St. Mary, Bird Island "listens" to the needs of parishioners with hearing loss

St. Mary Catholic Church of Bird Island is committed to the mission of RENEW 2000: To minister the Word of God’s love and peace to all, to include the hearing impaired, thanks to a RENEW participator’s suggestion.

Adrienne Haugen is deafblind from a rare disease of Ushers Syndrome. As her vision loss progresses, her ability to speech-read has become challenged and was becoming increasing disillusioned each time she attended services. She missed out too much in the sermons, petitions, and announcements. The isolation as a Hard-of-Hearing (HOH) person was becoming profound.

The RENEW 2000 Faith-Sharing Series gave Adrienne reflections on what she could personally do to help in reaching out to others. A personal experience gave her insight after her first encounter with a Personal FM System (PFS) during a week-long American Association of DeafBlind 2000 Conference held in July-August. That experience opened up a world of communication and planted a seed: Why not have a PFS at church that will help reach out to parishioners who are HOH?

In September, Adrienne and husband, Richard, presented their proposal and researched data to the St. Mary’s Finance Committee to install the PFS into the existing main FM System. By December the new PFS was installed. Three volunteers tried out a hand-held receiver with an appropriate ear-piece for each. The transmitter is located in the sanctuary and through the receiver, held by the user, sound is heard through the ear-piece or neck-loop or earphone. The PFS receiver can be used by a non-hearing aid person using an ear-bud; a telecoil-hearing aid user using a special neck-look; or, by a non-telecoil hearing aid user using a regular headphone set worn over the hearing aids. After that first tryout, all three volunteers have bought a receiver to use for personal convenience.

With the PFS in place the parish is beginning to see results from a harvesting of the HOH who have not been able to fully worship with the community. One elderly woman was asked how she liked the PFS. The woman exclaimed, "It’s been ten years since I’ve heard everything!" Since the PFS was installed, others have inquired about using the system.

The Haugens hope that other parishes in the New Ulm diocese will recognize this need to assist the isolated and forgotten hearing impaired.