I am at a lost for words.
Since Saturday, I have been trying to find words to explain the depth of gratitude my heart is feeling from the Aid the Silent 5K race. It exceeded my wildest dreams. The second 5K was filled with more JOY than the first one, which I didn’t know was possible.
How wonderful is Jesus! The fullness of life is found only in Jesus. I had plans and ideas of what I thought life could be, yet it was so boxed in and such a limited viewpoint.
It is my wildest dreams coming true because of learning to follow the God of my wildest dreams.
I would have never imagined the sweetness of what life was going to be for me. As a hurt and lonely little girl sometimes, I would have never been able to live out this wild dream or even comprehend it.
I met my Jesus and that changed it all. I started to dream big things, to pray big things and now He is doing big things. He saw me for myself that I was more than a “weird deaf girl” but that I was His little girl.
My “thank you”s have been weighing on me because I literally do not know where to start. I am so amazed at the faithfulness of Jesus to bring your journey in harmony with Aid the Silent‘s journey.
I am always almost sad after the 5K is over because it feels like a grand wedding that we have been planning for months is over. But the JOY is that your hard work, resources and time does not end when the 5K is over but continues into eternity. Your love and radical compassion is a part of deaf and hard-of-hearing entering into perfectness with their Savior someday. It is a part of children feeling included because of their new hearing aids, teenagers playing sports because of FM systems with their coaches, and kids going to camp to meet their Jesus for the first time.
You’re a part of something everlasting and you are a living representation of the Gospel for many deaf and hard-of-hearing people.
Thank you Denise Marcos for caring so deeply and with incredible action. The love you feel is always put forward into all your work for Aid the Silent. I see your heart on everything you touch. The 5K was beautiful and so organized because of you.
Thank you Kathy Hagee Rudkin for sharing this burden to reach the deaf with me. Thank you for listening to all my crazy dreams Jesus has built up inside me and joining me in them. Thank you for being a mama who cared so deeply and thus my life is so different than what it could have been. Thank you for keeping hope as you watched me struggle year after year, thank you for sharing the immense JOY and LIFE to the FULL I have in the beauty from my ashes. Thank you for sitting on the bed with me year after year, after homecomings and proms, as I bawled over feeling lonely or left out. Or as I felt no one could ever love a deaf girl. Thank you for always saying… “you can have a pity party tonight but tomorrow you’re going to brush yourself off and keep going.”
Thank you to the Jacksons (Dr. Lance Jackson and Ninette Acosta Jackson)! Jesus brought you guys to Aid the Silent and I love sharing it with you both. Thank you for sharing in the joys but also for being compelled to make a difference in deaf and hard-of-hearing lives. I have loved jumping on plane rides with you and waiting around in halls in expectant hope for Jesus to move, and then see Him show up. I have loved praying big prayers and then experiencing His faithfulness afterwards. Thank you for giving your resources and time for deaf/HOH children and teens to experience life to the full.
Thank you Ryan Proudfoot for chasing people down in coffee shops and intentionally seeking after people to invite them into Aid the Silent. Thank you for caring so much about the deaf and hard-of-hearing being the 3rd largest unreached and taking action through the gift of music. The time and resources you’ve given up to be a part of a wild God-dream is so amazing. The music from “Letting Go” is your best yet and thank you for sharing it with us so that the deaf might know Jesus. Thanks for being an inviter and story-teller!
Thank you volunteers, family and friends for showing up. You have taken heartbreak into action. After learning of the heartbreak of what happens to deaf children and teens, you have moved in great love for them. Love without action is complacency, so thank you for stepping forward to make an eternal impact. You are a part of the dream coming alive and you are needed. The amount of your love and time is astonishing. Thank you for being a part of a Kingdom-sized movement!
“We cared so deeply that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God, but our own lives as well. That is how beloved you have become to us.” (1 Thessalonians 2:8)
Thank you for not only sharing the Gospel but your very own lives. Thank you for dying to yourself this past weekend (the months leading up to it, and the $40 or more that could have gone elsewhere)… so that our friends might find LIFE.
You are loved! Thank you for making Aid the Silent feel so loved!
Emma Faye is a national speaker who has touched the lives of thousands of people who have had the opportunity to hear her story. If there is one thing that her audience remembers about Emma, it is her ability to connect on a raw and genuine level to those around her. She speaks with authenticity and with an immense passion for Jesus.