Metro Voice News Celebrating Faith, Family & Community
The term “sign language” can be misleading, because there are not just one but at least 380 sign languages in use globally. This is one reason why only 2 percent of an estimated 80 deaf people have access to Bible stories in a way they can understand.
Wycliffe Bible Translators and more than 95 other organizations and churches are collaborating globally to change that statistic, “Baptist Press” reported. Efforts are under way to reach 75 new sign languages, said Andy Keener, Wycliffe’s executive vice president and chief partnerships officer.
“The Bible has over 31,000 verses,” he said. “Our ultimate goal is to see all of God’s word, the whole counsel of God, in every language that needs it everywhere.”
The Baptist International Mission Board shares the gospel through deaf missionaries in the field and also participates in the translation ministry.
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A Deaf IMB missionary signs with another Deaf missionary. (IMB photo)
“For over a decade, IMB has recognized the importance of sign roots (a visual-spatial foundation of sign language) as a common framework for sign language,” said Victor Hou, associate vice president for global engagement, “and saw the potential to use sign roots to accelerate Bible translation into over 300 mostly Bible-less sign languages.”
Through a partnership with Brentwood Baptist Church in Nashville, the church and entity formed Deaf Pathways, thereby using sign roots as a common framework to accelerate the translation efforts. The partnership has led to the translation of 189 Bible story passages in 20 various sign languages available on the Deaf Pathway Bible App, Hou said, including 26 Bible stories in Mexico Sign Language and 30 Bible stories in Czech Sign Language.
“Local believers are using these passages to share the gospel and communicate the love of God so deaf peoples can know God,” Hou said. “This is only the beginning as we continue to translate the Bible into 300 sign languages so 80 million deaf can know the gospel and follow Christ.
“At the IMB, our desires and prayers are for these 80 million deaf to know the gospel so they can be saved by faith in Christ and for healthy churches to be planted among deaf believers worshipping in their heart languages.”
The Missions Board recently introduced the world to George, a deaf artist given a new life in Christ.
The young man recently joined a translation team in West Africa and began seeing God’s Word for the first time in his life. “Growing up, his Catholic parents, ashamed of his disability, took him from doctor to doctor to ‘fix his broken ears.’ One day, he had enough and decided to withdraw to a small corner where he would draw to ignore the tension in his family,” IMB posted on Twitter.
He believed in Jesus but thought that salvation was through good works. George expressed that he ‘deeply wanted to follow Jesus in baptism, but I am inclined to sin and my sins condemn me to hell.”
A Deaf worker shared a story about God’s grace, and George’s life was forever changed. Recently, when the announcement was made to the Deaf believers that George wanted to be baptized, he began to weep. When asked, “Are you okay?” He signed, “His grace overwhelms me.”
Pray that George’s testimony about the power of God’s grace will reach many Deaf and that the good news of Jesus will be known among the lost, the post reads.
–Dwight Widaman | Metro Voice
