COURAGE,
DETERMINATION
Missionary Biographical Sketch
Of
Andrew Jackson Foster
(1925---1987)
Kenneth Yali Diouf
Andrew Jackson Foster
Missionary Biographical Sketch
Copyright © 2007 Kenneth Yali Diouf
All rights reserved. No part of this book should be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the Publishers.
ISBN:
Published in the Federal Republic of Nigeria, by High Calling Outreach Publications, Port Harcourt.
High Calling Outreach Publications is the publishing arm of the High Calling Outreach, a literature evangelism ministry, which distributes Christian literature and garners support for battered women, abused widows and the destitute.
All trade orders to:
High Calling Outreach Publications,
4 Ndashi Street, D/Line,
Port Harcourt, Rivers State,
Nigeria. West Africa.
Phone: +234(0)8023648824
E-mail: highcallingoutreach@yahoo.co.uk
Author’s Contact Address:
Kenneth Yali Diouf
E-mail:gospeloperations@yahoo.com
www.freewebs.com/kennethdiouf
Phone: +234(0)8057149258(Text Message)
Printed in the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to the memory of the General Council of Dr. Andrew J. Foster’s missionary organization who worked with him to ensure the success of his program in Africa. They are:
· Owen Fraser, Detroit, Michigan, Chairman
· Stuart Turfus, Flint, Michigan, Vice-Chairman
· Dudley Williams, Detroit, Michigan, Secretary
· Beverly Ranowski, Flint, Michigan, Treasurer
· Jesse Flowers, Grady, Alabama, Member Emeritus
· T. Michael Flowers, Atlanta, Georgia, Member
· Terry Potma, Windsor, Ontario, Member
And to the memory of those many Africans who gave him their co-operation when most of us who benefited from Foster’s work were either not born or were still babies.
To God be the Glory
Jesus is Lord.
P R E F A C E
On Monday, June 6, 2005 I got an e-mail from a lady friend of mine. She is deaf and answers to the name of Miss Folashade Olusegun. Her e-mail runs as follows:
“Our spiritual life is very poor. Truly I felt bad that the deaf world is left out of the Pentecostal movement. The prayer and preaching and devotions in Church are boring and uninteresting. And people are not blessed. Something is lacking in Deaf Church---FIRE, yes, FIRE. You see, spiritual life is life of fire---receiving Jesus. Without fire and continuous burning of it, it is useless and frustrating.
“Though it costs me a lot [in terms of transportation] to attend my Church, still I cannot play with attendance. The benefit far outweighs the cost. I just can’t imagine my life without that church. What pains me is that deafness does not allow me to attend churches as I would have loved to attend their programmes freely.
“Deaf people need revival. They really love and have respect for God if you judge by the way they come to church despite the cost. So let us pray.
“The hearing world is so blessed with anointed pastors and leaders. Really anointing matters. But the deaf lack these. We need to start to pray and fast about this … I know God will reveal things to pray about as we wait on Him. What do you say?
“Moreover, I think we need to start a corporate prayer group for the deaf community. Many things are wrong, but only God can solve them. Do you believe in such prayer? I think it is very important because we may have many wishes and desires, but if not backed up by prayer, especially if one is a child of God, it will not happen…” - Ms Folashade Olusegun (D), Nigeria.
It is critically tremendously sad that such a grief-laden message should come from within the very nest where a famed missionary and educator had spent three decades working among the hearing-impaired with breath-taking accomplishments.
By “nest” I mean Africa; by “famed missionary and educator” I mean late Dr. Andrew Jackson Foster whose biographical sketches from old magazines, newspaper clippings and few newsletters that fell to me make up this booklet.
In the first few months of my association with Dr. Andrew Jackson Foster who brought me to the Christian Mission Centre for the Deaf at Ibadan, he took me and others just arrived from other African nations to his office. Here he showed us photos of himself, his family, deaf schools he had built and pupils he had gathered. We were also shown magazines and some of his missionary newsletters. He gave us brochures/newsletters to read and keep. I have preserved all the documents I received, and have since referred to them occasionally for inspiration. Suddenly after publishing my first book, Diamond in Disability, in 2005, I thought of publishing again his short biographical outlines and newsletters (only two, including his invitation letter to me with promise of offer of special training). Why? Not only because I benefited from his work which rescued me from suffering a wreckage of destiny when I suddenly developed small hearing problems when I was about finishing secondary school, but also because what they contain is wonderful, startling and challenging as well as deeply moving and stimulating. I am tremendously indebted to this simple and humble but great and intelligent Christian missionary.
In Africa, when you get stricken with the disability of deafness at a very early age, or even while in your teens, and you do not have educated parents, and special schools and (white) missionaries are not there for you---to guide, train, and point you to a fountain of hope---the best and wisest option for you is to give up all hope of being soundly educated as far as academic education is concerned. But you stand the indisputable privileges and chances of being espoused to vocational trades like carpentry, fishing, wood-cutting, shoe-making, sales business, truck-pushing, garbage collection, dry-cleaning, bus and beer truck loading, bricklaying, etc. .
If, however, on the other hand, by a stroke of luck you are taken to an elementary school for normal children as a deaf child or youth, you would have a hard time putting up with taunts and derisions from fellow pupils. This is in addition to fiercely bracing yourself up to see that you do not come behind in class. Your self-esteem, self-respect, and self-defence reflexes come on in terrific alertness. You know it is a grim battle. And the possibility that you will come out successful and soundly educated is not always guaranteed. It will all depend on the stuff you are made of and the type of teachers and adults that surround you.
Some such deaf youths emerged dazzlingly successful, having made it to university without once sitting in special school classrooms. Others with less intelligence, less ambition, less concentration, less determination, less drive and less encouragement have emerged rather undeveloped, having really nothing much to show for all their time in hearing schools. Among such could be found those that had, and still have, to undergo remedial tutoring and humiliating repetitions in schools for the deaf at very advanced age. This is usually after they would have left or dropped out of hearing schools.
Children and youths that come on the stage of life and begin to contend with deafness right from either their infancy or teen years will not be eluded by education if the environment where they are localized is equipped with special institutions, caring people and relations, and missionaries to give them love, direction and opportunities.
The influence of Andrew Jackson Foster on the deaf community in Africa is very tremendous; it is not only tremendous but also exceedingly invaluable in terms of human lives he transformed, and whose destiny he changed for good in time and in eternity. A high percentage of the hearing-impaired in Central, East, West, South Africa would not have been where they are today without the unusually committed life of this missionary.
Yet as you survey the nooks and crannies of this community, you cannot find a single full biographical book produced by elements within the fold in memory of their benefactor. His precious memory and life work are being allowed to fossilize gradually, to become nameless entity and negligible relics of history. Schools and Churches he sacrificed himself to establish have been falling in a state of disrepair here and there in Africa. There is no vision to continue in the cultivation of the spirit of unity and harnessing of faith and energy and resources to preserve, strengthen, and build on this rare heritage of education and Gospel blessings bequeathed to the hearing-impaired Africans by Dr. Foster.
So the deaf community, as a result of blurred vision and non-existence of foresight, is now seriously in trouble on all fronts. It is at this juncture that you can be brought to see the picture that obtains as you look again at what Miss Olusegun has said. Let those that sacrifice so much in the hearing-impaired community leave or pass away, and we sink back into the very pits out of which they have sought to lift us up. Our tendency is to trust in greed, corruption, selfishness, division, and lack of vision and strategic organization in outreach. Retired English language teacher, poet and writer, Professor Niyi Osundare, a Nigerian, addressed us all when he stated that we are “not interested in productivity. We are interested in consumption. And it is terrible dependency pathology. What we see has flowed from a sudden and inexcusable national malady… There is money culture, or let us call it monetized culture. Our values are upside down…. It is not the mentality of a people who want to develop. It is not the mentality of a people who want to create.”
In the Nigerian deaf community, much attention is not given to the importance of producing and developing literature that touches on the history and recent issues in the deaf community.
Deaf people in Nigeria have their own distinct cultural identity, peculiar to them alone as elsewhere in the world. Much of this country knows nothing about the deaf and their culture. This explains simply why deaf people in Nigeria are in a sorry state of insignificant integration. Consequently, sometimes, they are neither here nor there, most living without specific and fixed purpose; their leaders have no vision.
Many educated deaf people know nothing about the fundamental history of Deaf Education in this country; they do no know the late Dr. Andrew Jackson Foster who brought education and the gospel to their door steps even before they were born or weaned from their mothers’ breasts.
I just keep wondering when this sleeping community of hearing-impaired people will wake and unite to build literary archives to educate the country and the world at large about their world. If they are busy writing right now in this federation, then the entire country would pause a while, look, and understand that this despised and relegated community must have individuals within it that can become astronauts to join the Americans and the Russians to make historic trips to the moon. Andrew J. Foster had queried, “What can a deaf not do?” He meant you---the deaf African whom he lived to serve.
“Literature”, says Ngugi wa Thiong’o the Kenya writer, “is a nation’s treasure. Literature is the honey of a nation’s soul, preserved for her children to taste forever, a little at a time! A nation that has cast away its literature is a nation that has sold its soul and has been left a mere shell”. It is universally accepted that deaf people are a nation within nations. But much of this nation, in Africa particularly does not cherish the treasure hidden in literature. And we do not cherish it because we are far from knowing enough what literature itself is.
As you can see, the lack of organized production of Nigerian Deaf Literature has left us a mere shell. We do not organize to produce literature to correct ourselves, and to let others correct us, identify us and take notice of us. We do not know our heroes and our villains; the world does not know them either. The world does not have a correct picture of our potentialities. And we do not see ourselves as we ought to, and nor do observers see us as they ought to and therefore can pass neither comments nor corrective remarks based on right information. This is why there are plenty of prejudices against the deaf in many parts of this land.
The deaf community here needs incisive and fiery writers, not corrupt conveners or organizers of meetings that achieve nothing, meetings attended mostly by the deaf on whose intelligence corrupt leaders play foolish pranks, meetings designed to deceive, cheat, and flatter some of us and certain dignitaries. We want writers---recorders of history, producers of educative, burning and corrective literature. We have no interest in partnering with those who call us to attend meetings that lead nowhere except result in confusion, greedy money-grabbing, fighting, and whatever fuels ungodliness in Deaf Clubs and Deaf Associations.
Deaf youths have spoken to me, and said: “Young writer, listen to us now: we are not fools any more to follow deceitful leaders with evil machinations, and who engage in official robbery and executive extortion. Some of them attend international conferences, symposia, workshops, etc.; they live fat on embezzled funds they have extorted in our name from governments and private companies. When some of us go to them and inform that we need their assistance to secure visas for international trips to conferences of the deaf, they would ask us to pay some money to them to secure documents for us from foreign embassies. Helpless and uninformed and inexperienced as we are, we pay. Our money goes to them, but in most cases we never get the services we have paid for; embassies would reject us. Then when they are back, they would sit down to prepare hypocritical reports for dissemination to us and the sponsors (governments and companies) whose money they are hiding from us; they would appear as if they are going to implement here at home what they have seen among the developed deaf people in Asia and Europe. These reports we read are good, but they make us angry with our leaders; do you hear us, young writer? We do not have to go into details here; you, young writer, know what we mean. What these leaders are doing is take their deceit and corruption to greater heights; it rather exposes them, and they do not know it. That is their shame. We do not love them; we do not respect them; we even curse them sometimes---because it is our name they use to acquire most of the luxury they enjoy today. They come out daring to call themselves our leaders even while thousands of us---deaf youths--- in this nation live in hell every day on this planet earth as if there are no registered associations for the deaf to defend and promote our cause. Do you call this leadership and servant-hood? Some of us will learn to write like you one of these days. For now write to tell everybody that while they steal and neglect the sacred trust of leadership, they should remember they will give account to Almighty God for all the stolen and misappropriated funds of our national and regional associations of the deaf. …”
Through my wide and deep interaction and association with deaf youths in different States and geo-political zones in Nigeria, I came to realize that there is among them the search for a role model, a hero, with impeccable love, courage, commitment and honesty. They need someone to follow, to imitate; someone to lead and help them take bold decisions that would place them where they ought to be for a better tomorrow. Such a sought-after role model they should like to be one of their own---a deaf person. But will such a leader or role model emerge seeing the deaf community has tarnished, damaged, and destroyed its reputation through shameful and scandalous practices? Deaf youths are now faced with a disastrous future. “For from the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it: but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment” (Isaiah 1:6). So it will take more than unusual divine intervention to rescue deaf youths of this nation from self-constructed pitfalls
Our prayer is that God will use this booklet to capture the hearts of both deaf and hearing youths, arrest their attention, and inspire them toward redemptive heroic deeds in evangelism and education. If we do not “catch them young” what do we hope to garner from the womb of the future in terms of the preservation of righteousness and sound judgment in society?
And we also hope that God will speak through this booklet to us to re-consecrate ourselves, turn to God and implore Him for mercy, restoration, renewal, and revival because of our coldness and neglect of a precious heritage. We need to wake up from that unholy slumber that takes away from us the spirit of praise, thanksgiving and prayerfulness. There is need for a revival of the spirit of prayer among us to motivate us to pray for the survival/restoration of the fields across Africa left behind by Dr. Foster. May the Holy Spirit lead us each to adopt for prayer on regular basis at least one field so that the deaf there will be rescued from darkness that is overwhelming them. Who knows? God may even call you and me one day to move to the fields we pray for, and labour there as missionaries. (Please choose one African field or country in this material to pray for daily. These timeless newsletters show us their needs.)
Dr. Foster was a man of praise and prayer. This is very evident in his newsletters. You hear him calling us to give thanks, praise God, and pray---continue to pray. He had a four-pronged strategy which that spirit of thanksgiving and praise nurtured and strengthened. He knew he could not do all the work alone, so he trained others and delegated responsibility and authority. This aided his success in Africa.
We may have knowledge, intelligent organization and strategy, but if we are spiritually dumb, our labour for God will flop.
No one can read these missionary field reports/newsletters and not feel guilty for his or her coldness toward the Great Commission. One might as well be scolded by one’s conscience for not being interested in soul-winning and self-sacrifice.
In future, as soon as we get old materials coming our way, we hope to enlarge and improve on this booklet, and produce many more copies for distribution among students and missionaries, Church workers and those ministering to the hearing-impaired and other disabled people. They will find this small biography an inspiration.
It is now 50 years since late Andrew J. Foster set foot on African soil(1957-2007) to begin leading the deaf in Africa to independence from the colonization of education-lessness and gospel-lessness. This is our Jubilee. Today we are free from darkness and the heavy chains of illiteracy and multiple other deadly evils.
I thank God for the inspiration to produce this booklet on this Jubilee. It was not until I finished writing the book that God drew my attention through a book I was editing in my room in the evening of August 12 for one pastor speaking on the subject of jubilee and the importance for individuals and institutions to celebrate the 50th anniversary of special occurrence or development in their lives. As I read, proofread and edited the book, the pastor asked questions like: “will you be 50 years old soon?” “Do you know any institutions that will be 50 years old this year or next year?” I smiled because I was not going to be 50 yet. Then my ming started hovering over friends of mine who might soon clock 50. There was none. Next my mind hovered over the deaf community---and I remembered Foster! I reached out for the manuscript of this book and looked into it. I read that Andrew Foster visited Liberia, Nigeria, and Ghana in 1957.
A voice asked me, “How many years now since Foster came to Nigeria---and Africa in general?”
“It is 50 years now”, I replied
“Are you deaf people in Nigeria and the whole of Africa mindful of this landmark development and celebrating your jubilee?”
“I have not heard anything yet. There is no jubilee talk going on among us presently. Most of us do not even know what jubilee is.” This was the reply I returned to the voice.
“Is this good? Aren’t you deaf people still blind despite what I did for you all through my servant Foster?”
This question disturbed me greatly, and I saw that we still lacked the spirit of appreciation and gratitude… But I comforted myself with the thought that after all it is in this year 2007 that I have had the inspiration to turn out this book in precious memory of Foster.
This is my celebration of the jubilee of Foster’s landing on my soil in Africa.
Praise the Lord.
Kenneth Yali Diouf
August 15, 2007
Port Harcourt, Nigeria
Christian Mission for the Deaf
Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy. – Romans 11: 31
P.O.Box 1254 – Flint Michigan 48501 – 1254 U.S.A.
Nairobi, 17-1-87
Mr.Kenneth M.Yali Diouf
S/C Papa Diouf, Agent Special
Sous-Prefecture De Konni
Konni, Tahoua(Rep. of Niger)
Dear Yali,
Thanks for your undated letter which reached me here in Kenya.
Provided the information is true as stated in your letter, we hereby offer you special training at our Christian Centre for the Deaf in Ibadan. Therefore, enclosed, please find the following:
Letter offering special training
Letter of acceptance
Questionnaire
Directions to our Centre
May we look forward to your arriving at our Centre in Ibadan on April 3, 1987, D.V.? For future correspondence, please use the address above. Thanks and best wishes.
Sincerely yours,
Andrew Foster
COURAGE,
DETERMINATION
HAVE PAID OFF FOR FOSTER
The Pittsburg Courier (Detroit edition)
June 30, 1956
Determination, we suppose, has been the guiding force in Andrew J. Foster’s life. It has kept him plugging when lesser men would long since have given up the ghost and reconciled themselves to begging for alms or thrown them into an institution for the handicapped. For since he was 11 years old, Foster has lived in a world of silence. At that age he was struck down with spinal meningitis and became totally deaf.
It was then that determination took over. He enrolled the following September in the Alabama School for the Deaf and finished the eight (8th) grade. There he learned Sign Language and in his own words “learned all there was available to learn” at the school.
In the past five years Foster, 30, has acquired three college degrees, a rather unusual attainment.
He left school when he was 16, and began to work. His jobs have included work in restaurants, bakeries, laundries, truck driving and factory work here as a stock handler, riveter, foundry, machine shop, inspector and department clerk.
He started to become a professional fighter, or a scholar of a sort. “But somehow I could not reconcile the idea of getting what was in my head knocked out as fast as I could put it in,” he said. “Ever since I first started to work, my thoughts were constantly on further schooling. I leap-frogged from one night school to another.”
He enrolled in night school at the Detroit Institute of Commerce, but realizing the great void between elementary school and Business College, he immediately took a complete high school course by correspondence. He took this along with his business college work.
But the hard work paid off. For in 1950 he was graduated from the business college with double honors – for scholarship and determination to succeed despite handicap. The following year, he received a high school diploma from the correspondence school.
His burning desire for an education did not stop there. He received a full four-year congressional scholarship to Gallaudet College (Washington, D.C.) – the world’s only college for the deaf.
By studying the year around – regular term at Gallaudet and summer sessions at Hampton Institute – he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in education in three years.
He made the summer switch to Hampton (a non-deaf institution of higher learning) successfully by simply sitting in the classroom next to “the brightest students, copying their notes,” studying the textbooks like mad and consulting with the professors.
The Michigan Office of Vocational Rehabilitation arranged for him to do graduate work at Michigan State Normal College, Ypsilanti, and he acquired a Master’s of Arts degree in education in June, 1954.
One week later, he enrolled at the Seattle Pacific College, Seattle, Wash., in the Department of Religion, and majoring in missions and education. He finished there this June.
And what was the purpose of acquiring all this book learning? Foster explains it thus: “For 13 years since I was 17 I have been known as something of a preacher or evangelist to the deaf. I have taught Bible classes, conducted church services, done evangelistic work in a few cities and assisted the deaf in their religious, social and economic problems.
“The deaf in Africa had long been a concern to me. While pursuing the business course, it was my intention to follow that career for a few years, and then work in the same capacity for a foreign business enterprise or mission board in Africa while preaching to the deaf on the side.
“But shortly after graduation from the business college, I discovered that there are no schools for the deaf there, except in the politically troubled Northern and Southern portions. So, I deemed it wise to turn toward the Christian education field.
“I want to establish schools for the deaf in West, Central and East Africa. I’ve already organized a foreign mission board (it is the ‘Christian Mission for the Deaf Africans,’ located at 11704 Griggs)”, he explained.
Asked how he would finance the actual setting up of schools in the places named, he answers simply “only through free will offerings”.
Foster has approached almost every philanthropic organization in the country in an effort to secure a fellowship for study of the present educational opportunities of the deaf in relation to the people’s attitudes, cultures, governments, etc., with an eye to establishing the education missions in Africa. But everyone gave him the cold shoulder, politely, but firmly saying no. These include the Ford Foundation, the Phelps – Stokes Fund, Fullbright, etc.
He now is currently dickering with UNESCO of the United Nations. He hopes something will come of this.
A tall, muscular young man, Foster is not to be pushed aside easily. He already has received a large amount of communication from a number of Africans and West Indies Negroes expressing sympathy with his program and requesting the opportunity to work with him. These responses came when Foster, who never overlooks a detail, published a letter in an African publication, requesting Christian Africans to work with him.
He lives with a married sister when he comes to Detroit. Single, energetic, Foster was asked if he intends to marry. “Don’t have time right now,” he grinned. “Don’t even have time for a steady girl”.
DEAF WITNESS
(NEWSLETTER)
Vol. 25, No. 2
April–June 1986
And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses the same commit thou to faithful men, who, shall be able to teach others also (II Timothy 2:2).
OPERATION TIMOTHY
Dear Praying Friends,
God is greatly using national Christian co-workers in educating and evangelizing their fellow deaf Africans. Let us introduce you to a few of them. Asuka Badongola, Kinshasa/Zaire (Central Africa): Asuka, deaf since infancy, grew up in a R.C.[Roman Catholic] school and ran a small tailoring shop. “Hearing” the word of God for the first time at our mission’s (CMD’s) new ministry in 1979, he soon accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior and was among the first converts baptized. Eventually, his wife too. In 1981, he was given practical training in teaching and evangelizing the deaf at CMD’s Center in Ibadan, Nigeria. Ever since, more than all others he has diligently taught deaf children in our day school and older youths and adults in the evening. At Sunday and mid-week services, he takes turns ministering to 70 to 100 deaf children and adults. Until we were able to buy a motorbike recently, he walked 10 kilometers home every night, long after buses had stopped rolling. He has led many souls to Jesus Christ and has recommended several other “Timothies” to us. Surely, God is using Asuka in big ways.
Daniel Njihia John, Kapsabet/Kenya (East Africa): Becoming deaf in early childhood, Daniel attended A.I.M.’s school for the deaf in Kapsabet and, for a while, hearing churches. Moved to the big city, Nairobi, worked as a tailor and married a hearing young lady. Attended our first Gospel meeting in 1978. Later brought to CMD’s Center in Nigeria, where he learned the way of salvation more plainly, total communication, evangelizing the deaf, etc. Returning home and resuming his job, he immediately began to hold Bible meetings for the deaf in his small one-room home. After a couple of years, he was encouraged to consider Bible training and full time ministry to the deaf. Consequently, under CMD’s sponsorship, he entered A.I.M.’s Bible College, on the same campus as his childhood school. This month, he began his third and final year. While in Bible College, he organized Sunday school for 140 plus students at the nearby deaf school. Also taught total communication to the students as well as their teachers. During Easter weekend, he conducted Kenya’s first-ever camp for deaf children. Then sacrificed part of his month-long Easter vacation to develop the new ministry we are planning at Mombasa, on the east coast. God willing, he is launching still another meeting at Eldoret, his home town. Many souls have been saved and some baptized. Certainly, the Lord is using Daniel in big ways, too!
Innocent Clombessi, Abidjan/Ivory Coast (West Africa): A native of Benin, “Innocent” dropped out of high school after losing his hearing. Idleness and despondency followed for several years. Victor Vodounou, one of our “Timothies” in Cotonou, Benin, told him about CMD. Later Innocent was brought to Nigeria, taught the Word of God, leadership training, led to Jesus Christ and baptized. Of his fancy R.C. forename, he loves to say: “Now I am really ‘Innocent’ through the blood of Jesus Christ.” Since training, he has done supervisory and evangelistic work in both Nigeria and Cameroon. Last summer he was assigned to revive and build up Gospel work in Ivory Coast. The Sunday and mid-week meetings in Abidjan promptly rose to 45 youths and adults. He also teaches S.S. to some 70 children at the deaf in Yopougon. During Easter weekend, he conducted camp for 45 deaf persons, with 30 professions of faith and 3 later baptized. And he has found half dozen young “Timothy” helpers. Obviously, God is using Innocent in grand ways also.
Training Spirit-Filled Christian Nationals, deaf as well as hearing, to educate and evangelize deaf Africans has been our main emphasis during these 30 years. Around 200 have been trained directly and indirectly. Indeed, we do want and need foreign missionaries. But the Lord has given us a greater vision for “native missionaries”. Christian nationals are better suited to the climate, culture, language, and changing political and economic conditions. Dr. Bob Finley, founder/president of Christian Aid Mission, which stresses indigenous workers, too, says, it takes over $25,000 to equip and send out a missionary for one year, as against about $1,000 for a “native missionary”. We, too, believe your material investment in the Lord’s work may go about 25 times farther this way.
God willing, this year we are burdened to train around two scores (40) new “Timothies” in Nigeria: 30 at our 11th annual summer course for new teachers from various French-speaking Africa countries, costing approximately $1,150 each; 7 to 10 (including 5 from Ethiopia) at S.I.M.’s Bible College and Seminary at approximately $2,000 each; plus Daniel in Kenya, Ernest in Zambia and several more at our Nigeria Center. The deaf in Africa badly need these and many more Timothies.
But we are really up against a wall: The funds just aren’t there: So, we would value your prayer and financial help for “OPERATION TIMOTHY”, as the Lord leads. Yea, “God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work” (II Corinthians 9:8).
YOUR MISSIONARIES
In March, our home assembly, Bethany-Pembroke in Detroit, held a triple celebration. It was CMD’s 30th milestone; your missionaries’ 25th anniversary wedding anniversary; and Bethany’s 20th (or so) annual “Fosters’ Day Missionary Rally”. Bro. Owen Fraser, Bethany’s “Resident Worker” and CMD’s Board Chairman, MCed the affair splendidly. Bro. T. Michael Flowers, of Atlanta, GA, Founder/President of the Southern Gospel Mission Association, pioneer of Several Afro assemblies in the Southeast, and new CMD Board Member, gave a stirring address, Choirs, a soloist and deaf signing singers challenged the large crowd with mission-related songs. And yours truly recounted the development of CMD in Africa with a slides presentation. In the end, at least 3 persons dedicated themselves to the Lord’s services. As a family, we were overwhelmed by the occasion, and especially glad to have all the children home briefly. The Sisters at Dexter Chapel in Flint also gave a beautiful wedding anniversary party. We deeply appreciate the manifestations of love and prayer backing of all.
In May, Berta and I drove to Dubuque for Faith’s graduation from Emmaus Bible College. She earned both the 3-year diploma and 4-year B.S. degree in just 3 years, with a grade point average of 4.0 the last year. Naturally, we praise God and beam with thanks. While in Iowa, we spent almost three weeks speaking in assemblies and encouraging them to start ministries for the deaf in their midst; also Sign Language classes at Emmaus.
As I leave shortly (D.V.), via the Caribbean and South America, for another six months working tour through Africa, please be much in prayer for spiritual, physical, material and family needs. Our sincere love and thanks to all as usual.
Gratefully yours,
Andrew Foster,
General Director
DEAF WITNESS
(NEWSLETTER)
Vol. 27
Special Number 1987
Ye also helping together by prayer for us, that for the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons thanks may be given by many on our behalf (II Corinthians 1:11).
Dear Prayer Helpers:
THE MINISTRY OF PRAYER
There’s a holy, vocation
Needing workers everywhere;
‘Tis the highest from of service,
‘Tis the ministry of prayer.
There’s no weapon half so mighty
As the intercessors bear;
Nor a broader field of service
Than the ministry of prayer.
Are you longing for revivals
In the good old-fashioned way?
We must use old fashioned methods--
Which have always been to pray!
---Herald of His Coming
Special Praise and Prayer Requests
PRAISES:
Thank God for His faithfulness as we of CMD begin our 31st milestone as well as 30th year of service among the deaf in Africa.
Praise Him for over 1,000 deaf children, youths and adults being reached with education and/or Gospel work in some 22 African Countries by around 200 co-workers, mostly Christian Nationals. For perhaps a thousand other reached with literacy and the Word of God during the past 30 years.
Praise Him for the General Director’s successful annual six months’ working tour thru Africa. This time it began with surveying and ministering in 7 Caribbean countries and all of South Africa except Guyana, Suriname, Chile and Argentina.
Praise God for 8 more deaf schools and Bible assemblies we started in 4 African countries.
Praise the Lord for at least 9 more deaf youths baptized in two African countries last year.
Praise Him for the success of our 11th annual summer course in Nigeria for new French-speaking Christian teachers of the deaf. We were able to bring 12 from 5 francophone countries, plus 4 Ethiopian special trainees.
Praise God for the admission of 6 deaf students to ECWA (S.I.M.’s) Seminary and Bible College in Igbaja, Nigeria; 5 of them new and 4 from Ethiopia.
Thank God for His protection over the Foster family: A 2:30 a.m. home burglary Halloween night resulted in some losses but no bodily harm. A two-car accident earlier that month destroyed our only car, with just minor injuries to two of the children. Thank the Lord for a second-hand car gift.
PRAISES:
Ask God to continue to supply our spiritual, physical and material needs as we face another year.
Pray for the salvation of many deaf Africans, our field of labor for 30 years this May, D.V. Pray that we might have the privilege of reaching many more thru the necessary long processes of literacy, communication skills, education and the Gospel.
Pray that God will lay the Christian Mission for the Deaf on the hearts of many more Christians for regular prayer and support.
Pray for the continuing of our annual summer course for new French-speaking Christian teachers of the deaf. Nigeria’s new schooling year may conflict with our dates. Pray anyway for the means to bring and train about 21 candidates from 10 countries.
Pray for the admission and sponsorship of 5 more deaf seminary students to Igbaja.
Pray for passage and support of 7 other deaf trainees in leadership, from as many countries, at our Christian Center for the Deaf in Nigeria.
Pray for adversaries of the Lord’s work. For example, in one country, R.C.’s took over a thriving Bible assembly. When a colleague was distributing Gospel tracts, a priest stopped him, openly and brazenly told the deaf, in signs, to use them for toilet paper! Pray also for Christians who think Rome has changed!
Ask God for a copying machine, snow blower and, of all things, a “lazy-boy” chair for the home end. Also a newer car.
So, dear Praying Friends, let us praise God and pray wholeheartedly for all the foregoing items. Many thanks and a Blessed New Year!
Yours for Christ and the Deaf,
Andrew Foster
General Director
SILENT NEWS
Multiple Anniversaries
For Deaf Mission and Missionaries
Andrew and Berta Foster with their five children.
25th Wedding Anniversary, Detroit Mich., March 1986
Andrew and Berta Foster are unique deaf missionaries to the deaf in Africa. They were honored recently for the 30th anniversary of the Christian Mission for the Deaf, which they largely pioneered, and their own 25th wedding anniversary. The two events were combined with the 20th annual “Foster Day Missionary Rally”, which is held annually by their home church, Bethany-Pembroke Chapel in Detroit.
Pastor Owen F. Fraser, of Bethany-Pembroke, was master of ceremony. And Pastor T. Michael Flowers, from Atlanta, GA, was the guest speaker. Both are board members of the mission. Choirs, a soloist and deaf signing singers challenged the large crowd with mission-related songs. Andrew, a native of Birmingham, Ala., recounted the development of the mission with picture slides.
Foster, deafened fifty years ago through meningitis, said he felt “called to take the lights of education and the Gospel to the deaf in Africa forty years ago. At that time, Africa had only a dozen special schools and virtually no churches for the deaf.”
As he spent the next ten years studying, his calling became more crystallized. He graduated from the Detroit Institute of Commerce and earned degrees from Gallaudet College, Eastern Michigan University, and Seattle Pacific University. He also attended summer sessions at Hampton (Va.) Institute, a predominantly Afro-American university, and did post-graduate work at Wayne State University in Detroit.
All long, Foster eagerly inquired about Africa and the deaf. The continent then was in the throes of birth independence from colonialism. He found little information and encouragement, and almost no openings as a missionary and educator of the deaf.
Undeterred, in 1956 Foster organized the Christian Mission for Deaf Africans, a name modified in 1978. Home office was in Detroit. After a speaking tour around America, in 1957 he visited Liberia, Ghana and Nigeria. All were peaceful countries and spoke English. He received the most encouragement in Ghana, so he opened two schools there. Immediately, he began a Sunday school which eventually branched into two churches for the deaf.
“The going was tough. Most people had no idea that the deaf could be taught, much less evangelized”, Foster recalled. So his lot was to teach students, train teachers, educate the public and advise government officials.
In 1959, Foster timed his first furlough home with a stop in Wiesbaden, Germany, to attend the Third World Congress of the Deaf. It must have been God’s timing, too. For the first person he met among the 3,000 delegates was to become his wife almost two years later.
Berta, deaf since the age of four through measles, was born and educated in Berlin. She, too, had been missionary-minded. Her interest became more intense when she read about Foster’s pioneering work in Ghana. Now they had met face to face at the congress! In 1960, she joined the work in Ghana. And the next year they were married in Nigeria while developing new schools there.
The dedicated husband-wife team has always emphasized training Christian Africans to educate and evangelize their fellow deaf Africans. With these objectives in mind, the Fosters have led the mission in spearheading a total of 29 schools in 29 years. The nations which have benefited include Benin, Burkina-Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Gabon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Togo and Zaire.
The Fosters have established Bible meetings along in Congo, Guinea, Kenya and Sierra Leone. And they have provided basic training to new workers also from Ethiopia, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Because of this work, many deaf Africans have been able to find decent jobs, get married and settle down. Some have pursued higher education in Africa and USA. Around 150 deaf and hearing Africans are now working with the mission.
In recognition of his work, Foster has received a number of awards, including an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Gallaudet.
Along with their heavy mission work, the Fosters have raised five children – Andrew Vth, John, Faith, Tim and Dan. The oldest is with the Air National Guard in Texas. Faith and Tim are in Bible College in Iowa. John and Dan are at home attending local schools. The whole family was together for the recent anniversary celebrations.
When the family returned from Africa on furlough in 1975, it was discovered that Mrs. Foster had terminal cancer. She underwent an operation, was put on chemotherapy and was not expected to live long. “But through prayer and natural therapy, I am still alive today, 10 years later – another very happy anniversary!”, exclaimed Mrs. Foster.
Due to Mrs. Foster’s health and the children’s need for better schooling, they have remained home since 1975. Every year since then, however, Andrew Sr. has been spending six months on working tours through much of Africa and the other six months with the family as well as on speaking tours in North America.
The nondenominational mission was moved from Detroit to Flint in 1975. it, like the Fosters, is supported mostly by “free-will offerings” from Christian individuals, churches and organizations.
The multiple celebrations were indeed a time to look backward with thanks for all that God has done, and to face the future with renewed dedication as well as a plea for greater support to the mission by all.
DEAF WITNESS
(NEWSLETTER)
Vol. 27, No.1
January - March 1987
“The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined” (Isaiah 9:2; Matthew 4:16).
Have you ever thought of the benighted conditions of most deaf people in under-developed countries? Well, we will mention just seven “un’s”---
unable to speak,
unable to express themselves adequately,
unschooled,
unemployed,
unsocialized and, most
unfortunately,
unreachable with the soul-saving Gospel of Jesus Christ!
30 years ago, God sent us to Africa to sort of change this picture. He opened the way for our starting two schools, along with Gospel work, in Ghana. Since then He has used us to pioneer 32 schools and Gospel meetings in some 22 Africa countries. An uphill climb all the way!
The schools have pierced the sound barrier and broken other barriers in their wakes. During these 30 years, thousands of hearing-impaired children, youths and adults have been educated and ministered to directly and indirectly by CMD. Best of all, hundreds have been saved and baptized. Indeed, praise the Lord!
Spiritually and educationally, we are reminded of the verses above. Yes, what great light one has when that Great Light, Jesus Christ, the Light of the world, penetrates our sin-darkened minds and hearts!
Reaching the deaf in Africa these 30 years has been possible because of a small army of faithful prayer warriors and supporters, like you. To each of you goes our profound thanks, as always!
But let us, and more of the Lord’s people, also remember:
Untold millions are still untold,
Untold millions are outside the fold.
Who will tell them of Jesus’ love
And heav’nly mansions awaiting above?
Jesus died on Calvary to save each one from sin,
Now He calls to you and me to go and bring them in.
THE DEAF CHILD
Born Deaf!
Think!
A silent world,
A world whose manifold sounds are not for you
Lies round you, dumb.
The wind has no voice for you;
The roar of the sea,
The plash of its ripples on a sunny shore
Are but a picture.
The songs of birds---
You never could hear the February lark,
The robin twittering in the wintry days,
Not even the hash cawing of the rooks.
For you, music is not.
Only a vision of swift-fluttering fingers,
Of moving lips.
Or else perhaps you feel
Deep notes vibrating if your finger tips
Rest on the instrument. But you hear - -
Nothing.
Think again!
Your Mother’s Voice,
With all its loving tenderness, for you
Is silent.
Even your name
Is unfamiliar; you have never heard it.
You must be taught by slow and patient care
To see your name upon the lips of others.
Ah! You who hear!
Forget not all the countless little children
To whom God has denied the gift of hearing.
They are your brothers, and they suffer daily
In the heedless world.
Help them to help themselves. They need your help.
Born deaf!
Think!
And forget them not.
---Ruth Herford, in HEARING magazine
ANNUAL FIELD REPORT
Praise God for further advances. Last year saw three more schools launched. Besides Gospel meetings in these schools, four other deaf assemblies, or fellowships, were begun spontaneously by those we started earlier.
My annual six months tour thru Africa this time began with surveying and ministering in 7 Caribbean countries and all of South America except Guyana, Surinam, Chile and Argentina. Word received that deaf work has commenced in some places.
As you read on, remember to praise God and pray for the students, staff and board members at each school. Also the leaders and Bible teachers at the assemblies or Bible meetings. The Africa map on next page might be helpful. Names in bold or darker types indicate where we are working.
BENIN
Praise God for the continuous outreach in Cotonou to some 75 deaf children, youths and adults thru school, camp and Sunday school work. And for several of them baptized last year. Pray that more will come to the Lord. And for Teacher Abou Ahoe’s studying and ministering in Europe this spring, D.V.
BURKINA FASO
Thank God for answered prayer: A nice house, with very low rent, has been found for the school at Bobo Dioulasso, after using part of a church for years. Pray for more advancements in the education and Gospel work with around 48 deaf students. Also for Assita Gagou, now a special trainee at our Nigeria Center.
BURUNDI
Thank God for answered prayer: The new classroom building is built at Bujumbura, and work is to start on a dormitory. Pray that, besides 30 present deaf students, many more will now be reached. And for the two Johnson families, the last American missionaries there.
CAMEROON
About 90 deaf students are being reached educationally and spiritually at our Kumba boarding school. Two more colleagues were trained at our center in Nigeria. And renovation work is completed. PRAISE God for all. But pray for greater spiritual growth!
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
The old house is now crammed with 115 deaf students. And it’s a wonder the walls haven’t burst out! Nevertheless, Thank the Lord for the continuous Gospel and education work with them. Pray as we desperately seek to build something this summer on our 7-year-old new site! For greater spirituality. And for deaf teacher Jean Gabriel Anzipandogot. Following his course in Nigeria last summer, he was promoted assistant principal, member of the school board and treasurer. (What a deaf person can’t do?)
CHAD
Praise God for explosions here - in education and evangelism, not the tragic bombs! Our school at Moundou now has about 35 students. Two grads are now at our Nigeria Center for advanced leadership training. Deaf teacher and assistant principal Djerane Kilde is expected to study and minister in Europe, with Ahoe of Benin this spring, D.V. Four new teacher-trainees were brought to Nigeria for our special course last summer. Following this, the proposed new school was opened at Sarh, in the Southeast. Also Teacher Samuel Alladoum, who spent last winter and spring studying and ministering in Europe, was instructed to reopen our school in N’Djamena - the hot, sandy, sub-Saharan capital. Immediately, a dozen children and 55 older youths and adults - nearly all Moslems - showed up. Pray for these tremendous opportunities - and expenses! And for many conversions to Jesus Christ!
CONGO
Praise the Lord for the faithful testimonies of Bro. Jacques, Bro. Albert and his wife Sis. Faustina, Bro. Parfait and Bro. Kabaya, transplanted from Zaire. They need much prayer as they try to witness Bible truths to the deaf around Brazzaville.
EGYPT
Again this year, time and events prevented my stopping by Cairo. However, continue to pray for the deaf here as conditions become tighter.
ETHIOPIA
Thank the Lord for more answered prayer: Four of our five deaf Ethiopian special trainees were admitted to ECWA (S.I.M.’s) Theological Seminary in Igbaja, Nigeria, and sponsors were found for most. Also all are doing fine. Pray for admission and sponsorship for the fifth trainee. And that God will greatly use all educationally and spiritually among their people back home.
GABON
Thank God that Bro. Banza Mwenze, deaf, is still permitted to head this nationalized school. Pray that he will maintain a strong testimony and witness for Jesus Christ.
GHANA
The Bible meetings in Accra and Kumasi, especially the former, have been multiplying themselves. They have revived the meeting at our old school in Mampong as well as spontaneously begun new meetings in Adamorobe, Koforidua, Cape Coast, Secondi, Takoradi, Tema and Tamale - reaching some 600 deaf people altogether. Praise the Lord! Pray for full consecration of the Bible teachers and leaders, and that many souls will be saved.
GUINEA
Bro. Abdoulaiyi Barry, deaf and crippled, whose Moslem family put him out when he accepted Christ, was baptized recently. Praise God! Pray for his steadfastness, growth, protection and thesmall Bible meeting.
IVORY COAST
Last year, our year-old assembly with 45 deaf youths held two baptism services and sent one of our four candidates to our Nigeria center for special training. Praise the Lord! Pray for teacher-leader Bro. Innocent Clombessi, who also ministers to the 55 children at the school in Yopougon. For attendance and salvation of many more. And that the other 3 candidates will be able to come to Ibadan, D.V.
KENYA
As in West Africa, God has been empowering His Saints to reproduce Bible meetings in East Africa, too. While a student at A.I.M.’s Bible College in Kapsabet, deaf Bro. Daniel John conducts a large Sunday school at a near-by school for the deaf. Every other weekend, Daniel travels 25 miles to see his family in Eldoret, where he has launched a Bible class with about 20 deaf adults. Last year we sent him to Mombasa to further the ground work I laid for a meeting. Sis. Mary Mliwa, a Christian teacher at the school, now has the meeting going with both students and outside deaf adults. Meanwhile, the deaf assembly at Nairobi Chapel, which also started in Daniel’s home, continues to thrive mainly under two deaf leaders, Bro. Joseph Muga, another Nigeria center ‘alumnus’, and Dr. Mike Ndoruma, who attended Gallaudet and another American University. Praise the Lord for all! Pray that this chain reproduction will continue, and for a great harvest of deaf souls!
MALI
Despite all efforts and seemingly agreement, another disappointing year - our 12th - to open a school here! Praise God anyway! Another deaf Malian attended our summer course in Nigeria. Pray for a break-through to reaching the deaf in this Moslem stronghold. No facilities at all for the hearing impaired here.
NIGER
Efforts to revisit this Moslem enclave last year was also side-tracked by Satan! Though three schools and an association for the deaf exist here. Pray that Jesus Christ will penetrate the spiritual darkness!
NIGERIA
Praise God . . . for our 16th annual Easter weekend Bible camp. Some 164 deaf people attended the 4-day event. Several souls saved again. Pray as leaders plan the next camp, D.V.
. . . For our 11th summer course for new French-speaking Christian teachers of the deaf (below). Twelve were brought from5 Francophone countries, plus 4 Ethiopian special trainees. Pray that, despite conflict of dates, the course can continue to be held at our Christian center in Ibadan.
. . . For 6 deaf students at ECWA (S.I.M.’s) Theological seminary at Igbaja, and sponsorship found for most. Pray for admission and sponsorships for three more in August, D.V.
. . . For the large Bible meetings in Ibadan and Lagos; also other more or less spontaneous off-shoots in Enugu, Oji River, Abeokuta, Eruwa, Benin City, Asaba and last year, Kaduna. Pray for deeper rooting and growth in Christ.
RWANDA
Five years slipped by since my first visit to Kigali. This time I was able to meet several deaf young adults and invited them to a special meeting at assembly missionary Bob Cullen’s center. They promised to keep coming. Thank God and PRAY that they will. Ask God for the means to bring two to Nigeria for Bible and leadership training, D.V.
SENEGAL
Praise God for the good school work of our Christian colleagues with some 110 students, nearly all Moslems in Dakar. And for land acquired. Pray for building funds and a spiritual break-through.
SIERRA LEONE
Revisiting Freetown after several years, I was thrilled to find a new, large Scripture Union building, but disappointed that our deaf Bible class had nearly faded away. Thank God for the faithfulness of deaf leader Akinola Wright. Pray for his coming to our Nigeria center for leadership training. For Thomas Marfo, of Ghana, to come to revive and build up the class. Also for the transportation and support of both.
TANZANIA
Continue to pray that Israel Kiyame, and now also a deaf Christian, Simeon Mwakatobe, may be brought to our leadership course in Nigeria. And that the long available assembly chapel at Dar es Salaam will be put to good use for the deaf soon, D.V.
TOGO
A couple of colleagues we trained still carry on the Sunday school in Lome. One of them, Bodjaguebe Djatoz, plans to enter the seminary in Nigeria, D.V. Praise the Lord for all! Pray for his sponsorship and more spiritual fruit in Togoland.
UGANDA
After a lapse of 20 years, I was able to revisit Kampala briefly. Thank God! I barely missed seeing Maurice and Isaac whom we trained in Nigeria 1968-70. God willing, we hope to get a long, long delayed project started here. Doors are open. Conditions are difficult. But Pray!
ZAIRE
Kinshasa: About half of the renovation work completed on the old school we purchased. Children attendance still around 55 and evening school adults 20-30. But an encouraging increase in Sunday attendance: 137 present during my tour. More are saved and seeking to be baptized. Praise the Lord for all! Continue to pray for 1 or 2 mini-buses.
Myankunde: Two more Christian teachers attended our Nigeria course. Barbara Gray of a Wash., D.C. assembly, is helping this term under a university travel study program. Dynamic Missionary Mary Watson has handed the reins over to her Zairian colleague, Bro. Matesso. Twenty-five kids are boarded this year. Thank the Lord for all. Pray for final acquisition of the site by the airstrip and funds to build thereon.
Lubumbashi: THANK God for the 52 students this term and two additional Christian teachers. As we have outgrown the borrowed space at an assembly. Pray for land and building funds.
Kalemie: Almost revisited here after 3 years. But Satan must have hindered again! Anyway praise the Lord that the school goes on with 10-12 students in an assembly chapel. Pray for growth in every direction - spiritual, educational, numerical, economical, etc.
Bukavu: Thank the Lord for answered prayer: Nice small house, at reasonable rent, right in the center of town. Now more accessible. But, to reach deaf children farther afield, land and building funds for a permanent school are still needed. So please pray. Also for the means to bring Talubezya, deaf, to Nigeria, D.V.
Goma: Due to geographical conditions, instead of building, we are now thinking of renting 1 or 2 large houses as a boarding school for the 16 students and others in the surrounding area. Pray for finding the right places, the rent, furniture and equipment. Also the means to bring Mutashi and a new teacher, both deaf, to Nigeria, D.V.
Likasi: The brother of Missionary Erika Dannat came from Germany to survey the new site, design building plans, and furnish rock-bottom cost estimates all at his own expenses. Teacher Nkulu is also self-sacrificing. In addition to teaching hearing children mornings, he teaches all 23 deaf students afternoons, and does the Gospel work, in spite of his advanced age and large family. Praise God for all. Pray especially for building funds.
Kolwezi: Gov’t has agreed to give use a large, prominently located site, provided we pay just $150 for the paper started in a small way and move the school there.
Kamina: Lone teacher Bro. Kalulwa survived a very difficult first year. Praise the Lord! But as in Goma, to reach more deaf children in nearby villages, a large rented house seems the best solution presently. So pray for a good inexpensive house, furniture, equipment, and relief food.
Mbuyi-Mayi: During the school’s first year, enrollment jumped to 43 students. Praise the Lord! Continue to pray for all-round success of this outreach.
Matadi: Thank God! This new school and teacher Pindi got thru painful teething problems the first year, too. It’s located at the top of a long steep hill, or mountain. Pray for a more suitable place downhill and downtown.
Kisangani: a long prayed-for school in this important town materialized during the Christmas holiday. God’s presence was felt all along. Teacher-principal Kamonyo was suddenly transferred from our Goma School; God immediately provided a replacement. A seat was found for him on my plane the same morning despite the holiday crush. One passenger happened to be the mother of a deaf child and prospective student. Permission was granted on the spot by two high officials who had met me previously once at a conference in Kenya in 1966 and 1969, and the other while he was a student at the seminary where I spoke in France in 1972. The Christian landlady of Bridget Lane, a Scripture Union worker who helped us around, had a nice big house being available for rent the next week. We got it! So, working all day Christmas, I was able to leave that Friday with plans for Kamonyo to open the school just after New Year’s Day. Thank God for all! Pray that this seed will become like the mighty jungle trees that surround Kisangani for miles and miles.
Special Prayer Requests
Random Notes
Our accounts have been audited again voluntarily by retired bank manager Bro. St. Pierre. Thank God for this great contribution of service for His glory.
Thank the Lord also for the generous contributions of some Christian farmers and ranchers. They raise a calf, or other livestock, along with their herd, as unto the Lord. When the full-grown animal is sold, our Mission is aided very handsomely. We commend this interesting faith project of STEER, Inc. in Bismarck, N.D. to more Christian farmers and ranchers. Write to us.
Our family is fine and occupations are about the same, except Faith’s. She graduated from Emmaus Bible College last year and, for the present, works in the Christian bookstore.
Many thanks, as always, for your prayer, love letters and love gifts. Obviously, God has greatly used them to bring the Great Light to the deaf in Africa during these 30 years! May you be greatly blessed and encouraged to continue!
E B E N E Z ER!
Bro. Andrew Foster,
General Director
DEAF MISSIONARY
KILLED IN PLANE CRASH
(DECEMBER 4, 1987)
By Gwen Hood in the
Compass Magazine, Number 5, 1988
Andrew Foster killed in a plane crash! It seemed almost unbelievable when the new came. Andrew Foster was such a big, strong looking man, and in his life he had seen many, many difficulties overcome.
But it was true – and now we should pray for Berta, his wife, for their five children, and for the work of helping deaf people in Africa which Andrew started over 30 years ago.
Andrew Jackson Foster was born in America, the son of a coal miner. He went deaf, through meningitis, when he was 11.
At his school for the deaf, the teacher wrote a Bible verse on the blackboard each morning. Andrew specially remembered one verse: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you”. He often wondered what it meant. Did the first part mean trying to be good and going to Sunday School? But what about that “all things”? If he tried not to steal or lie or fight, what would he get?
Andrew saved up and bought a Bible. He read it all through many times. He also prayed, and when he was 16 he was christened. But he wasn’t satisfied and felt no change in his life. He tried to speak in meetings and tell people about the Ten Commandments. He knew about Jesus in his head, but that was not enough.
Then someone showed him that God’s Law was like a mirror. You don’t clean yourself with a mirror. The glass only shows what is wrong. You put the mirror down and wash your face with water. God’s Law shows us sin - dirt - in our lives, but we need the Blood of Jesus Christ to make us clean.
After more struggling and arguing, Andrew turned to the Lord Jesus Himself, and accepted Him as his Saviour. He felt as if a veil had been taken away from his mind (see 2 Cor. 3v16). A great change came in his life. He could say, “the burden of my heart rolled away”. Andrew found that we do not obey the Law to save us – we obey it to show we are saved. Andrew was baptized as a believer on 21st March 1943.
A QUESTION
When Andrew Foster was 20 a missionary from Jamaica came to his church. Andrew asked about the deaf in Jamaica. The missionary said perhaps God made Andrew ask that question because He wanted Andrew to go and start work there – or maybe to Africa where there were many deaf people.
Andrew thought, “Africa - me? Never!” He thought of wild elephants, lions, snakes and jungles. He had a good job, good clothes and a car. He didn’t want to leave them to go to Africa.
But when he went home, the same thought came again and again – “Africa” . . . “Africa”.
WHAT SHALL I DO?
Soon the Second World War finished and he became out of work. He has to sell his car and give up some of his clothes. After 7 months he got a job washing dishes. He still kept thinking of Africa, but he was like Jonah who ran away when God called him. Jonah also has a lot of trouble.
At last Andrew asked God, ‘what you do want me to do?’. But he felt a hypocrite, because he knew God wanted him to go to Africa. He thought, “I’m not qualified”, and made the excuse: “I can’t go to College”. But he became willing to take a step, and he wrote to Gallaudet College. What a surprise! He received a free Scholarship! “Seek ye first …all things added”.
God helped him through Gallaudet and also through hearing colleges, although he was deaf. He sat next to the brightest students and copied their notes. He read text books and talked to the teachers. He got a B.A. degree in education and then an M.A. He did some more studies and then went to Bible College.
Near the time to go the Bible College, he didn’t know how he would get there, but he trusted God. It was about 2,000 miles away. Then a firm had a car to be delivered to near the College, and Andrew was able to take it. He drove it the 2,000 miles and the firm paid for the petrol!
CHRISTIAN MISSION
FOR DEAF AFRICANS
After years of training Andrew Foster tried to find a Missionary Society that would use him to help people in Africa. But they all refused. He felt discouraged, and nearly gave up.
But then someone suggested he start a special Mission for the Deaf. So, as a last resort, he started the Christian Mission for Deaf Africa (later called Christian Mission for the Deaf).
He left America and came to London and Ireland. He didn’t know where to start in Africa. But in 1957 God led him to Ghana. There he gathered some deaf children and taught them in a Presbyterian school from 4.30 to 5.30pm., after the hearing children had finished their lessons. Then he taught adults from 6 to 7p.m. In a village about 17 miles from Accra, the capital of Ghana, Andrew found half the people were deaf.
The work grew, and a boarding school was opened, as well as a work for adults. In 1960 Andrew Foster established a school in Nigeria, and Nigeria became his main centre in Africa.
MARRIAGE
In 1961 Andrew married Berta, a German deaf lady, and she has been a wonderful help in the work and to him.
In Africa many people were ashamed of deaf people and thought they could not be educated. But Andrew Foster looked for, and found, many deaf people. He taught them communication and reading. He showed them the way of salvation through Jesus and helped them to learn from the Bible. Soon there were long waiting lists for the schools. He encouraged deaf people to learn to teach others. Later some of them even got degrees.
TRAINING COURSES
Many countries in Africa had no educational, social or Christian work for deaf people, so Andrew started Training Courses. Deaf adults came from other parts of Africa and then went back to help the deaf in their own countries.
He started schools and Bible meetings, and arranged camps, but the important task was to help other people to become Christians and train them to do the work.
In the early years of Andrew’s ministry in Africa he started school for the deaf in English-speaking countries. Later Andrew visited many French-speaking countries in Africa to start deaf schools there. Altogether 31 schools were established in the various countries.
PROBLEMS
There were many problems. Money was needed for buildings, books and teaching materials, furniture, food, transport and many other things. There were problems through war, loss of property, disappointments with people – and many, many more. Berta Foster got cancer, but God answered prayer and she has now been able to work at the CMD office in America for over ten years.
PRAISE
In 1987 Andrew Foster sent out a special prayer and praise letter because it was 30 years since he went to Africa. One of the praise items said:
“Praise Him for over 1,000 deaf children, youths and adults being reached with education and/or Gospel work in some 22 African countries by around 200 co-workers, mostly Christian Nationals. For perhaps a thousand others reached with literacy and the Word of God during the past 30 years.”
HONOURED BY COLLEGE
It would take more than a book to tell of all that God has done.
For some years now, Andrew Foster has spent six months in Africa and six months in America each year. He has also been to at least 7 Caribbean countries, and most countries in South America.
In 1970 Gallaudet College awarded him an Honorary Doctor’s Degree.
A LIFE NOT WASTED
When Andrew Foster was not willing to put God first, he became poor; he lost his job and his car. But when he did “seek God’s kingdom first”, then God “added” a life of usefulness, blessings to many people, and everything he needed for himself, his family and the work in Africa. God’s Word is right. Let us be ready to do what God wants, and not try to run away from Him - and end up with a wasted life.
We thank God that Andrew Foster’s life was not wasted and we give thanks for all that he accomplished in his life and work.
Teachers’ Summer Course, Nigeria.
Dr. Andrew Foster on left.
GALLAUDET UNIVERSITY (U.S.A.)
HONOURS ANDREW JACKSON FOSTER
Auditorium Will Carry Moniker
Of Famed Educator
“(WASHINGTON) Dr. Andrew Jackson Foster, the father of deaf education in Africa, dedicated his life to the betterment of the deaf and hard of hearing community worldwide. This October, a renovated facility at his alma mater will reopen donning his name.
“During its homecoming, Gallaudet University will unveil the newly renovated Andrew J. Foster Auditorium during a dedication ceremony, scheduled for 4 p.m., Friday, Oct. 22. During the ceremony, organizers will also unveil a bust of the educator, recently donated to the university by the National Black Deaf Advocates.
“Foster, in 1954 becoming the first African American to graduate from Gallaudet College, worked toward achieving his childhood dream of establishing schools for deaf students. Between 1957 and 1987, he established 31 schools and two centers in 13 African countries and a similar number of Sunday Schools/Bible meetings/Churches. The educator died in a plane crash in 1987.
“Gallaudet’s homecoming will take place Oct.22-23, 2004. Festivities will include various alumni reunion activities, sporting events and an Emeritus Club gala honoring those who attended the university 50 years ago. The class of 1954 - Foster’s graduating class - will receive special recognition…” (Reprinted with permission from Darrick Nicholas, Media Relations Coordinator, Gallaudet University)
Offer unto God thanksgiving;
And pay thy vows unto the most High.
—Psalm 50:14—
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