Miss-Delectable
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Fulton Sun
Depending on your preferred manner of worship, church may involve standing, sitting, jumping, dancing, quietly meditating or shouting in tongues. Whichever the case may be, believers are moved by the Holy Spirit in a variety of ways.
One universal component, however, is music. It's something most people take for granted, but for those involved in Hands of Love, it is a constant consideration.
Hands of Love is a ministry for the deaf sponsored by First Baptist Church. It encompasses multiple denominations and involves those who cannot hear as well as those who can.
“We're seeking to provide a church that meets the unique linguistic and cultural needs of the deaf community,” said Hands of Love organizer Tessi Muskrat. The ministry currently offers church services on the second Sunday of every month, but Muskrat envisions a weekly gathering drawing deaf worshipers county wide and beyond.
“We would present a church service in American Sign Language with announcements, Sunday school class and signed music,” she said. “Sometimes we would use music with some really heavy bass to it so that the deaf can feel the vibrations and sometimes we would use a bass drum to keep beats.”
Muskrat said they also provide an interpreter for the hearing services and a weekly Sunday school class at Fulton Baptist Church. Although there is no formal connection between the Missouri School for the Deaf and Hands of Love, she has helped maintain a productive relationship between the two entities.
Hands of Love provides other Christian activities on a monthly basis, including bus service to and from the MSD dorms as well as a “Deaf Club” for elementary and middle school age kids. Craft projects, games and dramatizations of Bible stories supplement a learning experience designed for the deaf.
“We've had a really good response to Deaf Club. We're in our seventh year,” said Muskrat. “It's something the kids really like.”
Rebecca Pursley is another active leader in Hands of Love, and has devoted much of her time to the deaf ministry. She and some of her colleagues have attended Deaf Opportunity Outreach, an international program designed to bring deaf Christians and educators together to spread the gospel.
“We went to Costa Rica for 11 months with people from Guatemala, El Salvador and Puerto Rico,” said Pursley. “Our first two weeks was basically learning how to communicate with each other because each country has a different sign language. Just having to live in that environment with each other helped us develop, scripturally, ‘the spiritual fruit.'”
The excitement from the international experience has translated to the homeland as well. A group of deaf students with Hands of Love recently returned from Council Bluffs, Iowa, where they participated in a work trip.
“We worked at Deaf Missions, an organization which publishes Christian material for deaf people and produces videos for parents of deaf children,” said Pursley. The trip took place the week after Easter and the youngsters helped with manual labor as Deaf Missions completed work on a new wing for its facility.
“We had seven students go, and they worked so hard the first day that Deaf Missions had to figure out what to do with them because they finished what they thought was three days of work in one day,” Pursley said.
Pursley and Muskrat are working toward expanding Hands of Love to offer even broader programs.
If they maintain their current level of faith and enthusiasm, growth is inevitable.
“It's really important that parents contact our ministry directly to say that they want their child to be involved,” said Pursley.
Depending on your preferred manner of worship, church may involve standing, sitting, jumping, dancing, quietly meditating or shouting in tongues. Whichever the case may be, believers are moved by the Holy Spirit in a variety of ways.
One universal component, however, is music. It's something most people take for granted, but for those involved in Hands of Love, it is a constant consideration.
Hands of Love is a ministry for the deaf sponsored by First Baptist Church. It encompasses multiple denominations and involves those who cannot hear as well as those who can.
“We're seeking to provide a church that meets the unique linguistic and cultural needs of the deaf community,” said Hands of Love organizer Tessi Muskrat. The ministry currently offers church services on the second Sunday of every month, but Muskrat envisions a weekly gathering drawing deaf worshipers county wide and beyond.
“We would present a church service in American Sign Language with announcements, Sunday school class and signed music,” she said. “Sometimes we would use music with some really heavy bass to it so that the deaf can feel the vibrations and sometimes we would use a bass drum to keep beats.”
Muskrat said they also provide an interpreter for the hearing services and a weekly Sunday school class at Fulton Baptist Church. Although there is no formal connection between the Missouri School for the Deaf and Hands of Love, she has helped maintain a productive relationship between the two entities.
Hands of Love provides other Christian activities on a monthly basis, including bus service to and from the MSD dorms as well as a “Deaf Club” for elementary and middle school age kids. Craft projects, games and dramatizations of Bible stories supplement a learning experience designed for the deaf.
“We've had a really good response to Deaf Club. We're in our seventh year,” said Muskrat. “It's something the kids really like.”
Rebecca Pursley is another active leader in Hands of Love, and has devoted much of her time to the deaf ministry. She and some of her colleagues have attended Deaf Opportunity Outreach, an international program designed to bring deaf Christians and educators together to spread the gospel.
“We went to Costa Rica for 11 months with people from Guatemala, El Salvador and Puerto Rico,” said Pursley. “Our first two weeks was basically learning how to communicate with each other because each country has a different sign language. Just having to live in that environment with each other helped us develop, scripturally, ‘the spiritual fruit.'”
The excitement from the international experience has translated to the homeland as well. A group of deaf students with Hands of Love recently returned from Council Bluffs, Iowa, where they participated in a work trip.
“We worked at Deaf Missions, an organization which publishes Christian material for deaf people and produces videos for parents of deaf children,” said Pursley. The trip took place the week after Easter and the youngsters helped with manual labor as Deaf Missions completed work on a new wing for its facility.
“We had seven students go, and they worked so hard the first day that Deaf Missions had to figure out what to do with them because they finished what they thought was three days of work in one day,” Pursley said.
Pursley and Muskrat are working toward expanding Hands of Love to offer even broader programs.
If they maintain their current level of faith and enthusiasm, growth is inevitable.
“It's really important that parents contact our ministry directly to say that they want their child to be involved,” said Pursley.