Wordless || Sarah - August 05

There are no words (literally) to express the experience we had today. This is totally different than anything I have done before. Our team went from knowing absolutely no Guatemalan Sign Language this morning to knowing the many signs of animals, foods, common verbs, phrases, etc. It was intimidating in the morning because sign was something none of our team members had experienced before, but the Lord worked in a powerful way. It wasn’t a typical GE program like we had expected to teach. Our team joined the students in their classes and learned sign along with them. Many of the students have been deaf their whole life and are just now learning to sign. It was so special to see how the children lit up when we made a fool out of ourselves trying to figure out what each other were attempting to communicate in sign.During the day, I was somewhat frustrated because we were not teaching them anything specific. We were just part of their class room, studying along with them as students. At the end of the day, I look back at the experience that I had. One student, Melky, particularly stood out to me. He is one bright kid! He corrected every sign I did wrong, and watched every move I made during class. He was so patient with me!I realized today that even though we were not necessarily teaching anything, God was still using us to show HIS love to this group. Many of the deaf individuals do not experience much love in their life. Most of them do not even have family members who invest enough time into learning sign to be able to communicate with them. God has been showing me today that sometimes it’s not about SAYING the perfect script or TEACHING the perfect lesson. It is about letting God work through me and realizing that God can use me even without words. He can move through our team, even through a double language barrier. These deaf individuals are so special! They have such kind hearts and are eager to learn. They have such huge hearts for the Lord! I am so thankful to be here and see how God is using the Summerville’s and their ministry. I am excited to see what the Lord has in store throughout the next two weeks.