By South Pacific Adventist Record staff

The deaf community worldwide now has its own Seventh-day Adventist television channel.

The online Hope Channel Deaf, which debuted this week, contains a variety of Seventh-day Adventist video productions, including “Tell the World,” the new film depicting Adventist Church history; the “Sabbath School Mission Spotlight;” episodes of It Is Written Oceania; and church events such as the 2015 General Conference Session presentations.

The video-on-demand programs are signed or captioned in ASL, English, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and German, and they cover four categories: nature, family, Bible, and health.

“It is a historical milestone in the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s ministry to have a channel with, for, and by the deaf,” said Larry Evans, who oversees Deaf and Special Needs Ministries at the Adventist world church. “It is almost unbelievable that this moment has come.”

Notably, the new church-owned channel is operated by deaf church members, ensuring that its content is especially geared toward the interests and needs of the hearing impaired.

“Of the some 300 million deaf worldwide, a mere 2 to 4 percent are Christian, firmly placing that demographic at the top of the list of ‘tongues and people’ yet to be reached with the gospel,” said Lee Dunstan, manager of Christian Services for the Blind and Hearing Impaired, the Adventist Church’s service to the deaf in the South Pacific Division.

Hope Channel Deaf can be accessed at hopechanneldeaf.org