Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 11, 1994 TAG: 9409120049
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: E1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BONSACK LENGTH: Long
They "hear" his hands.
This is the Roanoke Valley Deaf Mission Church.
There are a few churches in the Roanoke and New River valleys that have interpreters to translate services into American Sign Language for the deaf. This congregation, which meets Sunday mornings at 10:30 in the chapel at Bonsack Baptist Church, may be the only one in the region whose services are conducted entirely in sign.
"We wanted our own deaf church," said Betti Thompson, one of the founding members, after a recent Sunday morning service.
"I feel like I'm free here," said Libby Firebaugh, another of the original four members who began a weekly Bible study that was the embryo for the new congregation.
This service "is for all kinds of Christians, not just Baptists," said Richard Lin. "We have one thing in common - we all believe in God."
Officially, though, the church is a "mission" of Bonsack Baptist Church, and its teaching and preaching are distinctively Baptist, says the Rev. Randy Buckland, the congregation's hearing-impaired pastor.
Buckland is, in ministerial parlance, ``bivocational.'' He has a full-time job working for Blue Ridge Community Services making sure deaf people in a 29-county area of Southwest Virginia have access to mental health, retardation and substance-abuse services.
But he is also a Christian minister.
Buckland was ordained 12 years ago at an independent Baptist church in Illinois, where he served as a pastor to the deaf after receiving a theology degree from Temple Deaf College.
He hadn't expected to be back in a pulpit, though, after spending the last eight years working as a counselor to the deaf in North Carolina and now Southwest Virginia.
Buckland says he thinks of himself as a "bridge between the deaf and hearing." He has no hearing in his right ear and a 65- to 70-percent loss in his left ear. That is enough to be able to understand, with some effort, normal conversation. He speaks with only a slight impairment.
He understands, he said, the craving of the church's members for a place where the "deaf culture" of those who attended schools for the deaf is understood and incorporated - where they can communicate in American Sign Language, not necessarily just a direct translation of English.
Buckland received most of his education in schools for the hearing. It wasn't until he was 15 years old that he attended a summer camp for the deaf and was introduced to a different world. "That was my life from then on," he said.
"I had always been somebody's brother," before attending that camp, Buckland said. Afterward, "I began to identify with the world of the deaf. I realized it was OK to be me. I realized a deaf person can do anything a hearing person can, except hear."
He continued to attend a Christian high school and later an independent Baptist college for the hearing before he decided to move to a college for the deaf.
Since his move to Trinity Deaf College, he has been involved continuously with service to the deaf community, he said.
Today, he is president of the Piedmont Chapter of the Virginia Association of the Deaf and chairman of the 1995 state convention of the group, to be held at the Hotel Roanoke.
His involvement with what is now the Deaf Mission Church began six months ago when he was invited to a Bible study group that had been formed at Haran Baptist Church in Bent Mountain. Haran member Fran McGregor had learned to sign and became an interpreter for the deaf.
"She's the one who got it rolling at Haran," Buckland said.
McGregor always intended for the group to be led by a deaf or hard-of-hearing person, Buckland said, and he eventually began leading Thursday night Bible studies in participants' homes.
By April, the group was looking for a congregational home. They eventually settled on Bonsack, which had a chapel available and could accommodate hearing spouses and children at its regular Sunday services.
Average attendance is now more than 15 people and a total of more than 30 different deaf adults, and children have participated in worship, Buckland said.
The church is called a "mission" because it is supported financially by the Bonsack Baptist congregation, the Roanoke Valley Baptist Association and the Baptist General Association of Virginia.
The congregation has a five-year goal of financial self-sufficiency, though that may not mean a separate building, and membership of 120.
Members of the congregation beam with pride when they describe the growth of their new church.
"I wanted to hear about church, about God," Thompson said last Sunday. "I grew up in a church without an interpreter. My mother and father took me, but I could not understand. I would sit and read my own book."
When she heard about the Bible study for the deaf, "I was inspired," Thompson said.
Ramona Clements, another founder, would "love to see all deaf people come to have an understanding of God. Many deaf people are hiding. ... Many deaf people are isolated and don't have transportation," she told a hearing reporter through Thompson, who cannot hear but reads lips and can speak.
Church members already are providing transportation for two families and would be glad to accommodate others, Clements said.
Having a minister who signs - and overhead projection of Scripture verses, hymn lyrics and a sermon outline - improves understanding, said Libby Firebaugh.
"You don't have to look up and down" from the interpreter to the speaker or the Bible or hymnal, she said. "It's so much easier to pick up what's going on. I can understand much better than in a hearing church."
Eliminating that "triangle language barrier" was a primary goal of the new congregation, Buckland said. He also believes that his ministerial training helps ensure more accurate understanding of the subtleties of religious teaching.
"If the interpreter has not had religious training, they could use a sign that is not conceptually correct."
For instance, Buckland said, "the word `lost' is a very important word." An interpreter who translates that "like losing an item" rather than "separation from God" would impart a conceptual error to a congregation.
Actually, to say that Buckland's congregation "hears" his hands is not entirely accurate. He delivers his message also through his facial expressions, arm movements, body language.
From the perspective of a hearing person, there are some unconventional aspects to the service besides its silence.
For instance, the person leading a prayer closes his or her eyes while signing a supplication that everyone else watches.
A song leader guides the congregation through the hymns, which are signed in unison. Eventually, some congregants hope, there will be large speakers to play music, the vibrations of which members can feel during the hymns.
When a person responds to the invitation to accept Christ and join the church, he or she is taken to a separate room for a private conversation with the pastor so others cannot eavesdrop on their signed conversation.
For some of the members, their independent worship is like a little piece of heaven on Earth.
"We want other deaf people to know we have a church in the Roanoke Valley," Ramona Clements said. "We have a pastor. We don't need an interpreter at all."
by CNB