Sowing Seeds with Thousands:
Deaf Community Outreach Booths
Wow! We have had a truly fantastic and extremely busy couple of weeks with the many Deaf community booth events being held around the country this first 5 months of 2006.
Each year, a number of Deaf Expos are held in various cities, celebrating Deaf culture. Typically, hundreds are standing in line before the doors open. Thousands of Deaf people attend these expos and this poses as an awesome opportunity to share Christ!
Our primary purpose in going to these events is not to just hand out free material. Yes, we do give away tracts, Bibles, DVDs and giving Jesus “ILY” pictures to our free drawing winners. But our main purposes include: making new contacts; renewing old contacts; meeting former deaf Adventists; and developing new students for our Deaf Bible School.
Before each event, we pray that the Holy Spirit will speak to the hearts of Deaf people attending the event, so that they will drop by our booth ... to learn more about Jesus Christ.
So, let us share with you where we have been laboring the past few weeks. The first event was on February 11 in Phoenix, very close to home! 3,700+ attended this event. George Belser was able to give us a hand.
On March 18th we participated in the Orlando (Florida) DeafNation Expo. A large crowd of 3,600+ attended. We are thankful for the help received from Velma Wright, Yani Uribe, Mario Romero and Alan Beer.
Two weeks later, on April 1st (ADM’s 8th anniversary), we had a booth at the Greensboro (North Carolina) DeafNation Expo. We had many visitors to our booth even though it was one of the smaller events with 2,600+ in attendance.
A week later, on April 8th, you would have found us at the Austin (Texas) DeafNation Expo. Helping us out this time was “movie-star Esther Doss” ... we say that because several people recognized Esther from her appearance in two different videos. We had lots of booth visitors including several of our Bible school students. The attendance for this event was 2,800+. During the tear down at the end of the exposition, a neighbor from the booth next door walked over. She signed to Bunny, “I want to tell you something. You’re doing a wonderful job.” As she gestures to the materials on the table, she continues, “This is really nice.”
For their first visit to Missouri, DeafNation selected St. Louis, where we had a booth on April 22nd. Attendance for a first-time event was impressive, with 2,700+ attendees! And despite that ‘small’ attendance, we had many visitors to our booth. A good number of people picked up these materials with great enthusiasm. We wiped out our supply of free easy-reading Bibles. Fortunately, Bruce Buzzell still had some extras on hand from having helped out at a previous event, so we were able to meet everyone’s desire for a Bible. Thanks to Bruce Buzzell and Dana Edmondson for their help.
On April 29th there was a record-breaking crowd of 5,200+ at the DeafNation Expo in Pomona (California). Can you imagine so many Deaf people in one place? We were very happy to have Neil & Lillian Davidson helping us during a very busy day! One was particularly excited to get the free DVDs we gave him. In fact, he contacted us by email two days later to find out how he can purchase some DVDs to share with his Deaf friends. A former Adventist signed up for Bible studies. 
And, finally, on May 13, we were in Atlanta. A good crowd of 3,600+ attended this event. Several members of the Southern Deaf Fellowship, including Pastor Jeff Jordan helped in the booth. The supply of free Bibles was exhausted a few hours before the booth closed.
Altogether, 24,200+ Deaf people attended these events. We are grateful for the privilege to share Jesus with these people. Although the encounters at DeafNation Expos were brief, we pray that we will meet each one of the contacts we made in heavenly kingdom.
There are approximately 6 million Deaf people in North America. Sadly, roughly 5% attend church anywhere, whether Adventist, Lutheran, Baptist, Catholic or churches. This makes the Deaf population a huge mission field right here in North America. Thank you for helping us make a difference in the deaf.
