I first learned Sign Language through my birth mother. She knew sign and her mother had known sign before her. I remember sitting in the deaf section at First Baptist of Atlanta when I was just a tiny thing (preschool age) and watching the interpreters. I remember that I was totally fascinated with the way they could talk without their voices.

When I was about eleven years old, my mother told me that a neighbor of ours was giving sign language lessons and that I could either continue ballet or take the lessons in sign. I didn't hesitate! Sign language it was. I liked ballet, but I wasn't learning anything new with the class I was in, so I went for sign!

I continued my sign lessons on and off until I was fifteen years old, when my teacher decided that her family needed her to be more available. During a short time between late 1997 and March of 1998, I also helped Mt. Paran North with their deaf ministry. After I stopped helping them, my sign language took a four year break. I felt that nobody really thought it was important and I held my precious gift of sign so close to my heart, that not many people were allowed to see it. I did sign a couple times for the youth productions at Mt. Paran Central a few times during those four years, but that was about the extent of my sharing.

Then, one day I saw someone using sign for their own private worship and I realized how very much signing meant to me and how much I missed it. So, very slowly I began to sign again. I was afraid people were laughing at me or criticizing my motives. Perhaps they thought I was a big show off. Surely God would understand. But somehow I never was sure about it.

Then, I decided to take a refresher course in sign and found that I knew more sign language than I had thought and I started signing to music again. What joy I experienced when I worshipped the Lord! I found that God had given me a gift, a talent, a passion, an anointing.