My Big Dream
July 2025
The “Big Dream” that God placed on my heart is for the DHH (the Deaf/Hard of Hearing) community. According to the online site, “ASL Deafined,” forty-eight million Americans suffer varying degrees of hearing loss. Eleven million of those Americans are part of the DHH community. The Joshua Project reports that there are 216 nations with deaf people. Out of those 216 deaf cultures represented, only one has had significant evangelical reach. Because sign language varies from culture to culture, many of these deaf cultures don’t have access to a translation of the Bible in their unique sign language. As stated by the International Missions Board, “In 2020, Deaf people numbered nearly 70 million around the world. Of those, 1,444 Deaf people die every day without Christ.”4
My Big Dream has always been there and year by year I’m recognizing that fact more and more. I’ve always spelled things out with my hands, although I used to trace out letters and now, I use ASL fingerspelling. I’ve remembered how to fingerspell my name since I learned it in kindergarten. I love being facially expressive and I have a very visual mind. All my life God has been preparing me for this community without my even realizing it. I first took a genuine interest in ASL because of a book I read. Inspired by the book, I took up sign language at my homeschool co-op, even though I didn’t need the language credit for my transcript. After I had graduated, I kept finding reasons to sign; I signed at National Fine Arts Competition and during worship at church, but had no visions of a bigger calling, Luckily, God had the plan already set in motion.
My first step towards my calling came about when our worship pastor, Coleman, shared about a ministry training program for young adults called C2 Next Gen. I felt the Holy Spirit stirring within me, beckoning me to go. I had no idea what I needed ministry training for, but I obediently sent in my application. A week and a half later I had a meeting with Coleman and a woman who leads a DHH ministry and teaches sign language at Lee University. We met to discuss starting a DHH/ASL ministry down the road at my home church. It was then I realized what God was calling me to—to be an interpreter and minister to the Deaf/Hard of Hearing community. Although I had moments of doubt while at C2 Next Gen, God confirmed my calling again and again. The most memorable confirmation came when a man I had never seen or talked to before said “God will use your hands” while praying over me.
God prepared me for this Big Dream in the way He made me. According to the CliftonStrengths test by Gallup, I function with the talent themes of Relator, Strategic, Responsibility, Futuristic, and Communication. Each of these themes plays an intentional role in how I can reach the DHH community, highlighting how God created me with this Big Dream in His mind.
My Relator theme means I care more for close friendships than friendly acquaintances. The DHH community, while being very open and accepting of everyone, holds a deep care for the members in their local community. God wired me in such a way that the deep connections I desire to make act as the bridge He can use to welcome the Deaf into His kingdom. Because the Relator theme is in my driver’s seat, my mind runs from the perspective of someone focused on building relationships. This will help me bring people not just into the building of a church, but deep into the community of Christ.
My talent theme of Strategic is God’s blessing for how I can do all the things He’s given me now and come up with ways to get myself where I want to be in the future to accomplish my Big Dream. There’s not a straight path to becoming a certified ASL interpreter, which gave me a chance to come up with my own path. As I enter the new season ahead of me, my ability to think strategically helps me come up with a way to balance work, school, friendships, serving, and my personal creative endeavors without getting burnt out.
Being responsible is both a blessing and a hinderance at times. The talent theme means I’m able to take on a lot, but it also can lead me to putting too much on my plate, something the Strategic theme can help me stop doing. Bearing responsibility will help me be a leader willing to own when she’s wrong and take steps to make things right again. The Responsibility theme also works with my Relator theme, meaning I have an understanding of my limitations and a willingness to bring others in to work alongside me. Luckily for me, the deaf don’t just want to be in church, they want to be the church. Giving the deaf opportunities to lead is something I would fight for within the church thanks to my talent theme of Responsibility helping me understand the need and putting a fire in me to do something to fill it.
My Futuristic theme is God’s way of providing hope to me. Although it can be hard to see what’s not yet in front of me, being able to envision the future helps inspire me to keep going. Right now, the future God’s laid on my heart is what inspires me to continue to push forward. In ministry, this will help me continue to go when things get hard. Being futuristic will also help me with the DHH community, many of whom have had hard, unfair lives due to their disability. My ability to look to the future will help inspire them to see what God has coming down the road for them, offering them hope. Thanks to my last talent theme, I’ll be able to make my visions of the future well-worded.
Communication is the talent theme that has the clearest application to my Big Dream. Being someone who cares about her words, the impact they have, and how they are understood will make me a great interpreter. My interest in how other languages work will keep me from misspeaking and help me properly translate things from spoken English into American Sign Language. Furthermore, my Communication theme will help me share the good news in an understandable way.
However, I’d never be able to do anything concerning my Big Dream without help from God. As scripture says, “In Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.” (Ephesians 1:13, ESV; emphasis added). With this new access to the Holy Spirit that we receive the moment we are saved, we are given access to the gifts of the Spirit. Although there are many different types of gifts that we can access, often we receive only what is necessary for the moment, as decided by God. As stated by Blackaby, “Spiritual gifts are given to equip the church to carry out its ministry until Christ returns. The spiritual gifts God gives us help us lead others, point to Him, and can validate His word, acting as signs to both the unbeliever and believer alike. Without the Holy Spirit, we wouldn’t be able to lead as God does. We wouldn’t be able to be led by Him or perform the work He’s called us to do. Without the Holy Spirit’s power moving through us, we would never accomplish our Big Dreams.
In order to be an effective interpreter and leader in the DHH community, I’ll need to grow in my Strategic and Responsibility talent themes and the spiritual gifts of faith and leadership, mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12:9 and Romans 12:8, respectively. By growing in these talents and spiritual gifts, I hope to not only be a better leader, but be better led by the Holy Spirit in everything that I do.
In terms of talent themes, Strategic thinking will help me remain organized and focused on the tasks at hand, while my Responsibility talent theme will give me the determination to get everything done. In ministry, being strategic will help me balance making and maintaining relationships in the DHH community with my goal of growing the ministry, the deaf church, and my own ability to be obedient to the Lord. Furthermore, these talent themes will help me balance all my work with my personal relationship with God. By carving out time alone with God, I will be able to help give myself the nutrients my spirit needs before I go out and bring the good news to others. Jesus modeled this by getting away to pray during His two years of ministry on earth; “Jesus went up on the mountain by Himself to pray.” (Matthew 14:23, ESV.) As any good flight attendant would tell you, you can’t help someone put on their oxygen mask until you’ve put on your own.
When it comes to spiritual gifts, the gift of faith will enable me to continually step into the unknown, trusting that if God calls me to it, He will get me through it. In ministry, the gift of faith can provide a quickness to obedience and a solid foundation to everything I do for the DHH community. The spiritual gift of leadership will provide not only the ability to lead, but the wisdom to understand what leading looks like. While leadership does require more than I think I can bear, when it is added to the spiritual gift of faith, it gives an assurance that God’s got all the power, and He’ll give me what I need as I continue to obey Him. The wisdom this gift of leadership gives will also remind me that I cannot do everything alone.
While I believe my gifts have been given to me for a reason and the Big Dream God’s placed upon my heart, I recognize that there will be a need to pull others in with me along the way. Although my talent theme of Relator makes me desire close relationships, it makes it hard to be around people I’m unfamiliar with. Bringing along an extroverted friend who loves being social might help bring more people into the ministry. Despite my ability to take on a lot of projects, I myself am not always the most disciplined nor do I get everything done the right way because I can be prone to procrastination. To combat this, I would need someone to come alongside me who is good at executing plans and staying on task.
Our God is a relational God. His original intent when making humans was to have relationship with us, as seen by Him walking in the garden to be with Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:8) and construction of the tabernacle and temple He had Israel make so He could dwell among them (Exodus 25:8 and Deuteronomy 12:5). Jesus lived this out when he dined with Zaccheus (Luke 19:5), healed the lepers (Mark 1:40-45), called the woman with the issue of blood ‘Daughter’ (Mark 9:22), and welcomed the children to come to Him (Mark 10:14). For these reasons, I will focus on growing in pushing past any awkwardness or lack of comfortability to be relational. I believe that by focusing on showing God’s love through relationship with the lost, I can bring the DHH community some of the deeper connection they’re searching for, not just with other people but with their Creator. In order to walk out being relational in ministry, I’ll be intentional with seeking people to come work alongside me and create Christ-centered spaces for the DHH to grow deeper in community.
Hearing people tend to have a lot of misunderstandings concerning the DHH community. In my own experience interpreting my church’s Christmas Eve service last year, I had to fight to make sure the space was fit for the DHH to be able to enjoy the service. The lighting couldn’t be distracting, the interpreter needed to remain lit during dark segments of the service, and there was a general need to understand deaf culture. Most deaf people don’t want to hear, they’re content the way God made them. I expect that a lot of my career as an interpreter for the Lord will be spent educating hearing people about DHH culture. For this reason, I’ll need to leverage my Strategic talent theme to come up with a plan to approach each subject in a way that would be understandable to the person I’m speaking to and my Communication theme to make sure I well-explain the DHH culture. I expect that my Responsibility talent theme will urge me to stand up for the DHH community and make sure that hearing people, especially those in leadership of churches with DHH or ASL ministries, understand the culture they are welcoming into their church. I can also foresee a need to use my Futuristic theme to inspire hope for what’s to come, keep the ministries I work in focused, and anticipate any potential pushback or misunderstanding that might come my way.
The spiritual gifts God has made the most evident in my life is Words of Wisdom. The clearest example had come to me in a dream that prompted the thought “Noah will be provided for.” The message, when shared, brought Noah and his mother a great deal of peace. This gift, along with the gift of encouragement, will allow me to bring forth God’s light into the dark places within the DHH community. A lot of deaf people have been mistreated, misunderstood, and left out because of their disability. Offering Words of Wisdom and encouragement will help reveal God’s nature to them and His plan for them. By using the spiritual gift of prophecy and speaking God’s word over them, can show them how God knows them (Psalm 139), made them for a reason (Ephesians 2:10), and has good plans for their future (Jeremiah 29:11). Offering hope, positivity, and life will be essential in offering the DHH the love of God they have been missing.
Although the Responsibility trait in me would love to be able to do all of this by my own, I will have a need to find other people to bring alongside me to fill the gaps I can’t fit in. I’ll need people who can love people better than I can, because I tend to seek out people I already know. I need leaders who are welcoming and willing to go out to those who aren’t in the church to bring the church to them. My job will require not only me working for the deaf in my local community, but with them. Although I can disciple and evangelize, neither of those are my strongest suits, requiring me to find people who are skilled in those areas. Furthermore, Deaf people don’t want to exclusively learn from hearing people, but from deaf people as well. I’ll need people who can teach discipleship, evangelism, and theology to the deaf so they can then go into their community to teach and lead others. Reaching the deaf will never be a one-woman operation, it will take members of God’s kingdom working together to achieve the Big Dream on our hearts.
Within the DHH community lies a lot of pride. Although most deaf people are open to hearing people learning ASL and becoming educated about DHH culture, within the community there is a hostility towards hearing people teaching ASL or leading in any capacity within the community. Because sign language is tied to their identity as a deaf person, deaf people aren’t fond of hearing people taking ownership to teach the language. Within Christian circles, many deaf people would prefer having a deaf preacher or attending a deaf church than watch an interpreter translate a sermon from a hearing preacher. With this in mind, I would need to rely on God’s gift of wisdom and discernment as I work with the deaf community, leveraging my talent themes of Strategic and Futuristic to work with the deaf towards their goal of building deaf churches and preparing deaf pastors. By encouraging the deaf in their spiritual gifts, we could build ministries that bring the hearing and deaf churches together in the name of God. My hope is that by accomplishing my Big Dream, there will be an increase of deaf ministries and churches in the United States, as well as an increase of DHH missionaries partnering with interpreters to go overseas and bring the good news to those who haven’t had access to it. The accomplishment of this goal would see the percentage of deaf people who know Christ grow from the current two percent.
It is my prayer that people will see Jesus’ love for the marginalized (Psalm 82: 3, Luke 4:18&19) through the way I live to serve the deaf and hard of hearing; that by making their salvation the focus of my life people will understand how great God’s love is and see how He uses unlikely stories for His glory. I also hope to live a life of obedient surrender as Jesus commissions us to when He said, “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24.) By this obedience and the giving up of myself, others will see how God blesses the obedience, gives strength to the weak, and provides during the scarcity. Being openly obedient even when it doesn’t make sense will show how important faith is and how rewarding and joyous life is when we live in a place of agreement with God.
Now that I have been blessed with a fuller understanding of how God designed me to function and the spiritual gifts I have access to, I can stand in awe of how He has purposed me for the Big Dream He has gave me. From this place of understanding the puzzle pieces He gave me and the part of the picture God has given me a glimpse of, I can begin to work towards that Big Dream. Seeing the potential ways the puzzle pieces can fit together helps me fight any doubts towards my future and equips me to keep my eyes on the horizon for what comes next. Knowing that I was truly made for this Big Dream also inspires me to keep going, even when things get hard.
I’ve spent a lot of my life feeling other, in some cases even feeling less than. It's still something I struggle with, although the battle has gotten much easier as I grow my understanding of God’s word. I’m grateful for the testimony and how it will help me relate to the deaf and hard of hearing community God has called me to. Through the process of learning my talent themes and the spiritual gifts, I’ve come to realize how much of myself I’ve misunderstood. I’m not cold-hearted, I just care for genuine, deep relationships more than shallow acquaintances. I’m not dumb, I’m creative and think in a strategic way that’s different from the way other people think. I’ll never be incapable when it comes to what God calls me to do because the Holy Spirit offers everything I need. God made me care about my words and the way I communicate because He always intended for me to learn to sign. He gave me a sense of responsibility because He wanted me to be a leader. Everything God has given me- my testimony, my personality, the way I think, the gifts of the Spirit- have been pieces that will help me as I try to put together the picture that is my Big Dream. Not a single trial will be wasted, no part of my being was added “just because,” nor was I called to something I would be unable to do. God knew the plans He had for me (Jeremiah 29:11) when I was being knit together in my mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13).
References
Bruce Wilkinson, The Dream Giver, (Multnomah)
“Deaf and Hard of Hearing Population in the United States (Expanded Overview),” ASLdeafined, last updated 2021, https://blog.asldeafined.com/2025/04/deaf-and-hard-of-hearing-population-in-the-united-states-expanded-overview/
Deaf People Groups in Each Country,” Joshua Project, https://joshuaproject.net/people_groups/19007
Ann Lovell, “IMB celebrates work of Deaf Pathway Global,” International Missions Board, (July 1st, 2021), https://www.imb.org/2021/07/01/imb-celebrates-work-deaf-pathway-global/
Conchie & Rath, Strengths-Based Leadership, (Gallup Press), 81 & 43
“Facts” Deaf Church Planting https://deafchurchplanting.com/facts/#:~:text=The%20Deaf%20Church%20is%20where,disciples%20and%20Deaf%20leaders%20emerge
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (Crossway)
Henry & Richard Blackaby, Spiritual Leadership, (Broadman & Holman Publishers)
Melissa Greenlee, “Deaf-Friendly Perspective: Hearing People Teaching Signs” Deaf Friendly Consulting, https://deaffriendlyconsulting.com/deaf-awareness/hearing-people-teaching-sign-language/
