47. Masengesho

Most of us who are hearing take our hearing for granted. We don’t wake up in the morning and say, “Wow! I can hear!” (We probably should, but we don’t.) We just expect to hear, and we do. But what if you went to bed with perfect hearing and woke up the next morning completely deaf? Imagine that. One day, you hear everything perfectly; the very next day, complete silence.

This is what happened to Masengesho. 

When Masengesho was 13 years old, she woke up one morning, suddenly deaf. She then had to deal with twin traumas: coming to grips with the fact that she could no longer hear, and convincing her parents that she wasn’t joking. They refused to believe her! Eventually, they took her to a doctor who confirmed that Masengesho was indeed deaf and encouraged them to enter her world and learn to sign.

They chose not to.

Masengesho was miserable because she had not only lost her hearing but her schooling, her friends, her social skills, and to some degree, her family. Like many other deaf Rwandans, she just stayed home, out of the way, out of sight. For a year, she lived like that, a shell of her former self. 

Broken.

In 2009 she started to attend a school for the Deaf. At first this was challenging but she had good written skills from her time in hearing school, so was able to pick things up quickly. Before long, she had turned a corner. “I came to love the Deaf school because I could dream about my future. I could start to see my life with a disability.”

Today Masengesho teaches in a Deaf school and serves in DMI’s Emmanuel Church of the Deaf in Rwanda (Musanze congregation). She loves teaching at the school and, curiously, is the only Deaf teacher there! When I ask her why she loves teaching so much at the school, her answer surprises me. “Because it’s my duty,” she signs, and fulfilling her godly duty gives her a great sense of joy and achievement.

Her roles in the church are two-fold. The first leads to one of the finest conversations I’ve had in the DMI world:

I’m on the Conflict Resolution Committee of DAR (Deaf Action Rwanda).

Do you have many conflicts to resolve?

No. Never.

So you don’t really have a job do you?

We both start laughing but she explains. 

It’s government policy to have a CRC to have a registered board so that’s why I have the role.

Masengesho’s second role in the church is profound: she preaches in the church. She loves this as much as she loves the Deaf church community. She loves to preach about Jesus’ love. She loves to take the congregation through 1 Corinthians 13 and share about the love of Christ growing in our own hearts. 

Redeemed.

I’m enamoured by her passion for the gospel and she agrees to read the passage aloud to me. Her pronunciation is poor (it’s not the slight French accent!) and she has little volume control but it’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve heard. She looks embarrassed but I assure her how moved I am by her reading.

Masengesho’s journey into and through deafness has been such an intriguing one. I want to know what she sees the future holding for her and she tells me that her greatest passion now is to be a role model for young Deaf Rwandan girls. She wants to be able to give them skills, hope and a trust in the God who made them.

To close our interview, I ask Masengesho if she has any questions for me.“Yes,” she says frankly. “Who are you, why are you here and why are you interviewing me”! We burst into laughter. In my excitement to hear her story, I had completely forgotten to introduce myself!

Masengesho and her church in Musanze have a desperate need for a motorbike for their evangelists to share. Public transport in developing countries cripples the spread of the gospel. A motorbike allows them to move around quickly and cheaply. The cost is $2500. If you can help out, please send your gift (marked “for Musanze church”) here: https://deafmin.org/donate/  or click on the red button below.