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Saturday, June 23, 2018

The Sign Club Co.

Breaking the Barrier

Imagine not being able to hear. You can't hear the voices of your loved ones. You can't hear the
birds sing. You can't hear music.

Because you can't hear, you find it almost impossible to communicate. It's difficult to inform
others how you feel or even that you need help.

That's a little bit of what it is like to be deaf.

The difficulty in communicating is what causes many deaf people to be isolated, alone, and
neglected.

That's why Poppy O'Guin Steele has made it her life's mission to be an advocate for deaf children.

"Her actions prove even louder than her words, whether spoken by mouth or signed by hand" writes Ken
Beck in a recent article in The Christian Chronicle. "She founded the Sign Club Co. in 2012. Since
then the organization, based in Tennessee's Sumner County, has taught sign language to more than
1,800 youngsters, with Steele teaching about 900 of them herself."

"Our No. 1 goal is to create friends for our deaf children," says Steele. "I find that, especially
for deaf children, their safety and literacy is often affected by their isolation. They rarely will
have family or friends around them who communicate in their language. So many of our deaf children
hardly have language at all. We try to create a community around them who can communicate with
them."

One of Steele's Club projects is "Silent Night Dinner," based on a Tuesday night tradition her
parents began. "Anyone who came," she explains, "had to sign or sit quietly, whether we went out to
eat or stayed home." When the selected location is at a restaurant, Steele will give some sign
language training to some of the employees. Then she selects a date and invites the deaf in the
community as well as some of her sign language students to come and share the meal and engage with
one another.

"Once, at a Chick-fil-A where I had taught the staff, one of our deaf teens came in and went to
order in sign language, and the cashier took the order and exchanged money. She then sat down with
the hearing students, and they all had a lovely evening laughing and talking in sign language, and
in that moment I said, 'This is what we do.' This child who sat at lunch by herself was no longer
alone. She had friends and was being a teenager and laughing."

The sound barrier that had isolated a child had been broken.

Because God loves us so much, He has "broken the barrier" that separated us from Him. That barrier
was created by our sins (Isaiah 59:1-2).

To break the sin barrier, God had to send His Son to die on the cross for our sins (John 3:16).
Only the sinless Son of God could pay the price for our redemption (1 Peter 1:18-19), and He did.
"In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of
His grace" (Ephesians 1:7).

God will save and give eternal life to those who place their faith and trust in Jesus (Acts
16:30-31), turn from their sins in repentance (Acts 17:30-31), confess Jesus before men (Romans
10:9-10), and are baptized (immersed) into Christ for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38). The
blood of Jesus will continue to wash away the sins of those who continue to walk in the light of His
Word (1 John 1:7).

God has broken through the barrier of sin that kept us from Him by giving His Son to die on the
cross for our sins. We don't have to be separated and lost any more, if only we will accept the
offer of His grace and mercy on His terms. Won't YOU?

-- David A. Sargent

* Information gleaned from "Breaking the Sound Barrier" by Ken Beck in The Christian Chronicle, June
1, 2018, www.christianchronicle.org.

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