Stories

From Jan 3-14th we at Christ UMC of the Deaf hosted 16 seminary students for a Deaf culture immersion class. Two intensive weeks where we taught them all there is to know about Deaf Culture. We visited the Deaf school, we taught them sign language every morning, they visited the mental hospital and prison where we teach bible studies, they visited the MD relay center, and we had plenty of talks about issues such as CODA's (Children of Deaf Adults), parents with Deaf children, cochlear implants, Deaf with AIDS, Mental health issues, etc...

This was the second year that I have been involved with this immersion class we offer and each year I have learned a lot. I am doing the work, and I am involved with the culture but it is different when you take that information into a classroom to teach others; it is surprising how much I learned that I never knew.

one story I heard this year broke my heart. There are only two counselors in the city and pretty much the state too that know sign language and Deaf culture issues. One of those counselors came to speak about her job and things she has seen. She told this story about a young man.

She said that she had been working for a few months with a young man around 12 years old who was Deaf. The boy had hearing parents who did not learn sign language because they wanted him to be forced to lip read so that he could be "normal". The boy was having issues and the parents could not communicate with him so that brought him to the counselor. While he was in counseling he was focused on the fact that he was going to die. When the counselor asked him why he was so certain he was going to die soon he replied

"All Deaf people die before they grow up. That is why there aren't any Deaf adults"

In the parents effort to make their child hearing they had never introduced him to any Deaf adults. The boy lived in constant fear that he was going to die because his parents didn't know how to communicate with him to figure otu what was wrong.

That story isunfortunately not uncommon. Parents often want their children to be like them and they experience so much pain when their child is Deaf that they make poor decisions due to denial.

Dear God,
please be with all the families that are experincing this kind of pain. Be with all the Deaf children who think they are alone because no on ewill communicate with them. Help the hearing parents to have wisdom and make good decisions. amen.