We are so excited.. this year is our 10th year of the Deaf Church Ministry. We LOVE our church and the people we call family there. Heidi was born the summer that we started meeting separately for "Deaf Church". Before this time.. we were in the hearing church with interpreters.
Many people wonder what the difference is between just having the deaf in a regular hearing service and meeting separately with all the teaching done in ASL. Well, it is a BIG difference! Our size increased from 8 to now having an average of 30 to 40 every service. The deaf began to gravitate to where they knew the Bible was being taught in their language. So much is lost during translation from a hearing speaker and then through an interpreter. Of course, if this is the only option available.. it is better than having nothing.
Our services are very different than a normal hearing church service. Everything is done in ASL and reverse interpreted for the hearing. John will allow everyone to read the Scripture at the beginning so there is a "down time" because the deaf cannot read and look up at the same time to see what is being said. Hearing can read along with a pastor as he reads.. this is different for the deaf. Then he refers to his Power Point presentation a lot during the sermon as it is visual. Before we got the projector he wrote almost everything on a white dry erase board. We have more interaction from the audience than a normal hearing service as well. Most people who visit our church for the first time.. love the format and often come back to visit. These are just some of the things about our service that is different.
God is good and has blessed us with some very precious people to work with. Many of our people.. in fact more than 80% of them come from broken homes or have encountered many things in their lives. We have seen so much that God has done to work in their lives and bring them to Him. I sometimes just look around on a Sunday morning or Wednesday night and tears well up as I see the changes that have taken place. We have learned so much and grown ourselves as we have worked with this ministry.
There are some pictures of our precious church family uploaded in my Yahoo photos.. if you would like.. take some time to enjoy them if you would like.. 
Here is the link.. http://photos.yahoo.com/ph//my_photos
Until later.. God bless! | 
• Aug. 8, 2006 - Untitled Comment
Congratulations on 10 years of ministry and may God bless you with many, MANY more years.
(I was thinking of you just last night. LOL I was a church camp meeting and there is a boy there that is deaf and I just thought it was wonderful that he was able to come to camp and what a wonderful blessing for the two men to come along as his interpreter.)