Faith’s Journey

Faith is born nearly deaf, a fact that reveals itself to her family when her parents notice that she does not respond to sounds as a hearing child should. Testing ultimately reveals the full extent of the problem, and so begins the journey of a family determined to help a deaf child navigate a hearing world.

But Faith’s story becomes further complicated when she is diagnosed, as a first grader, with leukemia—a terrifying diagnosis for any child but one made even more difficult for a child who relies on sign language and lip-reading to communicate. Suddenly everyone around her is wearing masks so that Faith can’t see what they are saying, and the treatment makes her hands hurt so badly that signing is painful for her. It is the cruelest of circumstances. And yet Faith and her family persevere.

Faith tells the story herself through a series of memories—both those of her own and those told to her by her parents, whose perspective brings to light events that Faith was too young to remember. Despite repeated challenges and setbacks, Faith’s Journey is at its core a story about the power of love among family members who refuse to give up.