"Listen with your eyes . . .
Sign Language is a method of presenting thoughts via pictures made with one's hands."
People are adaptable. This trait is particularly useful when one of the five senses is weakened and another becomes more acute to compensate for the weakness. So the deaf, when they hear, hear with their eyes. To communicate to the deaf, then, is to translate the speech of the hearing world into the pictures of the seeing world.
"It is an amazing truth that Dr. Cathy Rice has had more influence on the ministry to the deaf, through her teaching of Sign Language and getting others to learn and teach it, than anyone else in the world. All around America, I have attended churches that have someone interpreting sermons for the deaf and teaching a class for the deaf. And in most cases, they learned the Sign Language at the Bill Rice Ranch and were taught by Dr. Cathy. I am so glad she has written this book. It is authoritative and important. God bless it." ?the late Dr. John R. Rice, Sword of the Lord Ministries, Murfreesboro, Tennessee
In 1953, the late Bill Rice, along with his wife, Cathy, founded the Bill Rice Ranch in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, as a ministry to deaf individuals. Since then, the Ranch has been the headquarters for ministries reaching the deaf for Christ both in this country and abroad.
The Ranch still maintains camp and conference grounds in Tennessee and in Arizona where deaf young people can attend one of several weeks of camp free of charge. Also, the sign language school that Dr. Rice began continues to train people through classes held at the Ranch each year. Well over eight hundred churches have established deaf ministries as a result of training received at the Ranch.
There are approximately 28 million deaf, hard of hearing, and deafened people in the US, according to Gallaudet University, and although not all of them speak American Sign Language (ASL), a visual-spatial language that is used by the deaf community in the United States (and English-speaking parts of Canada), the number of them who do make ASL the fourth most commonly used language in the country!
Now being made available in this affordable trade paper edition, Sign Language for Everyone can be used to reach a new generation of the deaf. For those seeking to establish a ministry to the deaf, or simply to provide ASL translation of sermons, the book-written by Dr. Cathy Rice, using her more than fifty years of experience in working with the hearing-impaired-will be a welcome resource. In addition to the explanation and illustration for each sign, the book covers rules and etiquette to observe when interacting with the deaf.
