On Friday, Feb. 27, the students in Trinity's American Sign Language had a guest speaker in their classroom to talk about ASL in the LCMS church. However, the classroom was silent.
That's because the speaker, Kaye Wolff, an advocate with the Lutheran Women in Mission's Deaf Ministry Outreach Program, was communicating with the fifth and sixth grade students in sign language.
In fall 2025, Trinity began offering electives to students in grades 5-8. A list of elective options was sent to students and their parents over the summer, including topics such as German, robotics, home skills, home maintenance, cards and games, Visual Faith and ASL.. Students and their parents ranked the electives and based on that and availability in the classrooms, students were assigned to the elective classes, which meet on Fridays through the school year. Some are taught by Trinity teachers, while others are taught by other members of the staff and some from the community.
Since the beginning of the semester, students in the ASL elective have been working with retired Trinity teacher Joanne Brown to learn the language and practice communicating and even "singing" in sign lanaguage. On Wednesday, Feb. 26, the group of students performed the song, "Our God is an Awesome God," during chapel. Then, they put their skills to use communicating with Wolff in their class two days later.
Wolff talk to the students about the Church Interpreter Training Academy (CITA), which trains Lutherans the American Sign Language Interpretations of the Divine Services so the Deaf community can participate in worship and have access to the Gospel of Jesus. While many interpreters are available, very few have the skills to sign God's word accurate and completely. That's where CITA comes in. The organization covers Bible studies, religious sign vocabulary and liturgical interpretation. This uses the translation of the "Lutheran Service Book" into ASL. The LWML funds grants for CITA to hold workshops each year. One is occuring on March 14-15, 2026 at Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Dearborn. CITA says nearly 96 percent of the Deaf community is unchurched, providing workshops like this brings the Word of God to them in their language, but it starts with training. Besides learning more about ASL, participants also grow in their understanding of Lutheran theology and worship as they learn to interpret it.
