Sign Language Church in Taiwan finds fellowship with similar churches in Asia region

["Taiwan Church News" <enews@pctpress.org>]

3113 Edition

October 24-30, 2011

Church Ministry News

Sign Language Church in Taiwan finds fellowship with similar churches in Asia 
region

Reported by Sam Lee

Written by Lydia Ma

Shou-Shan Presbytery’s Sign Language Church in Kaohsiung co-sponsored a “Sign 
Language Missions Village” with the help of Taiwan Sign Language Care 
Association on October 24, 2011, to raise awareness of deaf ministries. The 
event helped increase the visibility of Sign Language Church, which will be 
celebrating the 100th anniversary of ministries for the deaf in Taiwan in 3 
years. Ministries reaching people with special needs began with Rev. William 
Campbell’s arrival to Taiwan at the turn of the 20th century. 

Ministries for the hearing impaired in Taiwan have progressed at a snail’s pace 
in the past century and deaf people still don’t have their own sign language 
Bible. Sign Language Church’s goal is to complete a sign language bible 
dictionary in 3 years’ time.

When she was invited to attend a recent Asian conference held in Philippines on 
the subject of ministries to the hearing impaired, Lo Pei-wen, pastor of Church 
for the Deaf, was reminded of how important this ministry was and how much it 
needed support from churches worldwide. 

To explain this project’s challenge, she said that there are no standard signs 
for many biblical terms in Taiwanese sign language and other languages as well. 
In order to help Christians with hearing disabilities to understand God’s word 
better, it is necessary to find more people with a better understanding of sign 
language to produce a common standard.

Referring to this conference, Lo said that though it was an Asian conference, 
various churches from other continents also took part. Missionaries shared 
about their challenges in ministry and learned from one another. 

Lo underscored from her church’s experience that evangelistic ministries for 
hearing-impaired people wouldn’t be serving deaf people exclusively because an 
important component of such ministries includes reaching out to the families of 
deaf people. 

Having said that, she said she hoped to see more people learning how to 
minister to deaf people and support her church through offerings and prayers, 
especially since the church is still paying for its mortgage.

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