Tim Foster

Dear Friends,

The militia group, M23, continues to expand their control over the Kivu province in the DR Congo. And with their spread, violence follows. Their most recent expansion pressed southward from Bukavu, and took over the city of Livungi. Surely they’re going to contiue southward towards Uvira. We have a school in Uvira, so pray with us that things will settle down soon.

One of our deaf graduates from our school in Uvira, Fazili Esimba, has established his own school for the deaf in Livungi several years ago. He has about 20 students. With M23 headed his direction, he had to shut down his school and quickly evacuate his students to safe smaller towns in the outlying region. The carnage in the wake of M23 is grim. In one of the videos Fazili sent me, about 30 people could be seen lying in the street and gutters, chopped down by either bullets or machetes. Sadly, most of the murdered people in the video were women and children. Pray for Fazili and his students that they will be able to quickly relocate everyone to safety, and will be able to escape harm.

Shindano Andre, the assistant director at our school in Uvira, is finally headed home after having been poisoned and kidnapped by gangs in September. His brother was able to raise the funds necessary to get him released after several weeks, and he has been in the hospital ever since his release. Now that his health is stabilized, he is heading back to Uvira, but with M23 headed their way, we’re going to be in for a rough ride for quite some time.

In Bukavu, food is scarce, but our staff has been able to find food and supplies by networking with other Christians nearby. Peace can’t come soon enough.

Truly, your prayers are coveted.

Tim Foster
Director

Dear Friends,

In the DR Congo, things have still not returned to normal in the cities of Goma and Bukavu. M23 has chased out any presence of official law enforcement, so thugs and bandits continue to wreak havoc all over the region. At our school in Panzi, on the south side of Bukavu, Director Nanza was hoping to start classes on the 1st of September, but the insecurity in the city is making it difficult to maintain any reliable kind of schedule, and parents are reluctant to bring their kids to school. In Goma, some of our friends have had to move across the border into the country of Rwanda just to stay safe. Continue praying with us for peace in the region.

In Baraka, the new school year is off to a fresh start. Official enrollment has hit 103 students, praise God! One of the newest additions to the school was brought in after the school year started. The father was embarrassed to admit that he had known of the school for several years, but didn’t think his deaf daughter was worth the effort to bring to school. Somehow, his daughter had learned of the school and insisted that her father enroll her. So he sheepishly brought her to school for the first time at the age of 15. Now she’s set: within a few months she will learn to read and write the alphabet, learn her own name for the first time, and eventually learn the name of Jesus Christ! Your faithful support is how we’re able to repeat little miracles like this!

We’re happy to report that construction of our two-story multi-purpose building has resumed in N’Djamena, Chad. We’ve had a couple of dry months of sparse funding, so we’re thankful to get the ball rolling again. The first floor is complete and already in good use, and we were able to add doors and plasterwork on the second floor.

An opportunity has come up for me to teach a block class on deaf ministry at the Central Baptist University in Kitwe, Zambia. The university is perhaps the first accredited African university to have a program for deaf ministry, and they’ve asked me to teach a session in December. It will be a first for me to teach at a university, so I’m looking forward to it.

Truly, your prayers are coveted.

Tim Foster
Director

Dear Friends,

We’re thankful that a peace deal has been brokered between DR Congo and Rwanda. The violence of M23’s takeover of the cities of Goma and Bukavu have directly affected our school and ministries in both cities, and brought social turmoil all across the region. The official peace deal is definitely a step in the right direction, but there’s still a long way to go as local peace has not been reestablished and there still is no real police presence in the cities. We’re still getting reports from our friends and local workers that violence is rampant, and it’s common for people to be kidnapped and held for ransom for a few psaltry dollars. Continue to pray for peace in the area, and that control of the region will soon revert back to the official government.

We still have a few challenges ahead of us regarding our video conference teaching sessions that we’ll be doing in lieu of our annual Congo Bible Camp. Pray for wisdom as we iron out the last remaining details of the logistics of putting on a multi-campus conference where participants have unreliable electricity and Internet service.

Our new construction in N’Djamena, Chad has been in a holding patten for the past couple of months. The Afri-Deaf Foundation, started by graduates from our Nigeria school for the deaf, has been instrumental in shouldering the costs of the construction for the past few months, but they’ve run into some hard times and have had to scale back their support. Pray with us that others will step in to fill in the gap.

Truly, your prayers are coveted.

Tim Foster
Director

Dear Friends,

My oldest brother, Andy Foster, passed away on July 5th. Although he has had issues with heart for a number of years, his heart attack caught us all by surprise. We were glad to have his family with us for a week during the funeral, as it’s been a number of years since we’ve been together. It was a good time of re-forging family ties, and ministering to them in their time of need. I was honored to give the sermon at the funeral, and talk about what God has done in his life, and to impress on us all what Andy, now in the afterlife, would want us to know about God and God’s will for our lives. He has five young adult children, two of whom are growing in their knowledge of the Lord. Keep them in your prayers.

We’re thankful to our Lord to see continued progress with our schools in Nigeria, Chad, and the DR Congo. The 2024-2025 school year is now over, and our students have taken their year-end exams. For those completing Primary 6 and Secondary 6, it’s a big event. The exams are administdered by the state, and their passing scores are celebrated with great fanfare. The reports are just now coming in, but so far the results are very good.

Another bit of sad news: Laoukein Gaston, a hearing pastor and long time friend of CMD passed away last month. He made a great impression on my father when they met back in the early ‘80s. Laoukein wasted no time responding to God’s call to minister to the deaf. He was dearly beloved by the deaf community in Chad and will be sorely missed.

Due to civil unrest between the Congo and Rwanda, we’ve called off our annual Congo Bible Conference, and will be trying online options in the next few weeks. In the mean time, our Chad churches are planning on having a special confernce during the same time frame, but will be meeting in person. It’s a lot to plan, and I’m excited to see how all of it will come about.

Truly, your prayers are coveted.

Tim Foster
Director

Dear Friends,

Meet Nakayo. She was born deaf 85 years ago and grew up in a remote Congolese village with no access to education.

People often don’t realize that while hearing children naturally acquire language at home before they reach kindergarten, deaf children, especially in developing countries, rarely learn sign language from their parents. Instead, they must be taught language skills in a specialized school. Because there were no such schools near Nakayo’s village, she never had the opportunity to learn sign language, let alone learn to read or write. Even today, her communication is limited to basic hand gestures. The only work available to her has been menial labor and subsistence farming. Despite these challenges, God has blessed her with a husband, 11 children, and 22 grandchildren—yet she cannot hold meaningful conversations with any of them.

Shukuru, the director of our school for the deaf in Baraka, DR Congo, met Nakayo during one of his trips through the remote Fizi province, searching for deaf kids to enroll in our school. At her age, Nakayo is too old, too tired, and too busy to begin school. But by God’s grace, we are working to ensure that future generations of deaf children do not grow up without language, literacy, or access to the Gospel. Your prayerful support makes it possible for us to reach deaf children with a quality education—and, most importantly, reach them with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

We’re very thankful for the recent peace treaty between Rwanda and the DR Congo brokered by the Trump administration. It remains to be seen what this will bring about long term, but for now, it’s a step in the right direction, and for that we’re thankful. Please continue to pray with us for our schools and churches in the Kivu province, where civil unrest is intense.

In Chad, director Yves Beosso reports that their generator is on its last leg. The campus has had electrity from the city of N’Djamena for several years, but it is very unreliable, and outages that can last days and weeks at a time. Since the generator can be expensive to operate, a more reliable approach would be to get a small-scale solar rig that can power several administrative offices with about 1,000 watts of power. The expected cost is about $2,500. Also, the campus water pump is beginning to wear out. We had it installed about 20 years ago, and the casing is at the point that it needs to be replaced. Pray with us that God will provide the funds for thse projects.

Truly, your prayers are coveted.

Tim Foster
Director

Dear Friends,

We now have a new way for donors to give online! If your bank offers Zelle digital payments, you can donate to us at donations@cmdeaf.org. This option is free, secure, fast, and convenient, and it is better than our online donation option on our website (www.CMDeaf.org/donate). We still offer online donations from our website, but that option uses PayPal to process the transactions, and PayPal charges a small fee per transaction. There are several advantages of Zelle over PayPal: Zelle deposits the funds directly into our primary bank account, and the service is completely free for both the donor and the recipient. So if you’re able to send donations via Zelle, we certainly encourage you to use Zelle instead of our website or traditional donations sent by checks to our PO box.

Thank you for your continued prayers for the situation in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Things won’t go back to normal as long as the militant group, M23, is in charge. Violence is still rampant because there is no police or military to keep the peace. Despite the hardships, the parents have been gradually letting their deaf children return to school and church, so that’s definitelyl a bit of progress that we’re thankful for. Things are still too dicey for Westerners to travel to the area, so there are no plans to have our annual Congo Bible Camp this August.

In Uvira, we’re still continuing forward with construction on our new school building. Finding timely supplies is a challenge due to the civil unrest caused by M23 in the major cities just north of Uvira, but God is gracious, and we’re able to continue along.

A few months ago, some bandits broke into our school in Baraka and stole all the electronics in the director’s office: printer, fan, solar chargers, battery system, etc. The total cost of the stolen items was over $500. Normally, the parents of a school like ours would expect the foreigners (us) to replace all the equipment. With our encouragement, the parents took up a collection and have committed to paying for most of the equipment. We’re thankful to God for the change in their disposition, and their willingness to be more involved with the operations of the school.

Truly, your prayers are coveted.

Tim Foster

Director

Dear Friends,

In Chad, Director Yves Beosso reports that they had a good turnout at their 27th Easter Camp. Since this is a new city to host the camp, a number of new attendees were able to come. Praise God with us that we were able to bring new Bible study lessons to wider audiences.

In Nigeria, the CMD Easter Camps are much larger in scope and participation. Whereas we normally have six different camps that meet across the country, this year, because of increased costs and lower financial support from the Nigerian churches, we’ve had to scale back and have only five camps.

Thank you for your continued prayers for the situation in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The Kivu province is still under the control of the rebel group, M23. Things have settled down somewhat, but life is not back to normal. Because the local law enforcement has fled, there is a lot of unrest in the streets, fueled by uncertainty for the near future. In the cities of Bukavu and Goma, many schools are operating on a day-by-day basis, and many parents are refusing to let their kids go to school since there is a lot more violence in the streets. I had received several reports from our directors, staff, and friends saying that they were eating porridge. I thought that was a good thing – they were getting food. But later, I found out that porridge is at the bottom of the list of acceptable foods, and if you have anything other than porridge, that’s a good thing. So their reference to porridge was actually a sign that they were doing very badly. Please keep them in your prayers.

M23 has not made it as far south as the city of Baraka, where our newest school is located, but the city is on edge, uncertain about what the next few months will hold. I had reported a couple months ago that the school had been broken into and electronic devices were stolen (solar panel, battery, printer, fans, etc). Those items have not been found, but in the meantime, the parents of the students have pooled their resources and agreed to help purchase replacements. The total cost is over $600, so we’re very pleased that they’re doing this. Many of them are rural farmers, and don’t have much money at all, so this is a very big commitment. For our part, we’ll be paying for the solar battery.

Truly, your prayers are coveted.

Tim Foster
Director

In the aftermath of M23 taking over Goma and Bukavu last month, banks and businesses are starting to open back up. Infrastructure services are not yet reliable, so many of our friends in Goma and Bukavu are still struggling with getting reliable water, electricity, cellular and Internet service. Since many government officials and police have fled, violence is still a major concern. We’re still very uncertain about how the interim M23 administration will operate the Kivu province, but thankful the military portion of the violence is over. ..for now.  

We’ve cancelled our annual fall Congo conference beause Bukavu and Goma are the two main areas we visit during that conference week. There’s no telling how tranquil the area will be by the time August comes around. As tensions are still high in the DR Congo, the neighboring countries of Rwanda and Burundi are having spikes of violence and unrest as well. Travelers run the risk of finding out that the borders close unexpectedly, and that can leave us trapped in a country until the powers that be decide to open the borders again. Continue praying for the region, and in particular, the deaf in these cities.

In Chad, plans are underway for their 27^th Easter Camp. They’ll be meeting in the city of Bongor, about 4 hours south of the capital. Pray for the campers who will be coming in from various cities across southern Chad to study the book of James. Pray for their safe travels, and pray that the attendees will benefit from their time together.

Tim Foster
Director

M23, a Rwandan-backed rebel group in the DR Congo, has expanded their footprint past Goma and has now taken over the city of Bukavu. For all practical purposes, they now control the entire Kivu province. Director Nanza reports that most of the police and military in the area fled before M23 came to town, so M23 rolled into town virtually unopposed. Many businesses and banks closed for several weeks, making it very difficult to get food and provisions. A bomb exploded near our school, and killed 57 people, wounding 100. Thankfully, none of our staff or students were wounded. Despite the banks being closed, Nanza was able to receive the funds I sent for February’s school needs. Praise God for that! Although some schools and businesses are struggling to operate in the city, most parents are afraid to let their children out, so our school has had to stay closed until things settle down. We don’t know how M23 will rule the province, or how long they’ll stay.

Although Uvira is about 5 hours south of Bukavu, the citizens there are feeling the efects of M23’s spread. Director Pililo reports that the local police and militia have fled for their lives. Unfortunately, they’re resorting to violence and theft as they make their way out of the city to hide in the countryside. With all the mayhem and violence, the construction of the new school has come to a standstill, and students are staying home. We expect things will settle down quicker in Uvira than in Bukavu because it’s a smaller city and further away from M23’s presence.

Pray for peace and safety in the Kivu province.