I was able to use Sign Language

1-1-06 God moves in mysterious ways! I took a sign language class when I was 15 or 16 from a man named Ford Jenkins. He came to our church building from a neighboring town one night a week and taught a 2 hour class. I had already learned the manual alphabet from a biography on the life of Helen Keller and I was fascinated with it. I don't remember how many weeks or months the class lasted, but I worked hard at it. I even got a book on signing. Then when I was an undergraduate college student 1974-1978, I got to be friends with a girl named Terri who was deaf. I got to practice some with her, but she was an accomplished lipreader and had learned to talk, so she only used sign language to humor me on rare occasions. From 1980-1986 I lived in St. Louis, Missouri and there was a deaf group that attended our church. We had a full-time minister for the deaf and several translators. I really brushed up on my sign language and learned to sing some hymns in sign. I would "talk" with the deaf Christians and tried to speed up my fingerspelling as well as learning more signs. I got another couple of signing books and practiced often. In 1986, I moved to Fairborn, OH and didn't do much more with sign language until my youngest sister, Rachel, became gravely ill and her two little boys came to live with me. Rachel had minored in American Sign Language in college and she interpreted for the deaf in Tennessee and then in Texas. She had been talking to her boys in both English and ASL from the time they were born and didn't want them to lose it, so for the 2 and 1/2 years they lived with me I worked at it again. I signed most of the time whenever we were singing a hymn that I knew most of the signs for, and they would sign, too. My sister died and when her husband re-married the boys went to live with them. I continued to sign in worship during most of the hymns and encouraged my own 3 boys to learn ASL and sing and sign with me. I even taught a very short class in my home for anyone wanting to learn to sing hymns in ASL, but only one other person besides my own sons came and she eventually stopped coming.Then I became ill and it required too much energy to keep my arms up and sign during worship, so gradually I quit doing it altogether. Well, today, just as evening worship began, one of the elders came up to where I was sitting and said "Missy, could you come back and sign the services. We have 2 deaf visitors." I felt like Moses at the burning bush and I stammered "I don't think I know enough! I'm really very slow." He told me, "You're the best we've got! Please try!" I hesistantly agreed and gathered up my things and went to where they were sitting, praying all the while! As I approached their bench I signed "I know very little!" As the service continued I found myself signing all the hymns and the prayers and the sermon and the communion service and the announcements and realizing that God was right there with me and in me helping me to remember the signs and the alphabet and thinking of alternative words. Plus during the sermon the man would give me the sign for things I fingerspelled, so that as the sermon progressed I could use the new signs I was learning and not fingerspell the same words over and over. After worship service, I met the man and his wife and learned about their hearing children who were at their grandparents' house for a visit. I introduced them to my children and my parents and lots of people in the church. It turned out that they had known the man who taught me to sign all those years ago. (He died a few years back.) They thanked me for all my help. I told them to please come back any time. They live in the neighboring town that Ford Jenkins was from. I am so thankful to God for His help today! I am so thankful that I had signed those hymns with my nephews and sons, so that someone knew that I knew some sign language. I am determined to get back to my studies, so I can be prepared. Maybe there will be some deaf people in Nicaragua. I will need to know signs and not just fingerspelling there! Since I have lost 83 pounds, I now have the energy to be signing again! What a wonderful day!
Missy