is grim. In one of the videos Fazili sent me, about 30 people could be seen lying in the street and gutters, chopped down by either bullets or machetes. Sadly, most of the murdered people in the video were women and children. Pray for Fazili and his students that they will be able to quickly relocate everyone to safety, and will be able to escape harm.

Shindano Andre, the assistant director at our school in Uvira, is finally headed home after having been poisoned and kidnapped by gangs in September. His brother was able to raise the funds necessary to get him released after several weeks, and he has been in the hospital ever since his release. Now that his health is stabilized, he is heading back to Uvira, but with M23 headed their way, we’re going to be in for a rough ride for quite some time.

In Bukavu, food is scarce, but our staff has been able to find food and supplies by networking with other Christians nearby. Peace can’t come soon enough.

Truly, your prayers are coveted.

Tim Foster
Director

Dear Friends,

In the DR Congo, things have still not returned to normal in the cities of Goma and Bukavu. M23 has chased out any presence of official law enforcement, so thugs and bandits continue to wreak havoc all over the region. At our school in Panzi, on the south side of Bukavu, Director Nanza was hoping to start classes on the 1st of September, but the insecurity in the city is making it difficult to maintain any reliable kind of schedule, and parents are reluctant to bring their kids to school. In Goma, some of our friends have had to move across the border into the country of Rwanda just to stay safe. Continue praying with us for peace in the region.

In Baraka, the new school year is off to a fresh start. Official enrollment has hit 103 students, praise God! One of the newest additions to the school was brought in after the school year started. The father was embarrassed to admit that he had known of the school for several years, but didn’t think his deaf daughter was worth the effort to bring to school. Somehow, his daughter had learned of the school and insisted that her father enroll her. So he sheepishly brought her to school for the first time at the age of 15. Now she’s set: within a few months she will learn to read and write the alphabet, learn her own name for the first time, and eventually learn the name of Jesus Christ! Your faithful support is how we’re able to repeat little miracles like this!

We’re happy to report that construction of our two-story multi-purpose building has resumed in N’Djamena, Chad. We’ve had a couple of dry months of sparse funding, so we’re thankful to get the ball rolling again. The first floor is complete and already in good use, and we were able to add doors and plasterwork on the second floor.

An opportunity has come up for me to teach a block class on deaf ministry at the Central Baptist University in Kitwe, Zambia. The university is perhaps the first accredited African university to have a program for deaf ministry, and they’ve asked me to teach a session in December. It will be a first for me to teach at a university, so I’m looking forward to it.

Truly, your prayers are coveted.

Tim Foster
Director

Dear Friends,

We’re thankful that a peace deal has been brokered between DR Congo and Rwanda. The violence of M23’s takeover of the cities of Goma and Bukavu have directly affected our school and ministries in both cities, and brought social turmoil all across the region. The official peace deal is definitely a step in the right direction, but there’s still a long way to go as local peace has not been reestablished and there still is no real police presence in the cities. We’re still getting reports from our friends and local workers that violence is rampant, and it’s common for people to be kidnapped and held for ransom for a few psaltry dollars. Continue to pray for peace in the area, and that control of the region will soon revert back to the official government.

We still have a few challenges ahead of us regarding our video conference teaching sessions that we’ll be doing in lieu of our annual Congo Bible Camp. Pray for wisdom as we iron out the last remaining details of the logistics of putting on a multi-campus conference where participants have unreliable electricity and Internet service.

Our new construction in N’Djamena, Chad has been in a holding patten for the past couple of months. The Afri-Deaf Foundation, started by graduates from our Nigeria school for the deaf, has been instrumental in shouldering the costs of the construction for the past few months, but they’ve run into some hard times and have had to scale back their support. Pray with us that others will step in to fill in the gap.

Truly, your prayers are coveted.

Tim Foster
Director

Dear Friends,

My oldest brother, Andy Foster, passed away on July 5th. Although he has had issues with heart for a number of years, his heart attack caught us all by surprise. We were glad to have his family with us for a week during the funeral, as it’s been a number of years since we’ve been together. It was a good time of re-forging family ties, and ministering to them in their time of need. I was honored to give the sermon at the funeral, and talk about what God has done in his life, and to impress on us all what Andy, now in the afterlife, would want us to know about God and God’s will for our lives. He has five young adult children, two of whom are growing in their knowledge of the Lord. Keep them in your prayers.

We’re thankful to our Lord to see continued progress with our schools in Nigeria, Chad, and the DR Congo. The 2024-2025 school year is now over, and our students have taken their year-end exams. For those completing Primary 6 and Secondary 6, it’s a big event. The exams are administdered by the state, and their passing scores are celebrated with great fanfare. The reports are just now coming in, but so far the results are very good.

Another bit of sad news: Laoukein Gaston, a hearing pastor and long time friend of CMD passed away last month. He made a great impression on my father when they met back in the early ‘80s. Laoukein wasted no time responding to God’s call to minister to the deaf. He was dearly beloved by the deaf community in Chad and will be sorely missed.

Due to civil unrest between the Congo and Rwanda, we’ve called off our annual Congo Bible Conference, and will be trying online options in the next few weeks. In the mean time, our Chad churches are planning on having a special confernce during the same time frame, but will be meeting in person. It’s a lot to plan, and I’m excited to see how all of it will come about.

Truly, your prayers are coveted.

Tim Foster
Director

Dear Friends,

Meet Nakayo. She was born deaf 85 years ago and grew up in a remote Congolese village with no access to education.

People often don’t realize that while hearing children naturally acquire language at home before they reach kindergarten, deaf children, especially in developing countries, rarely learn sign language from their parents. Instead, they must be taught language skills in a specialized school. Because there were no such schools near Nakayo’s village, she never had the opportunity to learn sign language, let alone learn to read or write. Even today, her communication is limited to basic hand gestures. The only work available to her has been menial labor and subsistence farming. Despite these challenges, God has blessed her with a husband, 11 children, and 22 grandchildren—yet she cannot hold meaningful conversations with any of them.

Shukuru, the director of our school for the deaf in Baraka, DR Congo, met Nakayo during one of his trips through the remote Fizi province, searching for deaf kids to enroll in our school. At her age, Nakayo is too old, too tired, and too busy to begin school. But by God’s grace, we are working to ensure that future generations of deaf children do not grow up without language, literacy, or access to the Gospel. Your prayerful support makes it possible for us to reach deaf children with a quality education—and, most importantly, reach them with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

We’re very thankful for the recent peace treaty between Rwanda and the DR Congo brokered by the Trump administration. It remains to be seen what this will bring about long term, but for now, it’s a step in the right direction, and for that we’re thankful. Please continue to pray with us for our schools and churches in the Kivu province, where civil unrest is intense.

In Chad, director Yves Beosso reports that their generator is on its last leg. The campus has had electrity from the city of N’Djamena for several years, but it is very unreliable, and outages that can last days and weeks at a time. Since the generator can be expensive to operate, a more reliable approach would be to get a small-scale solar rig that can power several administrative offices with about 1,000 watts of power. The expected cost is about $2,500. Also, the campus water pump is beginning to wear out. We had it installed about 20 years ago, and the casing is at the point that it needs to be replaced. Pray with us that God will provide the funds for thse projects.

Truly, your prayers are coveted.

Tim Foster
Director

Dear Friends,

We now have a new way for donors to give online! If your bank offers Zelle digital payments, you can donate to us at donations@cmdeaf.org. This option is free, secure, fast, and convenient, and it is better than our online donation option on our website (www.CMDeaf.org/donate). We still offer online donations from our website, but that option uses PayPal to process the transactions, and PayPal charges a small fee per transaction. There are several advantages of Zelle over PayPal: Zelle deposits the funds directly into our primary bank account, and the service is completely free for both the donor and the recipient. So if you’re able to send donations via Zelle, we certainly encourage you to use Zelle instead of our website or traditional donations sent by checks to our PO box.

Thank you for your continued prayers for the situation in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Things won’t go back to normal as long as the militant group, M23, is in charge. Violence is still rampant because there is no police or military to keep the peace. Despite the hardships, the parents have been gradually letting their deaf children return to school and church, so that’s definitelyl a bit of progress that we’re thankful for. Things are still too dicey for Westerners to travel to the area, so there are no plans to have our annual Congo Bible Camp this August.

In Uvira, we’re still continuing forward with construction on our new school building. Finding timely supplies is a challenge due to the civil unrest caused by M23 in the major cities just north of Uvira, but God is gracious, and we’re able to continue along.

A few months ago, some bandits broke into our school in Baraka and stole all the electronics in the director’s office: printer, fan, solar chargers, battery system, etc. The total cost of the stolen items was over $500. Normally, the parents of a school like ours would expect the foreigners (us) to replace all the equipment. With our encouragement, the parents took up a collection and have committed to paying for most of the equipment. We’re thankful to God for the change in their disposition, and their willingness to be more involved with the operations of the school.

Truly, your prayers are coveted.

Tim Foster

Director