Teran Chapis: British Quaker; American Friend, shares an extract of their report to Hartford Monthly Meeting in Connecticut, United States regarding Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM), which took place over four days in May.
A recurring theme in conversations between Friends [at BYM] was our different understandings of God. Friends identified themselves as atheist or theist Quakers, and asked each other about their individual unique beliefs. One Friend from North Scotland said goodbye to me in the wee hours of Saturday morning by passionately declaring that I should minister the next day because: “I am excited to hear the Lord speak through you.” When he left the room I thought about it for a moment and said: “He doesn’t believe in God.”
At Meeting for Worship at Friends House the Sunday before Yearly Meeting, a Friend ministered that when she described a conference about God to a fellow Quaker, where a group of Friends organised all their thoughts about how they understand God as a concept, he asked her: “Well does God understand you as a concept? Does God believe in you?”
The following evening, on the walk home from a British Sign Language event, a Friend asked me “why are you crying?”
And I told them: “I promise these are happy tears. I’ve just been thinking about how you said tonight that you don’t believe in God because you don’t believe that help will ever come. Because people like you are my proof of God. You are the help that came. You, my Friend, are my evidence for God.”
I thought about the ministry that I had heard at Friends House the previous morning, and told them: “Maybe asking the right question is more important than having the right answer. Maybe the question isn’t whether or not we believe in God, but whether or not people see God in you.”
And through a combination of American Sign Language, British Sign Language, lip reading, telepathy, and hugs, we cried and discussed this as we made the trek home through the dark and the rain of North London.
It felt like a prank from the universe when my first Deaf friend after studying ASL uses British Sign Language. But I’m slowly relearning to sign with a different grammar structure and with lip patterns. When learning to sign BSL with fellow signing Friends in London, I learned that 1.) the request for a sign language interpreter at Britain Yearly Meeting this year was denied, and 2.) there aren’t widely used official signs for the word “Quaker” or Quaker concepts. To fill in the gaps, we signed “Quaker” by shaking the BSL fingerspelling sign for Q, or sometimes, inspired by the name and profile picture of a Quaker groupchat, we use the BSL sign for geese… meaning “Quacker.”
When I recounted the events of BYM to a lowercase f-friend, he said that once again, the strangest coincidences seem to happen to me. Years ago, before I ever stepped foot into a Quaker meeting, developing a disability inspired me to spend some forced sick time studying ASL. Little did I know what I was really preparing for.
Inspired by conversations at Britain Yearly Meeting 2026, I am currently researching the history, experiences, and signs used by Deaf and signing Friends in Britain and the United States (including hearing, nonverbal Friends), and working on research proposals for research master’s/fellowships to conduct a formal study. If anyone is interested in connecting with me about this topic, or connecting with Deaf/signing Friends, don’t hesitate to reach out to me at teranriley@gmail.com!”
– Teran Chapis
London Young Adult Quaker Meeting, Young Friends in Britain
Inspired to attend Yearly Meeting? Yearly meeting now takes place over multiple sessions, with the most recent having taken place in Manchester last month. The last session for 2026 scheduled for 21 November in London. You can register to attend here: https://www.quaker.org.uk/ym/bookings. We hope to see you there!
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