Reaching The Deaf Through Digital Tools: A Virtual Roundtable

September 19, 2022

4:30 pm to 5:30 pm MST AZ, Online

Come and hear how Worldventure is reaching the Deaf in Brazil, America, and Japan. We will be focusing on available digital tools, sharing ideas, and will be open to questions (even ideas!) from you. You’ll hear the exciting updates how each person is using hybrid methods to reach the Deaf in their specific context and updates on the ministries themselves. Below are the featured guests at our roundtable.

Mary Esther Penner (Japanese Sign Language) served as a WorldVenture missionary in the Japanese Deaf community for 36 years. She now provides non-linguistic support for Sign Language Bible translation projects. Also, lives are changed as a Japanese Deaf lady shares what she learns in a Bible study with Mary Esther, with Deaf friends in another Asian country.

Ellie Lundquist (Brazilian Sign Language), serving in the Deaf community since early 2009. There are an estimated 10 million* deaf people in Brazil.

Nikole Hahn (Digital Disciple-Making Coordinator with WorldVenture) manages WorldVenture’s social media platform, trains churches in digital disciple-making tools, and tests her strategies with the digital team she leads at Grace Church in Chino Valley, Arizona.

Pastor Eiji Matsumoto is the Pastor of a Deaf congregation in northeastern Japan. He also serves as the board chair of the Japanese Sign Language Bible translation project and the president of APSDA (Asia Pacific Sign Language Development Association).

Barbara Churchill, spent the last 15 years of her professional life working in libraries, & enjoyed learning new technologies to accomplish job duties & provide PR for the library world.  Now retired, she recently joined Grace Church’s Digital Team as a Facebook monitor and technical support for local ASL Interpreter, Sue Stephenson.   Working together with Sue, Barb still enjoys learning new technologies while creating videos of Sue signing various ASL statements, retrieving sound bites from Grace Church’s Facebook live stream service that Sue interprets, and trolling social media platforms to find appropriate posts to share in the newly developed local Deaf Facebook group, including ASL clips from deafbible.com.

Sue Stephenson, ASL interpreter at Grace Church in Chino Valley, AZ. “I attended my first sign language class at church when I was 12.  I’ve always been interested in sign language but never found an opportunity to pursue it until we moved to Southern California.  I found and graduated from an AA program for ASL Interpreting.  I worked in education as an interpreter for over 22 years.  I have 6 years of experience of interpreting for church.”

Join us on Monday, September 19, 2022, from 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm MST AZ for a virtual roundtable! You must register in order to get the Zoom link for that night.