Nikolas* was born Deaf and grew up in a Catholic family. Even though he didn’t understand the church services he attended as a child, he loved going to church. Nikolas lost interest and stopped attending church in his teens, until he met some disciple-makers on a 2-by-2 team and heard about DOOR and its ministry. He began attending the local Deaf believers’ fellowship.
Shortly after he began attending the fellowship, Nikolas became ill with something that doctors couldn’t identify.
“I had been praying and attending fellowship regularly. But God didn’t heal me,” said Nikolas. His frustration seeped into every part of his life, and he stopped going to the fellowship.
The Impact of a Sign Language Bible
Then, he came across the story of Nicodemus from John 3 offered in a sign language Bible translation done by DOOR.
This moved Nikolas. He started thinking about what it meant to be born again. DOOR leaders baptized Nikolas after he understood what being born again meant, and expressed a desire to be baptized.
The real obstacle to Nikolas’s relationship with God was not his sickness, but his family. When he returned home after the baptism, he put his wet clothes outside to dry. His parents found the wet clothes and asked, “What happened to your clothes? How did they get wet?”
An example of sign language Bible translation can be found above by viewing the Bulgarian Sign Language translation of John 3
Nikolas shared with them what he had learned from Nicodemus’s conversation with Jesus in John 3, and bravely declared: “I have been born again, and so I was baptized. That’s why my clothes are wet.”
This simple statement enraged his parents. They sought to stop him from attending the fellowship and socializing with the Deaf people from that group.
Finally, Nikolas said to them, “I can’t explain exactly what I am feeling now, but you will see a change in me from now on.” In time, his parents did indeed see that change in his life, and they are grateful for this transformation.
A New Purpose
“God gave me a good mobile phone. Now I have access to God’s Word, which is helping me stand firm through my difficulties. I thank God for DOOR, its ministry, and the Bible translation work,” he says.
Nikolas has dedicated his life to ministry among the local Deaf community. Please uphold him in your prayers. Pray for both his physical health and spiritual growth.
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*—not real name
