Kina Forman was born and raised in a Messianic home in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Both her Jewish father and her Gentile mother are deaf. Her father was raised in an Orthodox Jewish home and received Messiah after meeting her mother in 1970. However, growing up, Kina attended neither synagogue nor church, as there were very few places of worship for deaf people.

As she reached adolescence, Kina began to search spiritually. One afternoon, she noticed an old, beat-up station wagon with a sign in the back window citing Scripture. Curious, she inquired about it and the driver of the station wagon invited her to a local youth group meeting that evening.

At the meeting, she noted that the young people in the youth group were different from the average high school student; they had a purpose and drive that she envied. Kina was invited to return for another gathering at the youth pastor’s house the following Friday evening. She joined the group while they sang praise songs to God.  While surveying the room, she saw young people worshiping God as though He were real.  Kina asked God at that moment, “Are you who they say you are? If you are, would you show yourself to me right now?”

Then, she says, “The moment I prayed, the youth pastor said to the group, ‘There is someone here searching for the Lord! The Lord has heard you!’” Shocked that God had heard her prayer, she approached the pastor—but she wasn’t approaching the pastor as much as she was approaching the living God! She asked Jesus to be her Savior—her Messiah—and was born again.