Chuck and Nancy Snyder work for Deaf Reformed Ministries (DRM) under the direction of DRM’s director Kenton Hoxie.  Established in 1997, DRM’s mission is to spread biblical reformation to the Deaf community so that Deaf people’s lives might blaze brightly with the gospel of Jesus Christ.  DRM’s work includes:

• teaching at conferences in various locations of the United States and Canada.  Interested individuals and/or churches can contact DRM, and DRM will send speakers.  This is an effective means of evangelism and an important means of grace for Deaf believers who do not have access to biblical teaching.
• sponsoring a national conference for the edification of people from all over the country and, sometimes, the world.
• producing and distributing teaching materials.

To learn more about this ministry, go to http://www.deafreformed.org/index.php

 Our Work with DRM:

We serve DRM by interpreting their conferences so that hearing people can access the high quality biblical teaching of godly Deaf pastors.  We also interpret material the Deaf pastors want access to from the hearing world.  During the past five years, that has included:

• Interpreting theological conferences
• Translating the Master of Divinity program of Whitefield Theological Seminary
• Interpreting conference and translating resources on biblical counseling 

Pray for us: 

Please ask God to prosper our joyful and consuming work, particularly the seminary translation project. 

The greatest gift you can give us is praying for our children:

• Noah, who is at Berkeley finishing his Ph.D in math
• Jesse, who teaches Japanese at a language magnet school in El Paso, Texas
• Sani, Jesse’s wife, who teaches music in El Paso.  Jesse and Sani are also involved in a church plant in that area
• Joel, who works nearby and lives at home
• A.J., who is studying at Geneva College

Deaf-World Fast Facts:

American Sign Language (ASL) is a complete language which is quite different from English. ASL is not:

• Pictorial
• Pantomimed
• Concrete
• English represented in signs

Like all languages, ASL has:

• Its own grammar
• Rules for sentence formation

Sign language is not universal:

• Deaf communities across the globe each have their unique signed languages for the same reason that hearing communities have their unique spoken languages.  ASL is used in the U.S. and English-speaking Canada. 
• British Sign Language is very different from ASL, but French Sign Language is more closely related to ASL.

Stereotype busters:

• Deaf children in Deaf families typically sign their first words two to three months earlier than hearing children speak their first words.
• ASL poetry can incorporate visually rhyming handshapes, as English poetry can incorporate aurally rhyming sounds. 

Fun facts:

• ASL has many more pronouns than English has, but ASL does not differentiate the gender of those pronouns.
• ASL can be more efficient and specific than English.  Using only four signs, ASL can communicate the meaning of this English sentence:  “God gives the Holy Spirit to all of you who are gathered here.”
• Because Deaf culture places a high value on sharing information, our Deaf friends know many things about us that our hearing friends will never know.