Letter from the President...

Hello my Christan brothers and sisters,

Please allow me to share from the bottom of my heart about the deaf people who are lost in the secular world. According to a study, 98% of over 300 million deaf people in the world claimed to be NOT Christians. It's a mind-blowing percentage. What an incredible field to minister. I often have this question that keeps pondering in my head, "How do we reach these Deaf non-Christians and get them to come to Jesus Christ?"

In the hearing world, more people than Deaf have many opportunities to hear the gospel about Jesus Christ through radio, TV, churches, friends, blogs, and social networking. Unlike many of us in the Deaf communities, we live our lives visually. We don't have the luxury to listen to Christian shows or sermons on the radio, podcast or audiobooks. Only few churches broadcast their services on television captioning or subtitles. Praise the Lord to the churches that provide captions on TV. We at Operation JC Deaf Ministries pray everyday that God would touch their hearts. On the other hand, somehow and some way, we need push to bring Deaf people to Jesus Christ by providing more accommodations and services locally, nationally and internationally. We would love to see technology become more accessible and available to the Deaf communities so they can SEE the wonderful messages of Jesus Christ.

With the rise in popularity of the internet, video sharing via online have exploded in the past few years. More churches are sharing their sermon videos on their websites and networking sites than ever. Yet, the majority of the videos rarely have subtitles made available to the Deaf. We recently discovered that a technology is being in the process of developed by Google to provide captioning through "Transcript Audio" technology where it would detect the recording voices and translate it into subtitles. What a marvel technology. What if we implement that technology with all of the church service videos being uploaded into the internet? I'm pretty sure at least 90% of the Deaf population in the United States have access to TV or internet one way or the other. We're in the time where we'll have access to everything through smart phones such as iPhones, Blackberry's and Droids. Nothing is impossible with God.

One of my frustrations is many churches do not know how to embrace the Deaf communities in their area. Many Deaf people don't go to church because churches in their area do not have services or accommodations for the Deaf. Churches open many doors for to Hispanic communities. Why not open more doors to the Deaf communities to come to their local churches? Many schools are now providing accommodations for the Deaf Culture. Many of them are also now offering ASL Sign Language courses as their foreign language to the hearing communities. What's wrong with the picture here? Don't get me wrong, I am not against hearing people wanting to learn sign language. It makes our lives easier when we can communicate with the hearing world. However, I feel like Deaf communities are being heavily ignored. Where's our compassion for the Deaf non-Christians? We, Christian brothers and sisters, and churches are responsible to provide outreach program to the Deaf communities in their area. If it's done the right way, many people will be surprised how "thirsty" Deaf people wants to know more about Jesus Christ. It may be easier said than done. It's one of the main reasons why we started Operation Jesus Christ Deaf Ministries. Operation JC Deaf Ministries can provide trainings and workshops for churches who are interested in learning more about the Deaf Culture and develop an outreach program to reach out to their Deaf communities.

Speaking of Deaf Missionaries, we need more of them  to go out in the fields worldwide to help establish Deaf outreach programs, plant new Deaf churches, and provide Deaf revivals to the countries that do not have the luxury or access to SEE the gospel of Jesus Christ. They need people like us to show them the wonderful stories of the Bible. It's another of our long list of goals with Operation JC Deaf Ministries, to go out on the mission fields to help spread God's Word. We're in the works of developing visual Bible and projection slide show to present them the stories of Jesus Christ visually. We have a talented deaf artist on staff that will be helping us put together incredible materials for the Operation JC Deaf Ministries. Several years ago, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to travel to Japan, Canada and Honduras. The experience was amazing, unimaginable and extraordinary. I cannot tell you enough how inspired I was to see so many Deaf non-believers converted to Christianity. God is good! With a lot of prayers, I feel God is calling me back to the mission fields to reach out and touch more non-believers. Our goal is to turn the 98% to Christianity before Jesus Christ arrives! Amen!

In conclusion, please help us at Operation Jesus Christ Deaf Ministries in praying for our Deaf brothers and sister to SEE Jesus Christ so they may accept Him as their Savior. Operation JC Deaf Ministries and God are at work. He wants us to go out and make Deaf disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. I'll like to end this note with a wonderful verse from Matthew 9:37-38 ~ "Jesus said to his followers, “There are many people to harvest but only a few workers to help harvest them Pray to the Lord, who owns the harvest, that he will send more workers to gather his harvest.”

God bless you all!

Pastor Andrew
President - Operation Jesus Christ Deaf Ministries