The Deaf Shall Hear

Produced by John Rinehart Directed by John-Mark Warkentin Cinematography by Brian Petersen Edit by Brian Petersen Music by Chad Lawson Consultant Jason Suhr Sign Language Interpreter William Ross — Film Transcription Below —

Kim Stamper: God's word is life and I couldn't have gone through this without it.

He hired me and it was a three-interview process. So I interviewed with several people and not just him.

Rich Stamper: So of course she was very cute and she turned out to be very engaging and seemed very intelligent, and was very willing to come join us. That’s how we met.

A couple of years ago it was presented to us some of the needs of Bible Translation for the deaf.

I've never known any deaf people. Kim had never known any deaf people, but to be told that's a need…

Mandy Tucker: The season of life after we moved out of the country, to the farm was busy. It was, it was fun. It is fun, but busy.

Brad Tucker: We wanted our children to grow up in an environment that would teach them the value of hard work.

Mandy: I have always wanted twins. I just thought, “Oh, that’s cool.” I, I would love to have twins. I would just like to have twins. And so I got pregnant.

Brad: The nurse and the doctor said, you know, “You're, you're pregnant with twins.”

Mandy: Everything looked good until one night… it didn't.

Brad: I remember when we went in to hear the heartbeat, getting the news at that time there was no heartbeat.

Kim: We were just sitting out on one of the main streets just kind of people watching and I go, “You don't feel good do you?” And he was like, “No.” And I go, “We're going to the hospital, right now.”

Rich: The hallway was dark that we walked down. And it was a strange eerie feeling of darkness.

Kim: Richard said my head hurts. My head's been hurting for a while and it doesn't go away when I take Advil. And so he immediately said, “Well let's start with the C.T. scan.”

Gets Richard, takes him back for the C.T. scan. Richard comes back and we wait.

And he looks back at Richard and is like, “It's bad. You have a brain tumor.”

Rich: Virtual emergency brain surgery was the only option.

Kim: What do we do now? What about our kids?

Brad: A week goes by and we go back in.

Mandy: And I just believed in my heart we’re going to see these heartbeats, two little hearts beating. But God chose to say no.

It felt like everybody else's life had moved forward, but I was kind of at a standstill. A lot of the time felt like God had forgotten.

Brad: What you've wanted, what your wife has always wanted, is not what God has wanted for you at this time.

Rich: C.T. scans, PET scans, MRIs, brain surgery, Gamma knife radiation, a trial. Blood tests every third day.

Having money when you're faced with that is meaningless. It's meaningless.

Brad: Guess how many people are deaf?

Lil' Tess: A hundred and ninety.

Brad: That's a pretty good guess. But did you know that there are 70 million people in the world that are deaf?

Lil' Tess: No.

Brad: That's a lot.

Lil' Tess: I can only count to 100. That’s all.

Brad: Yeah, did you know that there are over 400 different sign languages in the world?

Lil' Tess: Um, no.

Rich: The oncologist told us, “9 out of 10 people die within a year with what you have right now.”

Kim:We got the news no one ever wants to get. No one ever wants to hear. No one ever thinks it's gonna be them.

Rich: I felt most alone when she would continue to tell me, “You're gonna be okay.” I felt like she doesn't understand. It's not her fault. She's not in my shoes.

It made me have to look death right in the face.

And that's when I, by myself, talked to God. I said, “God I surrender. I've never really actually said those words to you. But please spare me. Spare my life. I surrender to you.”

Kim: We made the commitment to give and it was the largest amount we'd ever given in our lifetime. And it felt good and we felt like we were following what God wanted us to do.

Rich: I could be gone tomorrow or Kim could be gone tomorrow. And the last thing we want to do is be gone and not be giving it away now.

Brad: It took time to mourn what we had experienced.

Mandy: Although I questioned it, really deep down, I knew he’s faithful. And maybe it's just not yet.

It was then that we realized, “Wait people don't have the Bible in their own heart language?” You’re kidding me.

Why would we not put our money there?

Brad: About a year after we had miscarried, Mandy was pregnant again and we were blessed with a little baby boy named Milo. 18 months later we were blessed with a little baby girl named Tess.

We knew that we wanted to grow our family. We decided that we wanted to adopt.

Mandy: Let's go for twins. We're going to pray for it. We're going to ask the Lord, we're going to believe. We've always wanted twins. Let's do this.

Brad: Filled out all of our paperwork, got everything created, ready, submitted. And the adoption agency that we were working with said, “You know twins isn't very common. You know, would you be willing to, I mean give it a year?”

Because we were rooted in the word of God we chose to hope.

Mandy: So the one year came around and they contacted us and said, “Okay, we need you to sign the papers that you’d be open to a single baby.” And we said, “Okay we'll do that.”

Brad: Mandy signed it. I signed it and sent it back. That same day we get a call:

“There's a birth mother in St. Louis, (three and a half hours from us). She selected your family. She's pregnant with twins.”

So just when you think you know, “God’s let us down again.” He is faithful. Eight days later here comes the baby girls.

Mandy: It was immeasurably more, above and beyond, anything I could ask or imagine.

Rich: Three months after I started my therapy, I got a call from my oncologist, “Richard, it's working.”

I felt really good.

Kim: He was determined cancer free. No cancer. Thank you Lord.

Rich: God is in control of my life. And he really does have other things for us to go do.

Brad: So how do you think those 70 million people would hear about Jesus?

Lil' Tess: Ummm, if they had a Bible?

Brad: If they had a Bible, yep.

Lil' Tess: Umm, we can pray.

Brad: Yeah, we can pray for ‘em. Mommy and Daddy care a lot about people that are deaf.

Lil' Tess: I do!

Brad: I know. You do too.

Brad: We want to help give those people that are deaf the Bible.

Lil' Tess: Um, do you give them money to buy a Bible?

Brad: The way that they are going to get the Bible is through sign languages.

Lil Tess: So, like (signing).

Brad: Yep, so all of those different sign languages they need the Bible to be translated into their own sign language.

Lil Tess: Yeah, but how do we do that?

Brad: Well, so we do that by giving money. Do you think it's important that we should give?

Lil' Tess: Yes! Yes! Yes!

Mandy: I can't imagine not having the Bible. I mean, I have so many Bibles. And I have so many things in my life that that's where I go to.

I want my kids to first of all love the word, um that it becomes very important to them and that they love it. And then I want them to love people. And when you love both then you have to give and love Bible translation. You you want the Bible to go forth to others and especially those that don't have it.

Kim: The goal is to translate God's Word into every language for every nation for every people group in our lifetime. And we wanted to jump in and jump in the deep end.

Rich: As long as there is a need and as long as we have the resources, we'll be giving to deaf Bible translation.

Brad: We feel like such ordinary people getting invited in to do extraordinary things.

Mandy: I can't think of anything more important to put my money on: People and God's word.