I cannot now remember exactly when I first met Chuck and Nancy. It was decades ago. And like many others my first introduction was in the form of a request from a conference organizer: “Please provide a copy of the manuscript, notes (or at least an outline!) of your messages ‘for the Snyders who will be interpreting for Deaf participants.’” Since then these two extraordinary people have become prized and admired friends. 

Over the years I have often found myself in the middle of preaching, glancing to my left (Chuck always seems to be positioned to my left!). There I catch a glimpse of the words that are coming from my mouth being transposed inaudibly into vivid and fast- moving hand gestures, facial expressions, mouthed messages, and indeed whole body communication.  Chuck is translating my words into ASL (American Sign Language). But I sense that he is doing something much more remarkable than merely translating from one language to another.  I am watching the transposition of what I am saying into a different genre of communication for a world of silence. My own eyes tell me that the task must be mentally, physically, and spiritually draining.  But they also tell me that I am watching an inaudible expression of that special element characteristic of all great preaching: the use of a sanctified imagination—the Jesus-like ability to “speak” the gospel in a way that “connects.”  In my world of preaching, I try to help people to “see” through their ears, by absorbing the Word of God spoken audibly. Chuck Snyder enables people to “hear” through their eyes and absorb the same gospel visually. And seeing him do this is a little foretaste of the day when Deaf people will hear the voice of Christ. It makes you feel as a preacher that you are not worthy to tie the shoelaces of your interpreter.

That is Chuck in public. Here in these letters, selected from decades of sharing with their friends and prayer partners, and bound together as Picnicking with God, Nancy takes us behind the scenes to their daily life together. There is a lyricism in the way she writes that comes from a desire to live the whole of life in the presence of God. Like King David, she testifies that the Lord spreads a table for his children. The Christian life includes picnics. But these pages also remind us that the table is spread “in the presence of my enemies” and that the God who provides for us also leads us at times through Deep-Darkness Valley. 

There may be moments, as you read these pages, when you feel instinctively that the choicest of God’s servants should not have to endure such affliction. But then you will remember that Scripture teaches us otherwise. There we learn “in the world you will have tribulation” and that we may experience “much” of it in entering the kingdom of God. But we know also that tribulation cannot separate us from the love of Christ because he has overcome the world. Indeed tribulation produces patience, and  afflictions are the raw materials out of which God creates glory.  These lessons, and many more—poignantly and honestly described—we relearn in these pages.

 Picnicking with God will make you feel you know the Snyders, and it will give you insight into a world with which most of us are unfamiliar; it may also burden you for the vast numbers of Deaf people who have never heard or seen the gospel. It will almost certainly be a book to which you will return in the future in order to recalibrate your faith and hope and love. 

If you are not already numbered among the friends who love and admire Chuck and Nancy, you are most welcome to join the circle.  So, sit down at the picnic, and read on.

Sinclair B Ferguson