What About The Rest Of Us?
Hearing Loss Symbol
Who are we? We look like you. We act like you. We have jobs, hobbies, friends and families. We are so much like you that we are invisible. Well we’re not really invisible, but our needs are.
We can do almost anything but hear what you hear. Sometime ago I wrote that my wife used to drag me off to hear Handel’s Messiah. I found it to be very boring. It was about two hours of “Ah” and all I got nothing out of it was a nap.
Then one day as I was writing the post Revelation 19 I found the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah. I was absolutely amazed of what I saw. I had no idea of what I wasn’t hearing.
For years I have had the belief that this country is on a decline. What if things get so bad that the US could no longer afford its own air force? I not saying this will happen, I’m just saying what if?
When a country falls or if only the economy falls, people suffer. People with debt will suffer the most.
So what can we do about this? I believe the best thing to do is to reduce the debt. If the debt is reduced people will suffer less. Some may not suffer at all. Because of this, I decided to see about starting a class to help teach people to reduce their debt. I picked out a class and asked if their DVDs were captioned. They say they were. I hope they’re right.
Soon after I started doing the research for the class, I found that someone else in my own church also started doing research on doing the class. We are now working together.
But there is a problem. A big problem. Captioned DVDs are only a start of what’s needed. What about group discussions? Those of us who don’t hear, or who don’t hear well, will still miss a lot. We need more. I need more. Being a member of Hearing Loss Association of America I know there are a lot of people like me. These are the people I want to reach.
Some of you may ask, ‘What about sign language?’ Very few HOH (Hard Of Hearing) know ASL. (American Sign Language) My wife and I did decide to take a class together though at a local college. What we’ll do with this new language, we’re not sure. But we believe the Lord wants us to learn it.
Interesting side note: The first day of school we had a translator. (teacher’s deaf) This was a great help. However I still missed a few things. I think I got most of it, but I was really happy when there was no translator after that first day. Now I have the same communication abilities as everyone else in class.
The people who are hard of hearing are neither hearing nor deaf. We don’t fit in either group, as you can see in my post “Family Of God.” Unless it’s quiet we don’t always hear everything. What’s more our hearing is all over the place. We range from some having a mild hearing loss to others being deaf, living in a hearing community. (There is a difference between deaf in a hearing community and deaf in a Deaf community.)
There are several different origins to hearing loss. The problem could be in the ear drum, the tiny bones in the middle ear, the cochlea (the snail like part) the nerve going to the brain, or any combination of them.
In different places in the Bible: Leviticus 23:22, Deuteronomy 24:14, Matthew 25:43-45, and Luke 3:11; just to name a few; talks about caring for the poor. My thinking is having a class to teach others how to budget their money and getting out of debt; you’re not only helping the poor, you’re also helping others from becoming poor. And since most classes are geared for the hearing, I choose to tailor the the class for the hard of hearing and then possibly the deaf.
My Thoughts 