The Future

For many of us this word holds a number of different emotions. For some of us, there may even be a bit of fear behind it. When I was in high school, the thought of the future was terrifying. The future meant growing up, leaving my family and beginning a whole new life. Now that I’ve grown up (just a bit), left my family, and started a whole new life, I’ve realized the future is not what is terrifying, It’s the unknown that really frightens me. The future may hold many things, and not knowing what they are is the scary part.

Diana, our new Honduran volunteer teacher, 

teaching the youngest group at our school. 

We love her and so do the kids!

Since working as the teacher for the Deaf for Signs of Love, I have been given new eyes to view the future. I no longer view  the future as the scary unknown, but as an opportunity for change, an opportunity for new workers to rise up and join the harvest, an opportunity for Signs of Love to grow as an organization through the Mighty Hand of our Father. I am overwhelmed with excitement by the thought of what God is planning for the future. I believe God is working and cultivating hearts right this second, and preparing Hondurans to become the leaders of tomorrow. Being in the school Monday-Friday has allowed me to witness the children from villages, who a month ago had no language, carry on a conversation with not only their other classmates, but the teachers as well. We have also been meeting Hondurans who have taken a huge interest in the Deaf and Signs of Love, who with the right guidance and love of the Father, will bring something really special to Signs of Love Honduras. And God is still working in other areas! The past few Sundays, many children from the school have begun attending Deaf Church, which is really exciting in itself. Not only are they coming to church regularly, but they also have engaged themselves by volunteering during the service, answering questions, and helping to re-teach biblical concepts to the other attendees. These kids blow my mind! They are so smart and I just know God has huge plans for their lives and I cannot wait to see them unfold. Meanwhile, we pray. Since all these wonderful things are happening, I know the enemy is on the prowl. Please join us in praying for the future leaders of Signs of Love, the ones being cultivated now, and the ones who may not yet be found. Pray that each day we do not lose an opportunity to build up these future leaders, along with the leaders that have already answered the Call and are leading right now. We all know how the story ends, the enemy will lose, and we will not fear the future or the unknown, because nothing is unknown to the God of the Universe, and I know with all my heart He is leading this organization into great and marvelous things! 

Hoy Sixto Fue a Casa al Paraiso

Con los años, Sixto me ha enseñado lecciones que no pueden comunicarse con palabras. Por favor, perdona mi débil intento de tratar de comunicar esto. Nuestras visitas no consistía más que un juego de Uno que me dejaba ganar, ya que haría sonreír tan grande, y nos gustaría beber sodas y comer churos. Eso resume cada visita. En esas visitas, me enteré de que todos nos queremos ser amados. Sólo queremos que alguien venga y creer en nosotros. Sólo queremos que alguien nos diga que va a estar bien. Sólo queremos a alguien que toma la mano. Sólo queremos que alguien piense que somos especiales. Sólo queremos que alguien nos diga que tenemos un hermoso futuro que nos espera. Sólo queremos a alguien que llora con nosotros y se ríen con nosotros. Sólo queremos a alguien.

Estoy agradecido que llegué a ser que alguien de Sixto. Me decía a menudo que él me quería enterrar a él cuando murió. Nos gustaría soñar juntos del día, y recordemos que Dios es soberano. Pues bien, Dios es soberano, y nuestro sueño ha llegado.

Sixto, le extrañaremos, pero es tan vale la pena saber que está en el paraíso. Gracias, Sixto, por haberme enseñado las verdades profundas que las palabras son incapaces de comunicarse. Usted eres amado.

Sixto's Day Finally Came!

At 1:24pm  today I received a call. 

Heaven came down and touched my heart the moment I heard Nieve say with a lamenting voice, “He just died.” 

Sixto was one of the most simple people I know.  His life has had a profound impact on mine not because of his simplicity, but because of his difficulty.  He has longed for this day for about 5 years now.  He has suffered horrendously with cancer that has left his face marred with inexplicable open abscesses.   

Sixto was in his 70’s, and has always had a difficult life.  He grew up very poor, working in the fields and mountains, never acquiring language (he’s deaf), never marrying our having children, and never being included.   He developed a skin cancer on his face, and if it had been treated in time, could have simply been removed.  Because of his poverty and lack of resources, the cancer wasn’t treated and literally ate away his face until his body couldn’t sustain it any longer. 

Over the years, Sixto has taught me lessons I cannot communicate with words.  Please forgive my feeble attempt at trying to communicate this.  Our visits never consisted of more than a game of Uno where I’d let him win because it’d make him smile so BIG, and we’d drink soda and eat chips.  That about sums up each and every visit.  In those visits, I learned that we all just want to be loved.  We just want someone to come along and believe in us.  We just want someone to tell us it’s going to be okay.  We just want someone to hold our hand, and touch us.  We just want someone to think we are special.  We just want someone to tell us we have a beautiful future awaiting us.  We just want someone to cry with us and laugh with us.  We just want someone. 

I am grateful I got to be that someone for Sixto.  He would tell me often that he wanted me to burry him when he died.  We would dream together of the day, and remind ourselves that God is sovereign.   Well, God is sovereign, and our dream has arrived.  Nieve, his sister who took care of him, just called to let me know I need to come burry him. 

I will be leaving on the first flight tomorrow morning, and will hopefully have him buried by midday.  I will share meaningful words to the onlookers of how greatly Sixto’s life impacted mine.  I will share of the promise given to Sixto in The Good Book, and I will pray that Sixto’s essence will remain on me always. 

I want to continue being that someone to someone.  May my eyes always be open to who those someones may be. 

Sixto, you will be missed, but it’s ohhhhhh so worth it to know you are in paradise. Thank you, Sixto, for teaching me profound truths which words are unable to communicate.  You are loved. 

Photo: I took this photo 10 months ago. I have cropped out the other half as it is very disheartening. I have
kept the uncropped photo with me as a visual reminder to pray for this day.  The sign of course read:
I want heaven.  

The Future

I recall a few years ago when a friend and I were having a discussion about the simple word “change,” and how it affects our lives.  I was at quite an immature state in life, and stubbornly believed that “change” was a bad thing.  In my nature, I just enjoyed things the way they were; “change” was risky, it was difficult, it took work, and the outcome was never certain.  Why take a gamble when you had a sure thing in your pocket?  My wise friend replied with this analogy which has stuck with me since.  He said, “Imagine a small pond that has been cut off from any supply of fresh water.  The pond just sits there over time, the water never moving, refreshing itself.  The pond will gradually become dirtier and dirtier as it fills with bacteria left from the environment surrounding it.  Eventually the water will become undrinkable and useless.  If a person became lost in the woods and dying of thirst stumbled upon this pond, drinking it would only cause him bodily harm because of the bacteria the water carried.”  “Now,” he said, “imagine a new pond, only this time with a river flowing through it.  The water is continuously flowing through the pond, displacing older water with newer water.  Thus when you look on it, the water appears fresh and clean.  Fish and other wildlife could either live in it or use it to sustain life.  If a person was dying of thirst this river would save his life.”  All I could do upon hearing those words was to simply bow my head in defeat and admit to myself the truth; “change” is not only good, it is essential to life.  One could say a rather big “change” in my life was 14 months ago when my wife Jess and I moved to La Ceiba.  It’s been astonishing to just witness the “changes” not only in Signs of Love but in the lives of the people we see consistently.

I’m a huge believer in growing the youth in the church.  I think it is absolutely essential in growing the church because of that same principal of change.   A passionate youth brings new life into a church, new ideas, enthusiasm, and so much more.  There is a reason that Jesus told us that we need to have faith like a child, because of what a child brings to the table.  In my opinion, one of the main reasons is a child or young person is eager to learn.  Not only are they eager to learn, they are also eager to share what they have learned.  You can just hear the voices of countless children coming home from school just saying, “Mommy guess what I learned today?”

Over the past few months it has been great to see that “youth movement” occur in our Deaf Church.  We now regularly have 6-8 kids who are a part of our Deaf class coming to The Deaf Church on a regular basis.  It’s also exciting that some of these kids are more advanced in their language than a high majority of our existing church base.  That opens up the door to the things they have the ability to learn about the Bible.  I’m at the point when I can simply look on them and see the potential, see the future of The Deaf Church, the future of Signs of Love.  They have been that refreshing water in the church.

I pray constantly that God will raise up leaders from these youth to take the reigns and launch this ministry into great new heights.  I can see it when they are grasping biblical concepts quickly, memorizing scripture, and setting a fresh example that even most of the adults could learn from.  I saw it when we were able to take every older kid from our Deaf class out to our village programs in February.  How most of them loved having the chance to interact with other Deaf kids without the ability to take advantage of daily schooling.  How they would create their own activities without prompting and implement those activities with ease.  How they would desire to teach their language to those who struggled to grasp it.  Every day after those village programs I was so excited that I felt like I could punch through a brick wall.  I truly felt like God was giving us a glimpse of what Signs of Love was going to be in the future.

I don’t expect this change to happen overnight, and it is going to take a lot of work and training, but I can see that fresh water coming to replenish and sustain a key part of Signs of Love… and boy does it look good.                                     - Daniel Fox 

Loving Nobody

The 'dazed' look from one
of the newer ones SofL
gets to love on 

Profound…perplexing….puzzling.  That’s what happens when we show interest in someone we don’t even know.  Have you ever had that happen to you?  That’s something we get to do almost every day here at Signs of Love.  You see, I’ve always been on the giving end of this, and for me, it just makes sense…that is until now. 

I’ve never known what it’s like being on the receiving end of this phenomenon until after losing my daughter, then my husband’s death, and my dear friend’s death.  This all happened the end of 2011, and my world as I knew it was shattered.   Because of these events, I have had people I don’t even know reach out to me in very real and tangible ways.  These people have wept over my sufferings.  They have prayed for me, covered me, lifted me up, and fed me. 

Now I understand why we get the dazed looks all too often in the villages where we find deaf people and love on them with all we have.  It’s a phenomenon that is God-breathed and driven, but to the receiver, it is rather baffling.  I mean, why should someone I don’t even know care for me?   Who am I?  I’m nobody.  That’s exactly it.  God sees and cares for the nobodies of this world.  His desire is that not any of us be destroyed (2Pet3:9). 

If we are really to be His hands and feet to this world, then we better get busy making this common place instead of a phenomena.   Who are you going to love in a tangible way causing them to be perplexed and puzzled, and experience something oh-so-profound?   


Remember, Love can be heard by all.  We love you... 

God Is Love

God is love. If He is in me, and I in Him, then I should be love... but how can I love if I do not accept the love that was first given to me? While in Honduras this past summer, working for Signs of Love Ministry, I experienced love, like I never have before. I experienced the out pouring of love onto others that I never could have given out from my human body. I experienced super natural, eccentric love that only could have come from the Almighty himself.

While on this beautiful journey I began to learn that I wanted everyone to know how much the God of the Universe loved and cared for them in such an enormous way, yet I refused to believe in my heart of hearts that that same God would deem me worthy of such love. I realized I had to be living a lie if I didn’t believe that the God Job described as the one “who laid the earth’s foundation, who gives orders to the morning and shows the dawn its place, who brings forth the constellations in their seasons, who sends bolts of lightning on their way, who knows when the mountain goat gives birth and watches as the doe bears her fawn” truly loved me. I began to beg God, the God whom I am unworthy to serve, whom I fail time and time again, the one who chooses to use me as a part of His mysterious plan, to reveal to me why, and how he could ever love me. As I see these words on a page, it seems ridiculous to even think that God wouldn’t love me, of course He loves me. Yet it was still hard for me to grasp in my heart, however, God began demonstrating His love for me in beautiful ways.

Love through Rubis: It was the last night of Deaf Camp that God gave me an example of His love. It was snack time, and the Signs of Love team was handing out a late night snack of a bag of chips and cans of juice. After we’d handed snacks out to almost all the kids, we realized there would not be enough juice for everyone. As I handed the last can of pineapple nectar to a girl named Rubis, I told the only girl sitting in the group that did not have a juice (Cecelia) that I was sorry, that was the last juice, and before I could tell her that we would have more juice in just a few moments, Rubis handed her juice over to Cecelia wearing the most generous grin I’ve ever seen. I immediately turned to walk away before I burst into tears in front of the girls. Obviously worn out from the days of planning and lack of sleep from the nights preparing, God pushed me to a breaking point as I received an amazing picture of a girl who had absolutely nothing, an orphan who was undoubtedly made fun of by hearing children since she was born, gave away what she didn’t know could be given back to her. I saw the love of Jesus in that little girl’s face that night. And it will stick with me forever. I have to wonder, if Rubis could understand and be a part of God’s love, then why couldn’t I?

As I reflect on the many things God showed me during my short time in Honduras this summer, I am slowly embracing and accepting this deep, vast, astounding, and consuming love that is for me that I may in turn love everyone else around me.

“I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know that His love surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all  the fullness of God”  - Ephesians 3:18-19


Kathryn Groseclose

A Ministry of Love

  The first time I met Robin, I was fifteen years old. I was in La Ceiba on a medical mission trip with my parents that summer, and my mom was determined to find someone who worked with the Deaf in Honduras.  My mom succeeded. I was sitting at the food court in the mall when the lady with the big red hair came up and introduced herself. Something hit me in that instant. It’s like I just knew that the ministry this woman had begun was going to play a very important role in my life.

My mom began bringing groups of college students to work with Signs of Love the next summer and she hasn’t stopped. I have had the incredible privilege to tag along for most of those trips. When I look back on all those years and I take a look at the ministry now, I am filled with warmth and amazement. It has grown in incredible and God-breathed ways. And I’m not talking about growth in size (although it has grown in that way too). It’s about the growth of each individual Deaf that has been touched by this ministry. Two faces pop out in my head as I sit here writing this: Amanda and Enrique.

            When I first met Amanda, she didn’t say much. She was quiet and timid. Ten years later, Amanda has grown into one of the most expressive and strongest people I know. And it’s because of this ministry. It’s because someone didn’t give up on her. She is now working for Signs of Love full time, and impacting many lives.  She is taking all that love and encouragement that someone has given her, and she is now pouring it into other Deaf children. It’s beautiful.

Enrique was 9 years old when I first met him. Like Amanda, he was shy and passive. Now, ten years later, Enrique is much more confident and animated. And when they play games at their monthly village program, he is the one telling everyone what to do. He glows. And again, it’s because someone believed in him.

That’s what I am learning this ministry is all about. Yes, we teach language to the rural Deaf. But what this whole thing is really about is believing in those who no one else believes in. The Deaf here are craving for someone to be Jesus to them: to love them, to hug them, to tell them and show them they are special, and to never give up on them.  That is what has been going on here in these past 12 years of ministry. The Deaf are being loved, empowered, cherished, educated, touched, defended, protected and taught the love of Christ.  It is incredible to see the kingdom impact that these 12 years have made on so many lives. And I can’t wait to see how God uses the organization in the next twelve years.

 “Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier. “     - Mother Teresa