English is the most widely spoken language in the world. For most Americans, it is the only language that exists. It frames our thoughts, our understanding, our relationships, our careers. It is the way we connect to the world around us – the English speaking world – and provides the fundamentals for our very lives.

But sitting across the table from an olive-skinned teenager in a gray school uniform whose eye contact alone suddenly defines the communication between you and him, your English-speaking world has suddenly been turned upside down.

Mexico, Centros Cristianos para Sordomudos, or MCCS for short, is home to 23 hearing-impaired children from the poorest streets of Mexico. They come from Rio Bravo, Reynosa, wherever they can be found, to find new life and a new reality. They discover education, structured sign language, community and friendship, most for the first time.

Some live at the school during the week and visit home on the weekends and holidays, others come only during the day for classes and return to their homes each night. All are cared for by full-time teachers who are employed by the International Christian Centers for the Deaf, the parent organization of MCCS. ICCD is a Christian organization based in Virginia whose mission is to “reach the deaf in the world with the gospel of Christ.”

The MCCS complex is found 25 miles south of the Texas border on a sprawling piece of land, where the wind moves easily through enormous fields of tall grass and not another building is seen for miles around. Dogs romp around barking wildly, chasing the small car that is driven by the director of the school from the administrative buildings down to the cafeteria, where the live-in residents wait impatiently for dinner.

Efraín Escorza’s presence in the room immediately commands attention, and the children crowd around to greet him, forming his “sign name” and competing with each other to catch his eye. It is easy to see how well he is loved by the children, with whom he eats dinner every night. His enormous smile is for each child, and he quickly quiets the children and raises his hands to sign the blessing for the food.

Escorza became Center Coordinator for MCCS in February of 2007. He pastored a Methodist church in Rio Bravo for 20 years before the pollution drove him out into the country.

“When I came here and visit this place, I was shock because it was very hard for me to see their deep struggle with their handicap. And when the Lord pushed me several ways to come here, I know that the Lord call me to come here.”

Escorza was given the coordinator position to serve primarily as administrator over the classes and director of the school’s small staff. He was told that learning sign language would be unnecessary, as he would not be teaching the children or involved in the classrooms. After his arrival he found it impossible to not communicate with the children, so Escorza continues to learn sign language and spend as much time as possible with them.

He and his wife, Lety, provide counseling to the children, who come to the school with histories of poverty, prostitution, drugs, alcohol and abuse. “For the deaf to receive attention, it’s so wonderful, because for most of them, they have suffered a lot of rejection,” he says. “I am amazed because when they are finished with counseling time, you can see them so proud, so quiet, and I can see that they need a lot of support, and this is the reason why I am learning sign language.”

Escorza says that sometimes he will visit the homes of the students to see how they are doing. “I am amazed because in the school he is so smiling and so happy, but when they arrive at the family, they are sad because this place has been a lonely place for them. And I say wow, what is happening here. And yes, most of the families, they ignored them, and they know what is their place in the family: Out of the family…They have the family signs, but for the heart signs they have none.”

Alberto is 24 years old and began taking classes at MCCS one week ago. He can hear, with the assistance of hearing aids, and speak, but he never learned sign language. He is a junior in college, studying psychology, and has come to MCCS to learn to sign so that he will be able to help the deaf community.

“The children who cannot hear, they do not receive help,” he says. “They need counseling, that is why I go to the university.”

Even Alberto’s mission to learn to sign presents problems, as there are so many different versions of sign languages used by the hearing impaired, region to region. In border towns from Laredo to Matamoros, there are as many as eight different sign languages used. LSM, short for Lengua de Señas Mexicana, or Mexican Sign Language, is the official sign language of Mexico, though that doesn’t stop the disputes between states and even cities over whose sign is “right.”

MCCS teaches both LSM and American Sign Language, or ASL.

Helen Keller once said “Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” Overcoming suffering is just what the missionaries at MCCS are accomplishing, barrier by barrier, child by child. Success with the hearing impaired children of Mexico isn’t just about conquering language barriers –

Love is universal.



For more information about ICCD and MCCS, please visit:
http://www.iccd.net