HISTORY

With only half a percent of Deaf people have access to the Christian Gospel, churches in South Africa came together to set up a program to train Deaf Christians to minister to Deaf communities in Sign Language. Geoff Stenekamp was largely responsible for collecting the funds that made it possible for a seminary for the Deaf to be started in Worcester. On the 10th of April 2006, the DCMA began as a Theological College, training Deaf Christians for ministry work in Africa. There were seven Deaf students in the first year.

The syllabus uses the course of Veritas College International. It is presented over three years. In a fourth year, each church trains their own students in relevant dogmas and customs.

There are many challenges which the Seminary faces, but the greatest is probably to communicate theological concepts understandably to the Deaf, who come from different cultures, with different dialects of Sign language, and in some cases a limited educational background. The only expectation the DCMA has for its students is that they must be able to use Sign language fluently (to be able to preach to the Deaf within their own culture), they must believe that Jesus is their Saviour, and that the Lord has called them to do His work.