Pastor Jason of Midland, TX “My Experience with the Deaf in Jamaica”

“To say that Deaf Child Hope’s 2024 mission trip to Jamaica changed me would be an understatement. Its effect on me is more like a paradigm shift that will impact my life going forward in multiple ways.”

I’ve been told that I am bad at admitting when I am wrong. I am even worse at apologizing. By the end of this piece, I will do both. I do not know if I will do them well, but I will do them with full sincerity, if that counts for anything.

I first became aware of Deaf Child Hope (DCH) three years ago while I was pastoring a small church in rural Oklahoma. JD King  (DCH’s founder and CEO) came to the church as a missionary. I was moved by the presentation and sponsored my first deaf child at that time. Last Fall, I asked JD to speak at my new church in Midland, Texas, and it was then that I committed to go on a DCH mission trip which I just returned from this week. We visited two different deaf school campus’ plus the Jamaican Deaf Village during our week in Jamaica.

On the trip, I became impressed with one of the teachers at the Knockpatrick campus named Peter who always had a sunny disposition and a great rapport with
the students. Peter and I had several conversations during my time there, and, at one point, he asked me if I had been given a “name sign,” a way that deaf people abbreviate their names with a single gesture. It is a kind of nickname, but it can only be given to someone by a deaf person. I did not have a name sign, and I determined that if a child gave me one while I was on the trip that I would sponsor that child. The next day, Peter introduced me to a teenage girl named Brittney. We had a conversation (with Peter’s help), and, when she found out that the people of Latin America know me as “El Oso Fuerte” (the Mighty Bear), she gave me a name sign that essentially means the same thing in Jamaican Sign Language. Peter knew at that point that I would sponsor Brittney. What he did not know is that I had decided to sponsor him as well. It will be a great surprise when he gets my sponsorship letter to him!

This next part is an admission of guilt in some ways and where I would like to offer an apology up. Prior to this trip my mindset was that if a person is deaf then their hearing needs to be corrected.  They cannot hear, I reasoned, and they should be able to get “fixed” by getting cochlear implants, hearing aids, or at least strive to lip read so that they can communicate with hearing people. I did not realize that the deaf do not see themselves as missing anything.  They view themselves as being a part of a distinct culture with its own complex and beautiful language.

While in Jamaica, I saw the Deaf through their own eyes and I realized how offensive my views about them were. I realized that it is just as wrong for me to tell a deaf person that their culture and language are inferior, as it would be for me to say that to a person born French or German or Guatemalan or Egyptian. I was wrong, and to the deaf people of the
world I say,

“I am sorry. You are the way God made you. You do not need to be fixed. You don’t need to learn how to read my lips for us to have a connection. If I want to communicate with you, and I do, then I will learn your language.”

To say that Deaf Child Hope’s 2024 mission trip to Jamaica changed me would be an understatement. Its effect on me is more like a paradigm shift that will impact my life going
forward in multiple ways. I am praying about starting a deaf ministry at my church. I am sponsoring two more precious people who can use a hand up in this life. As God provides, I will sponsor more. I will become a collector, not of stamps or baseball cards or exotic cars, but of souls, and what could appreciate more in value than the spirit of a person who will live eternally with God due in part to my support of just a few dollars a month. I cannot think of a more worthy investment than that.

-Pastor Jason Shepard, Midland, TX.