Attending a beginning sign language course as part of the deaf ministry at 38th Avenue Baptist Church, Hattiesburg, Miss., in 1979, Howard Burkhart III liked his teacher so much he married her.
Because of Tina McMillan (Burkhart) and her attentive pupil — both students at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg at the time — untold hundreds of the hearing and hearing-impaired from Mississippi to California have not only been taught how to communicate but also how to accept Christ as their Savior.
Today the Burkharts’ ministry — based in Benicia, Calif., just north of San Francisco — extends far beyond the deaf community, although that remains their first love. Howard Burkhart, 52, is a church-planting strategist in the San Francisco Bay and San Diego areas and a jointly funded missionary for the North American Mission Board and the California Southern Baptist Convention.
He and his wife are only two of more than 5,000 missionaries in the United States, Canada and their territories supported by the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering (AAEO) for North American Missions. They were featured as part of the annual Week of Prayer, March 6–13. The 2011 goal is $70 million.
“The Annie Armstrong Easter Offering makes everything possible,” Burkhart said. “It puts missionaries on the field, provides ministry funds, provides Bibles, church planter training, support for new churches and allows for special projects that are critical.”
After both graduating from Southern Miss and enrolling at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, the Burkharts became aware of the huge need for pastors and missionaries to work with deaf people.
He would later become missionary to the deaf in California, where he and his wife have lived and ministered for the last 27 years. From 1988 to 2000, he taught classes through Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary for the hearing-impaired.
“Deafness is its own culture,” he said. “It has its own language, its own grammar, its own social structure. Deaf people tend to marry other deaf people.”
Why do the hearing-impaired need special ministries aimed at them and their needs?
“You’d think they could choose from a hundred different churches but they can’t. They have to go to a church where there’s either a pastor to the deaf or where there’s a competent interpreter,” Burkhart said.
“For hearing-impaired Americans, English is their second language. Sign language is their first language,” he said.
And not only does Burkhart work with hearing-impaired Anglos but he also ministers to the deaf in other people groups. It’s not commonly known that each nationality has its own unique deaf signing language. So signing is different across different cultures and languages.
Burkhart said one of his “joys” is to return to churches he helped start years ago, and one of his favorites is New Hope Community Church, El Monte, Calif. He said the deaf ministry at New Hope is very multi-ethnic, with nine or 10 countries represented. Steve Lucero, pastor to the deaf at New Hope, is the father of a deaf son, Leo, who pulled him into deaf ministry. “When Leo was born, I asked, ‘Well, Lord, why did you give me a deaf son?’ It was a big question in my heart and mind.”
At the time of Leo’s birth, Lucero and his wife, Linda, already had a hearing son. Lucero was successfully climbing up the career ladder but he would later leave the business world and go into deaf ministry.
Burkhart’s missions field is also home to some 37 million people. Burkhart strategizes and works with other church planters to start churches in the San Francisco and San Diego metro areas trying to reach a number of people groups — Indonesians, Romanians, Mongolians, Burmese, Vietnamese, Japanese, Russians and Brazilians.
“We would ask Southern Baptists to pray for us because we need to identify a Japanese church planter for San Diego and several Vietnamese church planters for 10 churches that need to be planted in California.”
Miami-born Burkhart and his wife — a Jackson, Miss., native who grew up in Alabama — are the parents of two children, Nathan and Victoria. He also asks Baptists to especially pray for Victoria, only 18, who has been seriously ill with a rare neurological disease.
“I grew up in Miami and if you’d told me growing up that I would be a missionary in California working among the Burmese and Karen, deaf people or the other language groups I work with, I would have said, ‘Never in a million years.’” Burkhart said.
“It’s hard work, it takes people, money, mission teams and partners. It takes a lot of people to reach a community for Christ.” (NAMB)
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