Deaf people encounter many hardships, and one of these is illiteracy. Because they cannot hear, deaf people in every community are looked down upon and have to resort to sign language to communicate with others. There are actually over 400 different sign languages worldwide.
Worse, more than half of the deaf population worldwide still remain illiterate, and only less than 1 percent have a complete translation of the Bible.
This is why the Deaf Bible Society is working to share God's word to the hearing-deprived, aiming to reach 80 percent of them worldwide by the year 2025.
"Like you and me, we were in a home; we could hear our parents speaking around us, speaking to us, about us, and we entered school with about a 5,000-word vocabulary," J.R. Bucklew of Deaf Bible explained to Mission Network News. "This deaf child never hears a thing. They don't hear you speaking to them, about them, for them, around them. And, they pick up very few gestures. You might create some home signs, but they enter into school with about a 50-word vocabulary."
He revealed that in the United States alone, 65 percent of deaf Americans are illiterate, and the hearing majority do not even realise or understand that sign language is a separate language.
"People misunderstand and assume that it's just a hand motion or a gesture for every English word, and you do it in the same order: kind of like we're doing...charades or something," Bucklew said. "And it's not that at all. American Sign Language is it's own language. It has its own syntax, grammar structures, language rules—everything, is completely different from English."
Because of this, the deaf community does not have access to the Bible. When officials of the international audio Bible recording company Faith Comes By Hearing went to a deaf school several years back and encountered so many deaf children eager to learn, they realised that they have been so busy getting God's Word to every person that they have completely forgotten about the deaf community.
They then created the Deaf Bible App back in 2012. "The Deaf Bible App, today, has about 16 languages in it, over 500,000 users worldwide–just tremendous distribution," Bucklew shared.
They have even partnered with ministries like DOOR International, Deaf Mission, Asia Pacific, Sign Language Development Association, and Wycliffe Bible Translators to help with the translation of the Bible.
"We figure any support we can give them, the better–whether that's fundraising, promoting, building awareness, and making the reality of the deaf community known among our hearing brothers and sisters," Bucklew said.
