ASL DTS: Weeks 5 through 8

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Our amazing students! 

 Hard to believe that another 4 weeks have gone by!  

Here are some stories from the last month in DC at the ASL DTS! 

Week 5- Holy Spirit

JoAnn Smith 

 

We had the honor of having Dr. JoAnn Smith from Valley Forge Christian College, in PA come up for a week to teach about Holy Spirit.  Above is a picture of her and the president of the college and and a few graduates of the Deaf Ministries Program in PA.  She taught in ASL which gave me the opportunity to go to Taiwan and have a week of teaching in our students and staff native language! I heard our students and staff asked so many questions about Holy Spirit but also every other topic you can imagine! The staff decided late one night this week to do a Wacky Wednesday just for fun!

Weekly our students participate in David's Tent, the 40 day and night worship song, that YWAM DC hosts in the Fall every year on the White House Ellipse.  On Wednesday nights, our team goes out and joins the love song, interceding for America.  In the picture above, it was a night of dancing! 

Our students also had the honor of leading a 2 hour set at David's Tent! It was a great stretch for our students to lead for a deaf and hearing crowd but they did an amazing job and had a huge breakthrough with worship!  As our students would worship in ASL, Renca would type out the words on the screen for the hearing audience to understand as well as Gabriel would sing some choruses that were repetitive!  It was an amazing 2 hours! 

Caleb leading from his heart!

Claudine pouring out her alabaster jar on her lover, Jesus. 

Danni and Taylor, teaming up to give glory to Jesus in ASL!

Destiny rapped her own rap on stage and everyone there got involved! 

Week 6- Bible Overview

Ed Graham

Ed Graham, who is a pastor in Texas came and taught us the Bible Overview in a week! He has been teaching the bible and training hearing and Deaf leaders for over 40 years! It was an honor to have him with us.  He has such a passion for the Word of God.  As he shared stories from the bible, with us it ignited a passion for us to dig deeper into God's story and read the Bible more! 

He also attended other activities throughout the week such as worship time (picture above) where we took turns playing a beat on the drums, coming up with a song in ASL and dancing to the beat.  Ed did all three with us! He also joined us for our bi-weekly event, called "The Collection".  Jason Hershey, our base director came up with this event as he noticed our genernation are comsuming movies, books, videos however realized that we were created in God's image and made to CREATE with God.  So "The Collection" is a time where we create our own songs, poems, dramas, stories and share them with each other! 

During this week's Collection.  I shared "A Taste of Taiwan" with the students and staff.  Set out a table of postcards, pictures, dessert from Taiwan, pictures of the conference, and a few things I got there for them to see and taste.  

Week 7-How to Study the Bible
Douglas Johnson

We had the honor of having Douglas Johnson, who is originally from the states but have been serving in Costa Rica for over 8 years with his family here for a week on how to study the bible!  It was an amazing week of digging deep with observation, interpretation, application and proclamation!

 We studied Psm, Isaiah, Gen, the whole book of Philemon and more!  We looked at the imagery of Hebrew poetry, culture of the day of Paul's letters, and so much more! Douglas was amazing with learning ASL and just hanging out with staff and students. 

Samantha Roe, from Kansas City, MO was here for the week.  We met her on the road trip this summer, not once, not twice, not even three time but FOUR times on our trip across America! She has become a great friend of our community! Thank you Samantha for coming out!  She was so excited to see the Panda at the National Zoo on her free time! 

David's Tent completed 50 days of worship on November 5th! And our community celebrated what God had done during the 50 days with a Love Feast!  Everyone got dressed up and volunteers shared testimonies of the worship tent and Jason shared vision for next year!  Our group loves to celebrate!

Week 8- Evangelism 

David Gava

David Gava, born and raised in Zimbabwe but now lives in Sweden with his wife and 2 children was able to come and teach us about Evangelism.  However, he challenged our group with so much more than than sharing our faith but he went to the core by asking questions like "Who are you?" "What is your calling?"  He shared that when you know who God is and you know who you are, evangelism is easy! It is just an overflow from your intimate relationship with God.  Our group is still being challenging by the teachings of this week!

Our outreach co-leaders, Renca Dunn and Jonathan Owens and our students!  They had the opportunity to share at Deaf Connect Church in Fredrick, MD!  They each shared about something that God did in their lives during the last 7 week of the DTS.  Afterwards, Chris Hughes and others from the church took them out to lunch! 

HUGE PRAISE REPORT: Our outreach team need 8,600 dollars to buy the plane tickets to the Philippines and we needed it in by two weeks ago.  Well, we got a few larger donations and came to a total of 8, 870 dollars! And two days before Thanksgiving of last week, we were able to buy our plane tickets just a little over our planned budget! They are going to the Philippines! 

 

We are thanking God for providing and praising him in advance for how He will provide the rest for each one of our staff and students to go to share Jesus in the Philippines! 

Thank you ASL Interpreters!

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This thanksgiving week, I first want to thank God for sending his son, Jesus Christ to be a ransom for us and make a way back into relationship with the Father! We are so grateful for God and all that He has done and given up to be in relationship with us!

The ASL DTS also wants to send out a a huge "THANK YOU" to each of the ASL interpreters that volunteered their time and allowed God to use them for the advancement of his Kingdom on earth in the Deaf community!  Last week, was the last week of interpretation for classes and God mircalesly provided for our very need related to interpreting!  Thank you, Jesus! Seriously, we are so grateful for each of you.  You are part of our family here at YWAM DC and in the ASL community.  The DTS would not have been possible without you! 

1st time volunteers in the ASL DTS! So grateful for you! 

Rebecca Halls, from Washington DC. 

Abby Capo, from Austin, TX. 

Ashley Anderson, from Washington, DC.

Marleah Jacobson, from Gilbert, AZ.

Pali Dacanay from MD. 

Samantha Roe from Kansas City, MO. 

2nd year returners! 

This interpreters came back for the second year to serve in the ASL DTS! 

Alissa Matiya from St. Petersburg, FL. 

Elissa Macias, from Washington, DC. 

Michelle Chamberlain from Kansas City, MO. 

Cay Perque Waldron from Washington DC.

and . . . Dan McClelland from Mercer, PA! 

Yep, Dan stepped up and interpreted for class a few times as we did not have an interpreter! His sign language has sky rocketed over the last 2 years!  So grateful for him. 

Beautiful Things in Taiwan: Taipei and the Deaf community

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As I shared in the last post, Jereme and Rebecca Doole, have a huge heart for relationship.  A heart for knowing God more on a personal level as well as a heart to build relationship with others and see relationship built between people and God.  It was amazing to be with them and just see how every interaction with a person was so intentional and relational. Below are a few pictures and testimonies of our time in Taipei and the Deaf community there. 

So Rebecca prayed that as we were out for the day in Taipei that we would see and meet many Deaf people.  And we did. :) We met up with two American Deaf sisters with a amazing hearts for Jesus and sharing Him in the Deaf community around the word. 

We were on the train to the Daan Park for the Jade Art Market, when we recognized Huang Hui Ying,  a Taiwanese Deaf woman who attended the conference sleeping on the train. 

We gently tapped her and she was soooo excited to see us!  We learned she was also going to the Art Market, where half of the market there are Deaf artist selling their artwork such as paintings and the other half where artist with disabilities, to visit friends so she led the way proudly! Below are some pictures of the people we met and their work. 

Chen Xiao Zhong in the middle with the stripped shirt 

was one of that artists we met and talked to while we were there.

We walked around and Jereme and Rebecca introduced us to many Deaf artists they have been building relationships with over time.  The artists faces lit up when they saw this couple and met people from the United States. 

We had lunch and then continued on our way to a lottery ticket kiosk, where Deaf individuals handmade purses and handbags and jewelry. On the way, Jereme and Rebecca shared with us about ancestral worship that happens regularly in Taiwan.  The picture above is a store burning paper called "hell money".  Rebecca shared "they burn this so that their ancestors can live happily in the after life. If they do not do this it is believed that their ancestors will get angry and haunt them." Below, the store has set up a table with a food offering to their ancestors. 

We arrived at the purse and handbag store and I got a fish coin purse for baby girl, well when baby girl grows to be a little older. :) The pictures above are pictures of the Deaf workers to help sell their friends handmade pieces.  They were so hospitable and bought us drinks as we were looking at the items for sale.  Huo Feng Huang, the woman in the black and white stripped shirt was one of the first deaf woman that Rebecca met when she started attended Deaf events in Taiwan.  It was fun to see them catch up after many years of not seeing each other. 

Street performers which are very common in Taipei

Unique Art in Asia using colored wire to make things 

Night market in Taipei

As I was looking for a purse for myself, we bumped into the Singapore group from the conference.  Rebecca's prayer was being answered over and over. 

Another day, they took me out to just walk around the area and give me a taste of the culture.  

We went to a Vietnam restaurant that I loved! 

I got lettuce wraps and big bowl of rice noodles and beef! It was delicious! 

They also took me to get bubble tea, which was originated in Taiwan thus very popular!

Motos. Motos. Motos. 

Another Deaf friend, named Simon, that sells lottery tickets on the street near the Dooles home. 

They also took me out for some FUN! A typical Taiwan dessert, shaved ice! It was so strange for me.  For dessert, we had choices of red beans and sweet potatoes.  And I shared that with Jereme and Rebecca.  The woman who worked at the store spoke English and had visited America shared that it is strange for Americans to come and experience red beans as a sweet in Taiwan but it is just as strange for her as a Taiwanese woman to have gone to American and experience red beans as a salty food.  We had a good laugh.  I love experiences other cultures.  

And a massage! All the workers were visually impaired. It was nice to get a massage after all the walking.  Because I was pregnant they could only massage my calves, but it still felt good. 

So this is probably one of my favorite stories!  Jereme, Rebecca and I took the bus and train everywhere and in Taiwan, they have priority seating, which includes woman who are pregnant.  The whole trip everyone said "Carole you can have a priority seat."  I felt strange taking a priority seat esp. because I was not obviously showing at the start of the trip and I wanted to give other people the opportunity to sit.  

Well, honestly baby girl popped out in Taiwan!  Toward the end of the trip, I was on a packed bus and a Taiwanese woman recognized my belly and made sure I had two hands holding on to the railing and my feet firmly planted.  She looked for a priority seat however they were all full.  But the moment a person got off the bus she pushed her way through waving me along and saved a seat for me.  I took the amazing gesture and sat in the seat.  When the bus got less crowded I asked to take a picture with her (below).  And before she left, she made sure we came by and say good-bye to me.  I though it was a perfect testimony of the amazing hospitality of the Dooles, the Taiwanese people, and the Asian Deaf people at the conference that I experienced during my time in Taiwan!  

Father went with me and our daughter, took very good care of us the whole time and showed so much hospitality through so many people! Thank you for your prayers, support and praising God with us with what He did in Taiwan!