One of our friends told a story that, with variations, is sadly common for Deaf children who lack communication. As a child, he told everyone he had been born in the United States. He was ten years old when a teacher at his school (which followed an oral approach of forcing Deaf children to get all their information through lip reading) marched up to him and began incomprehensibly flapping her mouth. Finally, the teacher made herself understood by pulling down the large map. “Here?” she said as she pointed to the U.S. and shook her head, “No.” Then she jabbed a distant point on the map and nodded her head. That’s how our friend learned that his homeland, where he had spent his first two years, was Finland. 

Sometimes I need someone to pull down a map, point to this world and yell, “Here—this world? Not your home.” Then, pointing far, far off, “There, your home.”

The Bible is better than a large map and mouth-flapping teacher: “For this world is not our home; we are looking forward to our everlasting home in heaven” (Hebrews 13:14). Meanwhile, we seek the city that is to come. 

In Talking Hands. Margalit Fox relates the true account of a Deaf child who was eight years old when he boarded a bus, leaving behind his remote Israeli village, which has such a high incidence of Deafness that almost everyone signs: “Because he couldn’t communicate with anyone [on the bus, which must have been surprising to him given the ease of communication in his village], he had no idea where he was supposed . . . to get off. He left the bus somewhere in Egypt, where he knew no one. He was taken in by a local family and lived with them for three years.”

Egypt—a country away and a communication wilderness—for three years!

Finally, someone from his village passed through Egypt and took him home—to the place where he belonged. 

That’s how it will be for us one day, when our wilderness wandering comes to an end. Our Savior will take us by the hand to the place where we belong.

Some days, this pilgrimage feels like being on a bus with no idea where we are supposed to get off or a bewildering stay in a place where no one understands us, but the God of wayfarers and wanderers came down. He got on the dusty bus. He rode it to Calvary, and he will lead us all the way home. What a day that will be!