Read David Dare’s account of teaching deaf children in Peru and how the Lord used that experience to guide him to be an elementary education major.
“Since my parents are missionaries to the military in Pensacola, I have always had a burden for missions. In 2014, I was given the opportunity to go on a ten-day YOM mission trip to Peru. While there, I fell in love with the ministry to the deaf and the Peruvians.
In 2015, I returned for a six-month visit. At first, I was mainly helping with construction work. After a couple of months, I prayed that I would be able to help more with the children and in the deaf school. The answer to my prayer came in the form of an injury—a badly dislocated finger. Due to this injury, I could no longer help with the construction.
One day I sat in on the sixth-grade class to see how the school worked. About an hour into the class the teacher asked me if I liked math. I told her it was my favorite subject. She then informed me I would be teaching the math lesson that day. Completely shocked and a little confused, I went to the board and tried my best to teach equations with fractions to a group of deaf Peruvian children. I struggled through the lesson and sat down, thinking my troubles were over. Then the teacher handed me a stack of notebooks and asked me to grade the homework. After class, she asked me to come back the next day. It was official—I was now a teacher’s assistant. From that point until the end of my visit, I served as the teacher’s assistant. This was when I first became interested in Elementary Education. I never thought that I would want to be a teacher. However, after serving in Peru, I fell in love with the idea. After I returned to the States, I was invited to return for the graduation at the end of the year. I returned for another two months and was able to see my students graduate.
It was such a blessing and changed my view of missions and teaching. The trip renewed my burden for missions and interest in sign language and the deaf ministry. I plan to use the education I get at Pensacola Christian College to someday return to Peru or another deaf school and teach and serve in missions to the deaf.”
