“God grant me the serenity to accept
the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to
know the difference. Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time,
accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; taking, as He did, this sinful
world as it is, not as I would have it; trusting that He will make all things
right if I surrender to His Will; that I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him forever in the next. Amen.”
~
commonly called “The Serenity Prayer” by Reinhold Niebuhr
“There
are so many people, deaf or otherwise abled, who are so talented but overlooked
or not given a chance to even get their foot in the door.” ~Marlee Matlin
For me, it was the wallpaper.
 |
Not our wallpaper,
but you get the point. |
When I was growing up, my mother had a framed cross-stitch
of the first sentence of the “Serenity Prayer” hanging in our foyer
bathroom. As the family story goes, I
emerged from the loo one morning and made a joke that the yellow wallpaper in that
room was so hideous, it must be the reason that she put the saying there.
It was the “thing we could not change.”
(Though, I must admit, a few years later they found the
courage to change it after all.)
I was reminded of this story on a recent Sunday morning when we said
the Serenity Prayer in church. I was
sitting across from a charming blonde named Nathalie, trying to remember
whether there was an ASL sign for “serenity.” It was one of those panic moments
I have experienced several times since I agreed to use my very rusty sign language skills to interpret for her.
Serenity … serenity …
what does that even MEAN?!
I quickly decided to sign “peace.”
(I looked it up later and turns out, it was the right
choice. Whew!)
After the service was over, and I had apologized (again) for
my many errors, and she had said thank you (again) for trying, and I realized
that whatever I had done or not done had not scarred her for life, another
woman approached Nathalie from the side and got her attention.
“I saw you on TV,” she said, her eyes wide and her mouth
practicing greatly exaggerated enunciation. Nathalie smiled and nodded her head.
“Why was she on TV?” asked another. I didn’t know, so I signed the question to
Nathalie.
“Because of a book,” she replied modestly.
 |
| Nathalie's greenhouse close to where we live - full of Hoyas! |
Born deaf in Sweden, Nathalie first visited PNG in 2005 as
part of an around-the-world trip.
As a
botanist fascinated by the genus
Hoya,
she was delighted to discover that the tropical PNG forests hold at least 70
species of the wax plant, some 90% of which have not been recorded outside the
island.
As she traveled and met people,
she quickly also became passionate about the needs of the deaf community in
Papua New Guinea and began to involve them in her research whenever possible.
She returned in 2010 to begin a
five-year dual research project.
While much of the modern world has come to understand the realities of deafness, it is still not uncommon in more remote areas
for people to assume that deaf individuals are mentally disabled or even cursed
with spirits.
The reality is, if a child grows up not being exposed to
language, he will not acquire language.
And many parents of deaf children in third world or developing countries
cannot figure out how to communicate with their children. Therefore, though deafness does not affect
intelligence, people who don’t know any differently often assume the child must
be incapable of learning, functioning, or relating normally.
The child, therefore, grows up in a silent world and may not
even know his own name; the deaf are often marginalised through no fault of
their own.
That much I knew.
Then she said something that rocked my sense of stability.
Sometimes they even kill deaf children.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that must happen,
but I didn’t think that it would be true here,
or that it happened still.
But it does make sense.
Papua New Guineans are deeply spiritual.
The lines between the natural and the supernatural are much more blurred
than they are for many westerners.
Everything affects everything else on a spiritual level. Spirits are mystical entities that often must
be appeased or pacified, sometimes by ritual.
And sometimes that ritual is violent.
Sorcery is also prominent.
Deafness, mental illness, or disability can be viewed as the result of a
curse.
And sometimes, perhaps, they just don't know what else to do with them.
Nathalie speaks thirteen (
thirteen!) different languages.
The list includes six written languages and seven different sign languages
including Swedish, German, Latvian (
Latvian?!),
Papua New Guinean, Japanese, UK, Australian, and American Sign Language (ASL,
which is where she and I can connect.)
And yes, you read that right … though the US, UK, and Australia all
speak the same
verbal language (ok,
mostly), their sign languages are all strikingly different.
Though many people are surprised to hear it, there is no
universal sign language. Just like
spoken languages, sign languages have developed independently around the world,
over centuries of time.
In her work with the PNG deaf population, Nathalie and her
husband, Foreting, have joined on as consultants and translators with a team of deaf Papua
New Guineans who are working on a book that will teach PNG Sign Language to
parents of deaf children. The book will
help them understand what deafness is, what it isn’t, and how they can help
their children communicate and thrive while helping the surrounding community
accept them as significant members of society.
Her work with this book is what landed her on that
television spot.
In one village Nathalie and Foreting visited on their travels, some mothers said to them, "Thank you for coming and showing us
that we don't need to kill our children again!"
The women's reaction gave them goosebumps, she admitted to me. "We are so thankful God has used us and our deafness."
“Nathalie and her deaf Papua New Guinean husband, Foreting,
also want to help meet the deaf community’s spiritual needs. People who are deaf often come to church with
their families but don’t understand what is being spoken. One of the most frequent questions asked of
Nathalie is, ‘Please, ‘you who can sign our language,’ can you tell us who is
God and why people are going to his house every week?’”
What could be a better lead-in than that?
God has given Nathalie both serenity and courage.
Serenity to accept her deafness with grace and surrender,
but without any hint of martyrdom.
Courage to do what she can to better the lives of deaf
people across Papua New Guinea.
And that, without a doubt, is far more important than any
wallpaper ... no matter how hideous it may be.
