About Us - handsofglory.org

Hands of Glory is a group started in 2001 that presents Contemporary Christian Music in sign language.

Carolyn Elder, our creator and director, started studying sign language in about 1993. She studied American Sign Language, and conversational signing as well as religious signing and about twelve years ago started sharing music in sign for churches and groups. She found it to be an amazing and powerful way to share her faith and bring songs alive and along the way, sharing music in sign became a true passion.

In 2001 Carolyn saw a song in sign and performed it with a group. She shared the arrangement with the Ottawa First United Methodist Church’s pastor at the time, Kent Melcher and with Lori Stafford, who was head of the drama committee of the church. They had seen her passion for signing Contemporary Christian music over the years at church and what a powerful ministry it was. Together Carolyn and Lori recruited others to form the original group. The response to that group's performances was amazing and others felt led to be a part of the awesome ministry and the group grew to twenty-three members of a variety of ages. The members felt the need for a name and because the group gives praise and glory to God through their signing, the name "Hands of Glory" seemed to fit perfectly.

Hands of Glory has a definite family feeling. As our site grows we will introduce each of us through pictures and you will see several families that have more than one person in our group. Carolyn's youngest daughter, Tori, is a member of the group and her husband, Russ, is our sound technician. Carolyn's husband, Bud, was an avid supporter of the group and even loved to watch the practices as we worked on new songs. Since his sudden and very unexpected death in April of 2003, we still feel his presence and can picture him smiling with pride when we sign the songs he loved so much and that is why our webpage is dedicated to his memory.

The response to Hands of Glory has been amazing as God has continued to open doors for us to share our music in sign with other churches and groups in our hometown of Ottawa, Kansas and to reach more and more people as we are invited to travel to other cities to do the same. The members of Hands of Glory all share an excitement and an amazing desire to share our faith in the Lord through our music. We work very hard to learn the music and signing under Carolyn's teaching and direction.

Most of us did not know any sign language prior to being a part of the group and we are totally committed to the hard work it takes to prepare each song. We always take time to pray at practice and before performances because we know that everything we have comes from our AWESOME God and everything we do reflects our strong faith in Him. Hands of Glory, Inc. is a not for profit organization and each of us volunteers our time, energy and many hours for practices and performances as God continues to lead us to share our unique ministry.

We are truly "Hands of Glory."