If you have ever been curious about what the Deaf Chrch Service/Storying Group looks like here in South Asia, read on to find out:
Recently, my teammate and I took charge of leading the Deaf Storying Group in our country, because our supervisors have been out of country for visa and medical reasons. The Storying Group is made up of mostly young single men who follow the main religion in our country, so we had a little bit of a difficult time at first figuring out the logistics of an appropriate place to meet, but we finally decided on one of our favorite local coffee shops. We sent out the invitations to our Deaf friends via a video chatting app used by the Deaf here, called Imo, letting them know the where and the when.
The day of the Storying Group arrived, and we had no idea how many Deaf to expect. The average size of the Group has been about five or six, but there are not really any who are faithfully consistent in attendance. The smallest number we have had is one, and one time we had eleven, which has been our largest group to date.
I was also a little concerned about everyone finding the location of the coffee shop, because no one here really uses addresses. Some places do not even have an actual address, and even if there is an address, no one ever recognizes or uses it, they just know the names of well known, frequented locations or sites. Our first several months here that really proved to be one of our biggest challenges in meeting Deaf, but now after having been here for over a year, I have learned some tips and tricks for how technology can help resolve that. One of those is to use a picture of the place, this has worked great, because even if people do not know the name or address, if you show them the picture, they will usually recognize having seen that place before and remember how to get there. So I sent out a photo of the coffee shop via text message to all the Deaf we had invited and also a screenshot of the Google maps location of it in relation to other well known sites, and hoped everyone would find it. And that worked great!
Since we were meeting at a coffee shop, and since hospitality is such a huge part of the culture here, we also had to figure out the logistics of how to get everyone's coffee or tea, and pastries for them. We were a little unsure of how to handle this, because we knew not everyone would arrive at the same time. Schedules have to be very flexible in South Asia. One reason is because of the traffic, which is always bad, since we are in the most densely populated city in one of the most densely populated countries in the world. Also, culturally, people tend to leave their homes at the time stated that an event will start, and then the event actually begins whenever everyone arrives, and since different people are departing from different locations, not everyone arrives at the same time. With the Storying Group being at a coffee shop where generally you order and pay when you arrive, and with us as the leaders/hosts of the Storying Group covering the costs of all the coffees and pastries for everyone, we had to work it out with the staff for them to just keep a running tab and let us pay for everything at the end, thankfully the staff were amazing and worked with us on this!
So once everyone had arrived (we ended up having 9, our second largest group to date!), and were all happily sipping their coffee or tea and snacking on the pastries, and after having enjoyed some time to fellowship and catch up, we began by asking one of the Deaf believers to open us in pr@yer, and then I signed the Story.
In the Deaf Affinity we use a set of Stories called the 5-5-5 (it’s three sets of five Stories, and each set also has an introductory Story and a Story at the end to transition into the next set). The first set are Stories about J3sus, which we mostly use when we meet with non-believers. This set includes the “I Am” statements recorded in John, this is the set that we have been working through with the Deaf Storying Group. The Stories are: I am the Bread of Life from John 6, I am the Good Shepherd from John 10, I am the Resurrection and the Life from John 11, I am the Way & Truth & Life from John 14, and I am the True Vine from John 15. The introductory Story for this set is the Wise and Foolish Builders from Matthew 7, and the transitional Story is the story of Nicodemus from John 3. (The second story set is comprised of Stories about the Church for new believers, and the Stories in the third set are all about the task of going and making disciples).
On this particular Friday Storying Group (Friday is their day of w0rship here, not Sunday), the Story we taught was the Good Shepherd Story from John 10:11-18. After I signed the Story, my teammate asked the first question (when we do Storying Group with the Deaf we use a method called StoryOne, which consists of teaching a Story and then asking five dialogue questions about the Story). The first question asks the Deaf to recall the events of the Story chronologically by taking turns telling what happened first, second, and so on until the group has retold the Story from beginning to end . We demonstrated what we meant by this first question by the two of us telling what happened first and second, and then one of the Deaf believers told what happened third and by then everyone understood how it worked and they all participated, which was really exciting, especially since we had one brand new Deaf attending who had never come before and one who had only been one other time before. I was also excited to see how well they paid attention. When I signed the Story that first time they all just sat mesmerized to see something taught in their heart language, and you could see the joy on their faces because they were able to understand. You see, all of these young men in attendance (other than the two believers) follow the main religion in our country. They may go to their place of worship, but they cannot ever understand what is being said or done because it’s all being said and done in the spoken language, which they cannot hear, and there are never any interpreters. No one ever takes the time to explain anything to them, most hearing people, even their own family members, do not even know any sign language to explain it to the Deaf even if they wanted to. Many here also believe that, according to their religion, the Deaf cannot go to heaven, because they cannot read their Holy Book and because God cannot/will not hear prayers prayed in sign language, and reading the Holy Book and praying are two of the five pillars of their faith that most be practiced in order to go to heaven. And the one Deaf woman who was in attendance is even more ostracized by the culture and society here, and is not even allowed to enter their place of worship because she is a woman. So I loved seeing how happy it made them to finally actually have someone care enough about them to learn their language, pay attention to them, and teach them in their heart language. After finishing signing the Story once and leading them through the first dialogue question, my teammate signed the Story a second time, and I followed up with the second dialogue question, which is asking if they have any questions or comments about the Story, and how they feel after hearing the Story. For example, what they like or do not like. Basically it is a pretty open ended question to give them a chance to process the Story and get any and all of their questions or concerns that they may have out in the open before we really get into the deeper questions. The one Deaf woman in attendance always has lots of questions to ask, and this time she just did not understand why the Shepherd in the Story would die for the sheep to protect them from the wolf/tiger (they do not have wolves or vicious wild dogs here, so we sign tiger instead). She thought it was wrong that the Shepherd would die for the sheep, and that he should have saved his own life instead. I tried to explain to her how that was a picture of what J3sus has done for all people, but I am not sure if she fully understands yet. After everyone was finished with all of their questions and comments, one of the Deaf believers volunteered to sign the Story the third time, then my teammate asked the third question, “What do you learn about God the Father, the Son, and the H0ly Sp1r1t from this Story?” Of course everyone jumped in with lots of answers to what J3sus did in this Story, and agreed that the Sp1r1t was not specifically mentioned, but most also thought the Father was not mentioned in this Story.However, one of the Deaf believers jumped in to explain that the Father is mentioned when J3sus says that He knows the sheep as the Father knows Him, and that the sheep know J3sus as J3sus knows the Father. It was exciting to see one of the Deaf jump in to explain that actually the Father is mentioned, rather than one of us jumping in and explaining that. Once we finished with this question, the other Deaf believer signed the Story the fourth time and then I followed up with the fourth question of what wrong things can you see in this Story and what right things can you see. And then finally we asked if anyone wanted to volunteer to see if they could sign the whole Story through from beginning to end. One of the young Deaf men volunteered and signed a portion of the Story, and then the Deaf woman also volunteered and basically summarized the Story. We finished up by asking one of the Deaf believers to sign it through one more time and finish with the last question of how we can apply it to our lives. We never really get much in answers to this question, mostly because our group is made up of mostly non-believers, but one of the Deaf believers basically went into a sermon about how this Story is a picture of J3sus’ death on the cross, and transitioned into a really awesome presentation of the Good News! Please pray that this Story, and the presentation of the Good News that was shared by the Deaf believer at the end, will stick with the Deaf unbelievers in attendance, and that one day they will fully understand and make a decision of faith.
