Used With Great Purpose: How One Man Is Reaching the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Community

David didn’t speak until he was five years old. He was born deaf, and didn’t get a cochlear implant until he was 27. Today, David leads a deaf and hard of hearing small group at Saddleback, loving people in the ways he missed out on in his earlier life.

HEARING GOD’S VOICE

David’s father was the pastor of a Korean church. David remembers sitting in sermons and not being able to understand anything since he couldn’t hear or speak Korean. He only knew a few Bible stories.

“Growing up, my relationship with Jesus was very superficial and not very relational,” he reflected. “I didn’t know how to have a relationship with Jesus.”

It wasn’t until college that he began to form his own relationship with God. His pastor’s wife typed out every sermon for him, helping him start to understand who God was. 

“During my college years — that’s when I started to realize that Jesus really loves me as a deaf person, and that I’m valued,” he said, wiping away tears. “Knowing that God can use me as a deaf person, I prayed a lot and asked, ‘God, please use me,’ because I felt like I’m useless, not valued, and I know that God loves me this much, he can use me.”

After getting married and having his sons, David began looking for a church that would meet all of his family’s needs through a married couples ministry, a children’s ministry, and a deaf and hard of hearing ministry. Through reading The Purpose Driven Life, he found that Saddleback had all three. After being laid off from his job, he felt the time was right to move his family from northern California so they could start attending. 

“I had this urgency that I needed to move near Saddleback Church,” he explained. “So I decided to move my whole family without a job — my wife didn’t have a job, I didn’t have a job — and we moved ... trusting God that he will provide. That's all I knew.”

FOLLOWING THE CALL

After the move, David spent almost 10 years finding a full-time job, a process made extra difficult because he is deaf.

“Even though my resume is really good and I have the experiences, I still face the kind of biases or prejudices or whatever people think of a deaf person when they see me,” he explained. 

Now he works at an elementary school with deaf and hard of hearing children.

“I wanted to share my experiences with the deaf and hard of hearing,” he said. “I want to help them grow and mature. It's a big part of me and my heart to work with children.”

He also serves the deaf and hard of hearing through leading a small group at Saddleback. 

“When I heard there was 1% or less of deaf and hard of hearing people who are Christians, that really got me very upset,” he said. “For that reason when I was here at Saddleback I wanted to start a deaf and hard of hearing small group. I wanted to somehow bring the gospel to them … I have this big vision that one day more deaf and more hard of hearing people will come to Saddleback Church.” 

Saddleback’s ASL ministry recently launched an online service of the sermon interpreted fully in ASL. There is also an interpreter signing live at the Lake Forest campus. David knows firsthand what having accessible church services mean to the deaf and hard of hearing community.

“It makes my heart full,” he said. “I'm always looking forward to coming to Saddleback because the message is being interpreted, and being with the people I know who are deaf who are kind of like me, I’m able to connect with them a lot. It makes me feel more at home, more alive, and more connected and so I can get more involved in their lives and get more involved in serving at Saddleback.”