My previous blog post inspired an interaction with Steve’s VR counselor and the HR person at his place of work. I suppose a few rants on a blog is not the best way to handle situations, but I am not a professional. I am just a wife who is trying to do her best. Anyway, I guess that situation is resolved.
I had a nice chat with our Stake President, and then shortly after that meeting, he had his Bishops’ Training Meeting. He brought up the issue of interpreters, so we will see what happens. Perhaps mentioning the fact that there are deaf people in nearby towns who are not members of the Church and who have been invited to our ward, will put fire under our leaders to look for good interpreters. In the meantime, we are blessed with the services of Rachel, our return missionary, and with Karen, a member of the Stake who signs.
Karen has been teaching our Sign Language class for the last six weeks, and is teaching ASL. We have had several people drop out of the class. They may not have the time or desire to learn ASL, but at least they now know that Sign Language is not as easy at it appears. The others who are hanging in there seem to be enjoying it.
Rachel is helping me learn the Book of Mormon in ASL. There are many signs I do not know and the grammar confuses me, but once I get a few verses figured out, it almost takes my breath away to watch it. The interpretation is clear and beautiful. It is going to take me ten years at least to watch the whole book.
I have also been greatly blessed to be able to chat with Doug Hind who is the manager over the Special Curriculums department of the Church. Both of his parents are deaf so he is very familiar with the issues. He is creating web pages that will be installed on lds.org with information on deafness and how to accommodate the d/Deaf in the wards. I gave some of this information to our Stake President. Doug is hoping to have the web pages ready by the end of this year.
I appreciate the encouragement and education from those of you who know the joys and challenges of the world of the d/Deaf. If this is what my mission in life is suppose to be, I am happy. I love it!
Note: The web pages are up. See Hearing Loss and Deafness.
Filed under: Deaf in a Hearing Church
So much progress, finally! Congratulations!!
MrsD
Hi, Julia! First of all I must tell you my English may not be perfect, ’cause I’m from a small country named Uruguay (next to Argentina), so excuse me if it’s difficult to understand me.
On my first comment (hope there’ll be more, ha!) I’ll just say found you’re blog recently, and began to read it, I LOVE the way you write (don’t worry about checker) you’ve a strange sense of humor that reminds a lot of me… and you know why? I could tell exactly why you’re an-almost-natural-joker: It’s because you’re married with a Deaf man!!!
Now I would like to tell you a little bit ’bout me (’bout us, ha!) I’m 24, four years ago I started the interpreter career (my country has a 3 million population, 30.000 are deaf or hard of hearing persons) of course I love sign language, but I’ve never dreamed I could find someone just like Steve.
His name is Germán, he’s 4 years younger than me, and so… year ago we started a couple, said “we started” because I always fell it was exactly like mmm start a hole project I guess.
Well, bringing two worlds together… what a big deal big job!!!
I’ll continue reading the blog, want to know better you story… would like you to write to me, as well as I know you read.
As I imagine, you sure love pictures, my boyfriend’s a natural “superphotoman” and we’ve a buck of them on My MSN Space…
Bye bye, say hi to Steve.
KISSES.
Carolina:
Thank you for your comments. I understand what you are saying. Very good. Sounds like a Deaf Person!
Steve
Nudge, nudge! What’s happening with the interpreter situation at the church?
I am now going through that, myself, except I want CART, not interpreter. The bishop said that it’s hard to find a willing court reporter to do it for free on Sundays and they will not pay them. Also, the bishop asked me if I could use the Assistive Listening Device instead and I told him that it would only be approximately 50% useful because I still don’t hear well enough without lipreading. ARGH! So, it’s an uphill battle for me and there are days I want to quit going to church. Yes, I’m in a deaf branch but it doesn’t do me good because I don’t read sign language very well. Maybe you can email me if you’re not up to blogging? I’d like to have a buddy system being that we are in the same religion.
Have a good day.
Hi Lisa,
I think Steve will email you. He is better able to share how he feels about church.
I will write a blog post about what has been happening lately.