God still amazes me sometimes!

Next week is our VBS at our church. 450+ kids, 170+ workers and I get to feed them all. So this week and this weekend is the preparation and shopping so I've been super busy. In addition, I need to set up the computer for each day of VBS to project the song words, the videos of the missions project, Bible verses, etc. I'd covet your prayers for us this week.

So anyway, I got a call from a young woman at our church who's deaf (there is a service that will take a video phone call from a deaf person and will then translate it to a hearing person that the deaf person wants to speak to. It's a pretty neat thing). She wants to help me in the kitchen for VBS and I told her to call the staffing person just to be sure that this is the best department for her (I thought it would be since working with the kids would be hard when she's deaf and none of the kids know ASL). She called me back twice the other day saying that she couldn't get a hold of the lady and what should she do? I called her and told her just to come to the kitchen on Monday - it's great if she can help us out. Now this young lady reads lips really well - but she has a hard time communicating to the hearing so I was a little worried abour our communicating but I know a few bits of sign language and there's a big white board in the kitchen that I can use to write notes. Things will work OK.

At our "dry run" (the final meeting of all VBS staff before VBS), one of the ladies was saying that she wished she could take the coffee that I was about to dump home because she had house guests and they like coffee but this lady didn't have any coffee maker. So I told her that I had a spare and I'd bring it over that afternoon. I went to her house to deliver it and met the house guests - really nice couple with 3 kids. The mom asked if she could help in the kitchen too since her kids would be attending VBS and their hostess would be working with me too and I said "Sure!" Many hands make light work, right? So I finally said that I needed to get to church to set up the computer for the deaf church and the houseguest wife seemed surprised. "You have a deaf church??" and I explained the situation. She thought it was so cool because her own parents are deaf and her dad is a pastor. He'd love to have a church to lead like that.

"Wait. Your parents are deaf??? That means you know ASL." says I. "Yeah, I do" says she. Me suddenly yelling in triumph, "YES!!!" Everyone was shocked - until I told them that just an hour before I told a young deaf woman that she can work in the kitchen with us even though I wasn't sure how we'd communicate. But here God provided an interpreter - from clear across the country! How AMAZING is that???

 

I attended the deaf church this week and it was really interesting. I'll be doing the deaf church again this week (running their computer for the graphics).

I'm going to PM you a question I have about the deaf and visuals. I hope you don't mind.

 

Thanks! I'm setting up for them tomorrow again so I'm really interested to see what you have to say.