Less than 2% of the deaf are Christian, and sadly, many churches are not equipped to reach them. In August, e3 led a short-term, recurring mission trip to Tanzania, Africa. There, our missionaries helped to launch a brand-new church for the deaf. Ultimately, we are equipping deaf believers to reach the 98% who don’t know Christ. To that end, we invite you to read a letter from our Tanzania trip leader below.
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Hello! I’m Luella, a part-time Church Planting Mobilizer with e3 Partners Ministry. One of my passions includes serving the deaf community. During college, I majored in Deaf Education and became fluent in American Sign Language; after graduation, I went on to teach deaf children for more than 25 years! Now I am able to apply these skills to the missions field in both the U.S. and Tanzania.
I’m excited about the Made to Multiply initiative, which equips believers to confidently share their faith and make disciples, because we need more laborers among the deaf. When the Lord called me into deaf ministry, I discovered that less than 2% of the deaf are Christ followers. Despite this statistic, many churches are simply not prepared to reach this population with the hope of the Gospel. That’s where I come in!
As a staff member of e3 Partners Ministry, I equip U.S. believers and our Tanzanian National Partners to make disciples among the deaf. To accomplish this, we partner with deaf pastors & evangelists, sign-language mobile app developers, and non-profit organizations conducting deaf outreach, just to name a few.
As a short-term mission trip leader, I coordinated a return trip to Tanzania this summer. There, e3 and our Tanzanian National Partners launched a new church comprised of 20 deaf believers. How thrilling! We also trained the church to share the love of Christ with other deaf individuals via Gospel Conversations Training.
The church members and training participants learned Bible stories which can easily be signed and shared with others. They also discovered simple evangelism and discipleship tools that resonate with the deaf. Additionally, we equipped them to maintain a healthy church over time by teaching the biblical principles of church stewardship. Our goal is to empower deaf believers to reach others within their community.
Serving this niche community has truly been the honor of a lifetime. If this is something you’d like to be a part of, please consider getting involved with Made to Multiply through a short-term mission trip or Gospel Conversations Training. Thanks for reading my story and may God bless you.