Carolyn Carney
Being a Neighbor to the Deaf
The Rochester Institute of Technology (NY) has 15, 000 students enrolled. Of these a small minority (1,100) are deaf or hard of hearing. My friend and colleague, Nicole, is one of the InterVarsity staff workers there and recently, I got to partner with her and her students at a week of leadership training or chapter camp.
Nicole told me, a few days before their arrival, that RIT would be bringing three deaf students. She was so excited. I didn’t fully comprehend the reason for her excitement until I listened to her story. Her students began reaching out and actually changed the shape of their fellowship, not just to accommodate deaf students, but to really include them. Nicole then helped me see that if we made some significant changes at camp, we could welcome and include the deaf students also. This was a neighbor-thing, a kingdom thing. And so, for the sake of three students and Christ’s kingdom, we adapted a program for 100+ folks.
Four students came to camp to do sign language interpretation. They went above and beyond the call of duty. Normally, they would receive $65 per hour for interpreting and work no more than 5 hours per day because it’s exhausting work. Well, they worked many more hours than five and did so for free! Alumni gave money to cover the conference costs of the interpreting students. And various students who have picked up sign language along the way served by interpreting in more informal settings. Indeed, it was a chapter event. One of these student interpreters, Julie Kramer, told a bit of her story in “Senior Night” on the InterVarsity website:
“One of the most encouraging things for me to witness this past year was how the chapter stepped up to minister to deaf people. Many students enrolled in sign language courses and I saw a huge shift in people stepping outside of their comfort zones to reach out to the deaf members of InterVarsity. I also saw deaf people making strong efforts to communicate with hearing people.”
Nicole, along with her staff partner, Mark, thought through a lot of changes to make camp accessible. When we showed a movie clip we turned on the closed-captioning. When announcements were made they were either, projected onto a screen or interpreted, as well as verbalized. At meal times, folks walked around with paper and pen in pockets so a deaf person could be included in the table conversation if no interpreter were available. Deaf students were trained to lead a small group bible study which included non-deaf students with interpretation. Bible passages that were read from up front were projected onto the screen.
Two of the most significant things were the bible teaching and the worship. Nicole thought it would be of great help to the interpreters to have early access to my notes, as I was to be the main speaker for the week. This way the interpreters could get familiar with illustrations and names that were not common. It was a challenge to get my talks copy ready by lunch time, but they assured me that even if I changed a few things, what they had in hand was a great start. This I did, gladly. And as I tweaked and fiddled with word-smithing, finishing up the final document in the afternoon, I arrived at the beginning of the evening session with fresh copies for the deaf students to have in hand, to follow along or to take home with them.
A few mischievous RIT students came to me on the first day at lunch and begged me to slip the word “penguin” into my first exposition. You can, I’m sure, imagine what the sign for penguin might be—think of how they walk. Loving to make people laugh, I couldn’t resist the temptation. And immediately decided I would slip it in every night. This of course got a big laugh from everyone, especially when the interpreters got me back late in the week by doing a wildly ridiculous sign instead of the correct sign for penguin. Making fun of the speaker always gets a big laugh and they got me good. And there we all were: one hundred, hearing and deaf, laughing hysterically.
During the week, the worship songs were always signed. How wonderful it was to see non-deaf engineering-type guys re-positioning themselves and craning their necks to see the interpretations and then going through sometimes awkward gyrations in trying the signs on for size. Also, we had one young deaf man teach the entire camp a song in sign language. The worship team was behind him on stage, with an interpreter in the first row of the audience facing him, helping him keep the beat. He was a good, patient and clever teacher. Daniel put us totally at ease. We all learned the beautiful signs and sang the song together a number of times. On the last night, he was joined by one of his deaf peers, who heretofore, had not wanted to be in the spotlight.
In my years on InterVarsity staff I’ve lost count of how many weeks of camp I’ve attended, but this one will always be special to me. Most weeks sort of blend together now in my imagination, but this one will stand out for a long, long time. We learned how to be neighbors to the marginalized, so that they were no longer marginalized. They were one of us, and we were one of them to the extent that was possible. It was the students who taught me though—their love, risk taking, sacrifice, posture of learning, their determination to make this thing work—inspired me to love, even more.
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