Connie Rowland did not understand the hand gestures, head movements, facial expressions and other hallmarks of American Sign Language taking place around her in church and elsewhere, but they felt like a natural part of her childhood.
It would be several decades, though, before the Bentonville resident would see the visual language for the deaf -- and spreading the Gospel to those who are deaf -- as her calling.
Rowland, 41, creates artwork depicting the individual American Sign Language gestures that spell out words, known as finger spelling, and pairs each hand-spelled word with passages of Scripture. Many of her works are then set against backdrops of photographs she has taken. All of them, she says, are inspired by God.
"Psalm 143:5 ... says 'I muse on the work of your hands,'" Rowland said. "What stands out for me in that [Scripture] is the word 'muse.' ... Most artists, as you know, their muse is what inspires them -- whether it's a person or a place or a thing, maybe a color -- but for me, it's God's hands, and showing God's hands to people.
"It's kind of a metaphor for ... the craziness of life and everything that goes on, to be able to look at a piece of art and see God's hand guiding you."
The church that Rowland and her family attended while she was a child in Tulsa had a ministry for the deaf, and she would watch, fascinated, as the interpreters signed during services and events. The parents of a friend of hers were also deaf, and that friend interpreted conversations between Rowland and the parents.
"I didn't really give it a lot of thought when I was a kid," Rowland said of the presence of sign language around her.
Years later, Rowland's mother, Charlotte Rowland, was diagnosed with cancer. Connie Rowland left her job to care for her mother, and the two spent time during Charlotte's chemotherapy treatments talking about creating art that would show God's hand in a person's life.
"At first it didn't include sign language, it was just hands," said Connie Rowland, who said plans for that art were put aside as her mother's cancer continued.
After Charlotte Rowland died in 2011, Connie Rowland tried to continue where she and her mother had left off.
"I would take photographs and ... put them together with the Bible verses and ... it didn't really seem right to me," Rowland said. "I [then] had the idea that I would spell out the word 'love' in sign language on a picture, and that's when it really came together and I started making more art spelling out different words."
Around that time, Rowland also learned a statistic she found "shocking and eye-opening": According to the Bible translation nonprofit Wycliffe, only 2% of deaf people worldwide have been introduced to the Gospel.
"[That statistic] just kind of shakes me, and I can't let that be," Rowland said.
Elaine Mingus, author of the blog Radical Christian Woman, said a lack of services for the deaf in church comes with a lack of understanding about "the importance [of] the deaf community to the Body of Christ."
"I think most Christians who aren't familiar with the deaf community would not be aware of their needs, not because they don't want to help, but they don't understand that help is needed," said Mingus, whose hearing father grew up signing because two of her grandparents were deaf.
Rowland wrote an article published on Mingus' blog on ways to reach out to the deaf to share the Gospel, and Mingus said she had been excited "to help other Christians understand the importance of including and remembering the deaf community in our church life" through that article.
She also recently released an e-book, Seeing God's Hand Through the Art of Sign Language.
Rowland actively sought out a deaf congregation with which to share her artwork, resulting in a couple of visits with the members of Bethel Deaf Fellowship, a Southern Baptist church in Fayetteville.
Priscilla Scanlan, Bethel's secretary, said Rowland's use of American Sign Language in her art makes it unique.
"When Connie first came, some of us probably felt awkward because of the communication barrier, but we tried to make her feel most comfortable as we can," Scanlan said in an e-mail. For the congregation, Rowland's "warm spirit" soon felt tangible, and the group embraced her artwork.
Rowland, in turn, gave the congregation one of her works finger spelling each character for the word "love" above 1 John 4:7, which reads: "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God."
"[Rowland] shared her testimony of her life and it was very heart touching," Scanlan said. "Words cannot describe ... we are speechless to explain our feelings ... about having an artist come to visit our Deaf Church. We pray that we will continue our relationship and connection with Connie."
Rowland's long-term goal is to become fluent in American Sign Language, and to interpret for the deaf in a church setting. With a fall collection of works debuting in October on her website, Rowland remains committed to her artwork -- collectively called the Master's Hand Collection -- and noted with a chuckle that a floral photograph featured in one of her works was taken at a construction site.
She snapped the photo she saw while visiting family in Oklahoma City. Amid the refuse and debris of the work in progress were patches of dainty blue flowers.
"It always amazes me, because some of my favorite pictures have been taken in some very unlikely places," Rowland said. "You never know where God's hand is going to show up."
More information about Rowland and her artwork is available at mastershandcollection.com.
Religion on 07/27/2019