Glorifying God through ASL

As some of you may know, I plan on pursuing American Sign Language (ASL) interpreting as a career and I had been taking classes at Mesa college with their interpreting program for the past year.  But since this spring semester, I have taken a hiatus from the program after long prayerful consideration. This was a very hard decision for me to make, but I believe that this was the most glorifying one to God.

So now a little background, I've been a biology major since freshmen year and I started out taking ASL classes just for fun and to fulfill my Revelle GE's.  But slowly I became very passionate about the language and with Deaf culture.  It wasn't until my junior year of college, when I was visiting home in LA one weekend that I realized what I can do with ASL.  During the Sunday sermon, there was a hard-of-hearing college student that had come back to visit since starting college.  Luckily, there was a teacher of Deaf adults that was a member of the congregation, and so he interpreted the whole service for her.  It was then that it dawned on me that I could also do the same-- glorify Christ using ASL. 

Soon after this realization, I began looking into interpreting as a career--first to interpret for churches, then whatever else as a side job.  Though I started off with good intentions, I quickly began to lose sight of glorifying Christ and started to rely on myself to accomplish all things.   I got really burnt out trying to juggle my schedule of school work from two schools, working and serving at church because I relied only upon my own strength to things rather than go to God for help and rest.  Even in my sinfulness of taking what I had intended to glorify Christ to boast myself up, God has continued to be faithful and blessed me along the way.

1.  For instance, when I finished taking all the ASL classes at UCSD and was beginning to worry about losing ASL through language attrition.   God blessed me with the opportunity to work at the UCSD Moores Cancer Center in the Deaf Community Outreach department, where I can interact with Deaf people and have a chance to sign with them.  Only by God's grace was I able to obtain this position because my ASL skills and qualifications are horrible! 

2.  If not for God's sovereignty, it would be impossible for me to be able to sign up for classes at UCSD and at Mesa since both of the enrollment schedules are months apart.

3.  By His grace, I was able to get through a crazy quarter/semester of non-stop school and work schedule almost every day from 8am to 10pm.  I'm amazed that I didn't fail my classes when I seriously barely even studied for my exams.  I didn't pass my classes because smart (I'm quite stupid actually), it is purely by God's abundant grace that I'm not failing out of college.

And the list continues, but let me get back to why I decided to stop the interpreting program at the moment.   This year, I have the humbling opportunity to serve on College Life as student staff.  During Fall quarter I was still taking my interpreting class, but as it came time for me to enroll for spring semester, God gave me a wake-up call and revealed to me that I was not truly glorifying Him.   The interpreting class required that I spend time in the Deaf community to hone my ASL skills as well as learn how to serve the Deaf in the community.  There was a 20 hour minimum for this assignment with 2 community reports that added up to 10 hours each.  The first report, I was able to complete but the second report, I was not able to finish and was only able to do 2 hours and 45 minutes.  The reason was because the only time that I get to spend in the Deaf community is through Deaf coffee night, an event held every Friday night from 7 pm to 11pm at a Coffee Bean in Mission Valley (exactly the same time as College Life).  During the earlier half of Fall quarter, I had always tried to sprint my way out of College Life and drive quickly to Coffee Bean to squeeze in at least 1.5 hours of community hours.  Around this time, I had also been convicted to be a better small group leader.  My previous small group leaders had placed so much time and effort in helping me grow spiritually, I also wanted to follow in their footsteps and invest in my small group as well.  I didn't want to always look at the clock and be antsy to leave College Life to go to Deaf coffee.  I want to give my small group my undivided attention and to truly serve them to the best of my ability.

Then one Friday night, as I was driving to Coffee Bean, I got in a car accident.  I was quite shaken up, a minor backache from the impact and a smushed car door, but thankfully I was okay.  Eventually, everything worked out with insurance (another interesting story to tell).  But from this, I finally realized, that it was God's way of telling me to stop.  I was so caught up in doing everything that I forgot the reason why I wanted to start interpreting in the first place.  I had forgotten to trust in God-- if I truly believe that God has called me to glorify Him through interpreting, He will provide a way for me to obtain the proper training.  It was foolish of me not to trust in God's timing, and so in my leap of faith, I decided to truly trust God, and let go of my own agenda of pursuing interpreting.  It was quite scary for me to make this decision because I didn't know if I was allowed to just suddenly drop out of the program and knowing that with the lack of practice, my ASL skills will be drastically affected.

Surprisingly, at the end of the semester, I got an A in the interpreting class when felt I did so horribly on the midterm and final.  Not to mention, my midterm did not get recorded during the exam.  But everything worked out because the professor allowed me to use my presentation video as my midterm and as for the community report hours that I wasn't able to finish, I joined the SDCRID, the local chapter for the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf which, by God's sovereignty, was the perfect amount of extra credit that covered my loss of points for the assignment.  Crazy right?

From time to time, I still get bummed out that I can physically see my ASL skills deteriorating before my eyes, but God is faithful and encourages me not to lose faith in Him by providing ways for me to maintain my skills.  God's latest encouragement to me.... oicmovies.com.  It's a site where current news are signed in ASL as well as various other genres, like entertainment,  comedy, etc.  God is so good! 
   
I've also been thinking about this a couple of months ago, after taking my first core interpreting class, I've realized that this career requires all the skills that I lack: a good short-term memory, mastery of ASL and English, good public speaking skills, and an analytical mind, just to name a few.  Praise God, for through Him I can accomplish all things.  =)

College Retreat 2010

College retreat was awesome!!  It was a great time of fellowship and learning as Pastor Mark Lim walked us through the book of Hebrews.  I must say, out of all the college retreat skits, I had the most fun during this one.  It was so encouraging to see everyone working on it and how well everything flowed together.

It's crazy how Pastor Mark was able to cover the whole book of Hebrews during these three days.  There was just so much to soak in-- all so convicting, humbling, and encouraging.  After walking through Christ's superiority, Christ's qualifications as our High Priest, and how faithful and merciful He is, the only and proper response is to not neglect my sins and to draw closer to Him.  What a great comfort it is to know that Jesus Christ truly knows what we all go through in our lives because He became man so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest.

Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. ¹⁸For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.              -- Hebrews 2:17-18