Hello from the Editor for this special sign language edition of Wycliffe Today.
Why is sign language special to me? My sisters and I were fortunate enough to attend a primary school which was one of a small number in Australia to introduce integrated learning between hearing and Deaf students. We made friends with the Deaf children in our classes and we were all taught conversational Auslan – the term for Australian sign language. Unfortunately, I’ve forgotten much of what I was taught in those early days but I’ve recently been re-learning basic Auslan after an illness rendered me basically mute for almost five months.
It was incredibly frustrating not being able to speak but it also gave me a chance to realise how much I have taken the gift of communication for granted. My inconvenience was nothing compared to how isolated many Deaf people in Australia often feel when they are not able to fully understand or participate in the conversation around them. My Deaf friends often rely on lip reading when the person they are trying to communicate with does not know any Auslan. If you’ve never tried to lip read, I recommend giving it a go. It’s not as easy as it looks!
This edition of Wycliffe Today focuses on projects that are resourcing the Deaf Church in Australia and throughout the Pacific. Deaf Christians are being encouraged to grow in their knowledge of God and his Word and, in turn, be equipped to share their faith with others. The stories focus on a collaborative project with Alpha Australia and Bible Society Australia that has created an Auslan version of the Alpha video series. We hope that as you read these encouraging stories, you can learn more about the needs of the Deaf community and pray for the work being done to make Scripture accessible to them.
My family are all hearing people but I am Deaf. So it was really difficult when I was growing up. They were all talking but there was no signing. My mother would communicate with me through my sister as she couldn’t communicate well with me. Schooling was also really difficult. I missed a lot because I was trying to follow orally. I was bullied at school, which got me feeling down and depressed.
When I was younger, I went to the synagogue (I came from a Jewish family). We’d learn to write in Hebrew but there were no other Deaf people there, and no interpreter. When I learnt stories in Auslan about famous characters from the Old Testament, it helped me understand the pictures I had been shown as a child. Then when I was about 15 or 16, I had thoughts about God. Who is God? Where is he?
When I was 19, I had a Deaf boyfriend who was an amazing signer. He introduced my family to simple finger spelling and basic communication. He was also the Christian who led me to Jesus. I learnt more about the Bible from him and I was struck by the words in Revelation 3:20 – that Jesus invites everyone to join him. Everyone. Including Deaf.
I learnt how to teach Auslan at Latrobe University. Then I taught it at my old church for 20 years and many people’s skills improved. I’ve been at my current church for five years now and teaching some Auslan there too. There are plenty of Deaf people in the area but I don’t know how to encourage them to come to church.
I used to lead Bible studies where we would watch some Auslan Bible translations together. I really like to have written text alongside the Auslan translation but written English is very different from Auslan. Having Auslan interpretations in church makes the message so much easier to understand. — Susan Shannon
If you’re looking for a sign language project to support people like Susan with resources in sign language, the Solomon Islands Deaf Community Assistance is developing educational resources such as training videos, printed materials and a mobile phone application to be used to support the delivery of sign language education. Visit https://wrdf.org.au/pacific/solomons-deaf-community-assistance/
An exciting project is about to be launched to provide Deaf Christians with tools to grow in their faith and reach other Deaf people with the gospel. Wycliffe Australia, Bible Society of Australia and Alpha Australia have been close partners in creating a translation of the Alpha course into Auslan – Australian Sign Language.
Rebecca Thurrowgood (right) signing for the Alpha videos in Auslan.
Rebecca Thurrowgood is a Wycliffe Australia member who has been coordinating the Auslan translation. The collaboration with Alpha and Bible Society was especially meaningful to her as it enabled various skills, experience, connections and resources to come together to fulfil a growing need within the Deaf Church.
Rebecca’s parents are both committed followers of Christ, yet they have found that, as Deaf people, their ability to fully engage in the life of the Church has always been a struggle. Although work is underway for a translation of the Bible into Auslan, the translation of Scripture is only in its early stages and there is currently a lack of Scripture engagement and outreach tools to reach the Deaf in Australia. Rebecca shares:
At the end of 2023, Bible Society was chatting to me about what things we could do for the Deaf community in regards to translation. I mentioned that my dad had said he’d really love a translation of the Alpha series. Wycliffe Bible Translators Australia, Bible Society Australia and Alpha Australia met to discuss how this could work and, after just 45 minutes, we were all keen to get started.
The first goal of the Auslan Alpha project was to provide resources to help Deaf Christians to grow in their faith and understanding of Scripture. A second but just as important goal was to equip Deaf people to reach out to others. Rebecca explains:
The Deaf Church hasn’t really reached the next generation. Just like a lot of [hearing] churches in Australia, we have an ageing Church. We want to ensure that we’re not starting from scratch in ten years’ time. At the moment, the Deaf community in Australia is an unreached people group, essentially. We want to change that.
A professional studio has been set up at the Wycliffe Australia National Office in Kangaroo Ground and that space was used to film the Auslan Alpha videos in September 2024. Rebecca says that all of the interpreters they brought in were Christians who had a deep affinity with Alpha and a desire to reach Deaf audiences with the gospel. One of the interpreters was on set filming when she mentioned that she had offered to run the Alpha course in her church. The Auslan Alpha resources had not yet been finished but she really wanted to test them out and see how much interest there was. Rebecca recalls:
The translator told me: ‘I only have 10 weeks this year that I can run an Alpha course. When I told some Deaf friends about it, they were happy to come along. She later messaged me, saying, ‘There are five Deaf people who don’t yet know Jesus coming to the Alpha course! I’ve got eight people turning up and a church has offered to host it for us.’
The Auslan Alpha team presented at the Australian Deaf Christian Network conference in January and Rebecca says they were given permission to start promoting the upcoming Alpha series:
Around 60 Deaf people were in the audience. When they saw the preview of the Auslan Alpha videos, they were so excited. One of the ladies got up, and she cried, ‘I have been praying for years that there would be Alpha for the Deaf. God just answered my prayers.’
Rebecca is still beaming since the project has started wrapping up. She says:
I think the biggest challenge with this project was that none of us had ever done anything like it before. But God made it happen. It is always beautiful to see organisations coming together and partnering in a vision.
That question is easy to answer for Skip Smith, Church Engagement Lead with Alpha Australia. Skip explains that the Alpha translation into Auslan is a key evangelistic resource that is intended to help equip Deaf Christians to reach others with the good news of Christ. Skip has been working with Alpha for six years and has a heart for finding ways of providing support for Deaf Christians. He shares:
We all long for connection. Deaf people are no different. My wife and I were leading a church in Brisbane when one Deaf couple started attending. Other Deaf Christians heard how they were welcomed into the church and that number started growing. Soon we ended up with 50 people in the congregation who were Deaf. We started realising how desperately ill-equipped the Church was for meeting the needs of Auslan speakers. I really felt the Lord put it on my heart to make space for the Deaf community. So we dedicated space for them in church and had interpretation services available every week. Then I started learning conversational Auslan. I would learn to sign just by being with the Deaf community. I became passionate about helping them to access the Word of God – access that so many of us take for granted.
So how does Alpha come into the picture? Skip explains:
Alpha is ‘a series of interactive sessions that explore life, faith and meaning … a resource churches use to create a space and a culture where people are excited to invite their friends into a conversation about Jesus.’ A few weeks into my role, I began speaking with my Deaf friends and going ‘Hey, there’s this thing called Alpha. Have you heard of it? How could Alpha and Auslan work together?’ I have a friend who is the pastor of a Deaf church and she seemed interested, but the more I talked with her, I realised how many complexities there were in translating the content. I had a number of conversations but nothing got off the ground. So I said, ‘God, I leave this in your hands’.
A few years later, God started opening doors when Bible Society Australia (BSA) and Wycliffe Australia approached Skip to see how they could support Deaf Christians. Skip says they selected the top eight subjects ‘that would take someone on a journey of faith’, such as ‘Who is Jesus?’ ‘Why did Jesus die?’
There are still seven more Alpha videos to be translated into Auslan, yet Skip says that he sees the partnership between Alpha Australia, BSA and Wycliffe Australia continuing well into the future:
To have these three different mission organisations come together in this way was just absolutely beautiful. We’re working together with a generous, collaborative spirit. But the work isn’t finished yet! I see this as an ongoing partnership. I would love to see Deaf ministries really use these resources for evangelism. My dream is that every single Deaf person in Australia at least be presented with the gospel.
The official launch of the Alpha in Auslan course is planned for July 2025. Please pray with us as trial courses are held and the team prepares for the July launch in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.
Feedback from an early trial of Alpha in Auslan:
‘I went to a Deaf church once and I couldn’t understand anything they were signing. It was all jargon! I tried to read the Bible but it was in old language and I couldn’t understand much. But this? The [Auslan translation of Alpha] is easy to follow. THIS IS CLEAR! I can understand it and it’s so INTERESTING!’
Amy Cruickshanks is a linguistics consultant with Bible Society Australia who played an integral role in creating the Auslan Alpha translation videos. Along with her desire to see Deaf communities equipped with resources to grow and share their faith, Amy has been part of the team translating the Bible into Auslan. Amy says that, prior to joining the project, she did not have connections with the Deaf community. Yet that all changed once she began learning the language and meeting the people with whom she would come to develop close relationships:
Since I joined the team and started learning Auslan, I feel like my life has changed quite a bit. Now, some of my closest friends are Deaf people and others I have met through the Deaf community. It is also because of Auslan that I joined the church I am currently attending. The church has Auslan interpreting, so I thought I would visit to say hello and see what was happening there. I was really only intending to visit the church once, but the welcome I received that first Sunday was so warm and I was so readily embraced into the group of signers (made up of both Deaf and hearing) that I just kept going back. I’ve been there a year and a half now, and feel I have truly found my church family.
Amy has been with the Auslan translation team for two years now, but notes that the Auslan Bible Project has been underway for almost 30 years. So what are some of the biggest challenges in a signed translation compared to a written or oral translation? Amy shares:
There are a few differences. I think the biggest one is that in Auslan, as in all signed languages, the visual details of objects and events are important and communicated, so these always need to be brought into consideration in translation work. For example, our team was recently translating Psalm 23, and we had a few discussions around the section ‘you anoint my head with oil’. What did that anointing actually look like? Was it just a dab of oil on the forehead or was the oil liberally poured out and running down the face? These sorts of details aren’t something you typically have to consider in spoken language translations.
Along with the challenges, Amy says she finds the Auslan translation work incredibly rewarding:
Being involved in this project has been the biggest gift from God to me. Not only is working with my teammates a joy, but together we have the opportunity to make the Bible more accessible to people who use Auslan as their first language – what could be better than that?
There are currently two full books of the Bible translated into Auslan (John and Acts) and portions of a number of other New and Old Testament books. While there is still a long way to go, Bible Society Australia recently launched a new, updated website for the Auslan Bible so that the Deaf community in Australia can better access what has already been translated. To see the Auslan Bible, visit https://auslan.bible/
Please pray:
that God would continue to guide the Auslan Bible Project committee and the translation team
for those who engage with the Auslan Bible and Alpha in Auslan – that they would grow in their understanding of how great God’s love for them is.
Thanks for your patience...
Waiting is hard, isn't it. But imagine waiting 2000 years for Scripture in your language! Thanks for your patience. And thanks for your generous support which will help bring the long wait to an end...
Thanks for your patience...