As a child, I was told a story of my Granny (great-grandmother), Vesta, who was a God fearing woman. The story goes that she told my mom shortly after my twin sister and I were born prematurely that, "They are going to be doing great things." My sister and I should have never made it. I was born 3 pounds, 5 ounces, my sister was 2 pounds, 10 ounces, and we spent the first month of our lives in the hospital. Looking at us now, you wouldn't be able to tell we were "preemies". My parents found a church when my sister and I were toddlers and we continued to attend and learn there through our junior year of high school, where I found a church that fit me better.

Looking back on my life--I should have realized God wanted me to minister/help the Deaf. In third grade, my teacher Miss H. had taught my class a song in American Sign Language and we performed it in front of the community on the high school's stage. I never thought much about sign language until I was about to start eight grade. It was summer vacation, my Granny Vesta, had just passed away, and I was very upset at God because I was close to her. The newly appointed Youth Pastor, Jody, was getting a group of middle and high school students to go to Centrifuge, a Christian camp in central California. If we could memorize ten Bible verses before the start of camp, we could go for free. I memorized the verses and I got to go for free. The first day we were there we picked our "classes" we had to pick two different subjects to study for the week. One class read the book of James; the second was learning Rachael Lampa's song "My Father's Heart" in American Sign Language. On performance night, the group of about 12-15 students worshipped God in ASL in front of 500 people at the camp. After we finished the song and went back to our seats, I noticed I couldn't hear anything—no clapping, no talking, no anything—it was as if I was Deaf. Then God's voice filled the silence and He told me "Cody, I want you to minister to those who cannot hear." And just as quickly as His voice came, it left and my hearing restored. At first I was stunned and wasn't sure if it really happened, but it did. Even that couldn't keep me from being angry at God and I still walked away from God for a year, before I came back to Him. God hadn't forgotten about me, and placed a hard-of-hearing girl in one of my freshman classes. We have been friends ever since.

During my Junior year of high school I tried to get into a Sign Language class at the local community college with Jody. Class was full before I could get the money to pay for it. I tried again my senior year of high school and couldn't get into it. At that point, I was getting frustrated, because I knew God wanted me to help the Deaf, but the roadblocks were frustrating. However, during my first year of college, I became a Deaf Studies major, took Sign Language I, and joined the ASL club on campus. Three years later, I graduated Sierra College with an AA Degree in Deaf Studies.

Now, with one semester down at Northwest Nazarene University, I am excited to accept the position of Adoptions Coordinator for CB Deaf Ministry and know this is finally the start of my career ministering and helping the Deaf. I am excited because I love working with children, and although I may not meet the children who need to be adopted, but I know I am bridging the gap between them and the people that want to adopt them.