Welcome to Ministry For Deaf!
Across all age groups, approximately 6,000,000 people in the DRC Congo are Deaf. Many people do not consider Deafness to be a disability. Since Deaf people have their own language with distinctive cultural and linguistic features, many Deaf people consider their communicative abilities to be fully thriving. There isn’t any dioceses and archdioceses in the DRC Congo that have Deaf Apostolates or diocesan offices, which engage Deaf culture. But our only Diocesan offices in Uvira Diocese coordinate the active participation of Deaf people in weekly liturgies, the sacraments, faith formation, and youth ministry. In our Church today, few ordained priests and deacons are Deaf but have to serve the ever-increasing Catholic Population in the remote locations.
What would your life be like if you could not communicate with others or hear them talking to you? The deaf in Congo are often isolated, unable to attend school, unable to understand church services. They are largely unreached with the Gospel. All current missionary and educational work amongst the deaf is missing in Congo
We conducted a survey to find out all we could about the deaf in Uvira Diocese, the province of South Kivu, in the east of the DRC Congo . We discovered deaf communities totally unevangelized and all floundering spiritually. God helped us to find two faithful hearing Christians who learned the sign language and We are happy to engage them in an effort to bring the Gospel to these beloved deaf people who have never heard but They CAN hear, with their eyes and hands!
we are doing all we can to the Deaf Community bringing the Good News that Jesus loves them and wants to become their Savior and Lord. As people come to faith, we hope to organize them into a countrywide Community dedicated to the deaf and hope to educate the Deaf Orphabs and Girl-Child and help many of them get vocational training, employment, and some kind of education. The needs are many. Your prayers and financial gifts can help.
DEAFNESS | DEAF CULTURE.
The Christian life bears fruit in communion; in faith, hope and charity shared between persons on our common journey towards communion with God. When one or more of the five senses is impaired, the natural means to achieve and sustain such a communion is weakened, but the desire for it remains and is, if anything, increased by the very fact that the challenges are so real.
The Catholic Ministry for the Deaf exists in this context, to provide the means to build communion among the Deaf and between the Deaf and the wider community, to make real that beautiful truth of the Catholic faith; that we are never alone. The community is made up of individuals of great strength, the challenge is seeing our greatest strength not in ourselves alone but in the community as a unified whole. To achieve this, the community needs to transcend the functional role that it naturally fulfils, and be a place and a people where it is okay not to be strong because we find our strength in the other, and ultimately in the Lord. As we shape the future of the community around the pillars of prayer, formation, and service, it is my hope that by the grace of God we will soon be able to achieve this.