So many of you who know me have heard me talk about my weekend trips down to Rancho Sordo Mudo (RSM) with my church. I go to Calvary Chapel Pacific Coast (CCPC), which has supported RSM for 30+ years, and usually CCPC takes five weekend trips down there per year. We help with construction, repair, cooking, cleaning, and any other jobs that need to be done.
Rancho Sordo Mudo is an absolutely amazing place. It was begun by North Carolina natives Ed and Barbara Everett in 1969. The Everetts' son, Luke, had had several childhood illnesses that left him 85 percent deaf, and during a trip down to Mexico in the late sixties, Ed saw deaf children living on the streets. A friend told him that they were outcasts, excluded from society and even from their families, because they had no way to communicate. Ed thought of his own son, Luke, back at home and felt God telling him to reach out to these children. Over the next several years, the Everetts moved their family down to Baja California, bought a property out in the hills east of Ensenada, and set up an orphanage and boarding school for the Mexican deaf children.
Today, Luke Everett (son of Ed and Margaret) and his older brother Eddie run the Ranch. Luke and his wife Josefina (who is deaf and attended the RSM school as a child) have three sons, two of whom have helped out and taught at the school as well. During the school year, the Ranch is run by a full staff of teachers and other workers, supplemented by visiting groups who stay for a weekend or a week and help out with additional jobs (CCPC is one of these visiting groups). The kids stay in dormitories and attend school classes Monday through Friday where they are taught Mexican Sign Language, or Lenguaje de Señas Mexicanas (LSM). They also learn cooking, cleaning, sewing, and other life skills, and most importantly, they are taught about the love of God and about the gift of salvation through His Son Jesus! It is so awesome to see how the Ranch community functions. They are like a big family. Many of the kids and staff come back year after year, and every time I visit I look forward to seeing them again.
I've been going down to RSM with CCPC since I was in high school. Because I have a busy schedule, I'm not able to go on every work trip, but every time I do go, it is a blessing. I've thought for a while that it would be cool to go down there for a longer time frame, but most of their internships have been for longer periods--four to six months--and during my years at Cal State Long Beach I couldn't afford to be gone even close to that long. But when I went down there this spring, I saw a new paper posted that said they were now offering short-term internships of two to six weeks. The wheels in my head started turning. I woke up in the night and I couldn't go back to sleep. It was like God was reminding me, "You graduated in December . . . you haven't found a job yet . . . you could do a short internship now." I tried to push the idea away, but of course it wouldn't leave, and I've found from experience that it's pointless to try to argue when God tells me to do something. So I finally said, "Okay, Lord, I'll ask about it in the morning. Maybe it won't work out, but I'll at least ask." And I rolled over and went back to sleep.
Well, in the morning, I talked to Janet, who is in charge of coordinating visitors and interns for the Ranch, and she said, "What would you want your internship to focus on? We can adjust it to fit what you want to learn." I told her that I know only a few signs and don't know American Sign Language (ASL), but I have an associate's degree in Spanish and would like the chance to improve my Spanish-speaking skills. So she said, "Oh, well then in that case, we'll just put you in the kitchen with Juanita, and you can work with her." I was super excited at that point, because I already know Juanita, the cook, pretty well--I've helped her make meals on a lot of our weekend trips--and I know she's a good and patient teacher. Most of the hearing Ranch staff speaks English when they're talking out loud to each other, but Juanita is a local and mostly speaks Spanish. So I told Janet I would be in touch, and I went home from that trip thinking about when I could do the internship.
Now it's August, and my summer job as a swim instructor is winding down. Janet and I just established the dates for my internship over the past couple weeks! Turns out I can't stay quite as long as I was originally thinking, but I'll be there for something like two and a half weeks. I'm planning to go down with the CCPC group on September 9 and then come back home sometime the last week of September, whatever day I can get a ride across the border (don't worry, someone from the Ranch will drive me. I know better than to hitchhike alone in Mexico!).
Still some details to work out, but it should be awesome. I know I probably can't achieve fluency in two or three weeks, but anything I can learn will be great. I'm sure I'll pick up more LSM signs as well!
So starting the second week of September, be checking in on my blog here so you can read about my adventures at Rancho Sordo Mudo!
If you want to know more about RSM, check out their website: http://www.ranchosordomudo.org/
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