Akira and Tomoko Sakamoto are a young couple in Pastor Minamida's church who have been deeply impacted by the Scriptures in JSL. Akira is Deaf. Tomoko, who is hearing but had Deaf parents, learned to speak Japanese later in childhood.

“Sometimes I want to explain something in Japanese to a Deaf person – and other times I want to sign something to a hearing person. It’s frustrating,” says Tomoko.

“And when she’s angry, she uses both!” Akira interrupts with a smile.

Akira has been Deaf all his life. When he met Tomoko, he wasn’t a Christian. He started going to church with Tomoko, and there he met Pastor Minamida.

“Every time I went to church, I felt Minamida was preaching about my life. In the beginning I thought Tomoko had told him what to say! I started to think that God was watching all the time, and it scared me!” Akira says. “After a while Tomoko...explained to me how Jesus died for all of our sins, and that there’s nothing to be afraid of. After that I stopped worrying and became a Christian.”

Akira and Tomoko use the video Bible regularly, often in conjunction with the written Scriptures. “If I just read, I can’t create the image in my head. When I see it on the DVD, I immediately get it,” Akira says.

He is eager for the ViBi project to be completed. “Now we don’t even have the book of John; I really want to learn about the love of Jesus, the meaning of love and how John describes it. I want to know deeper, and there are so many things I’m curious about. I know it’s hard, but we really need those 66 books quickly, so the Deaf can see it now.”

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