Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!  I'm sure by the time you read this, all the wrapping paper will be thrown away at your house and you will be taking some time to exhale from what always seems to be a very busy holiday season.  We have felt so blessed this year by all the holiday activities, though it has felt a little bit like the 12 days of Christmas, with some event nearly every day!  

Every year I feel like we walk this really fine line between wisely using our time and just "doing stuff".  In America, it seems so easy to just "do stuff", but here Christmas is like open season - almost anything goes, and it's such an easy way to share our lifestyle that it's hard to pass up opportunities!  Anyway, after Thanksgiving, we looked at where our relationships were and tried to guess what groups of people would most benefit from having Christmas parties at our house.

One group of people that never entered our minds after Thanksgiving was a group of deaf adults.  We've never done any type of work with deaf people, and haven't even really been interested in it.  Josh knew a deaf man that worked at the McD's down the street, and after learning a praise song in sign language decided to see if he could pick up any more sign language.

What came after that was a month of learning local sign language (different than American sign language) and now, an ability to communicate quite freely with his friend and the deaf community.  Ok, my husband is the bomb!!

Anyway, we invited josh's friend and his friends (9 total) to our house for a Christmas party...and let me say, it was like moving to Asia all over again, plus some.  

For starters, this was the first time in over five years (maybe ever!) that I couldn't communicate AT ALL with someone.  (We had the luxury of studying Asianese in America before moving here, so even when we first got here, I could make basic small talk!)  I felt absolutely useless.  I was constantly asking Josh to translate for me.  I couldn't communicate even simple things like: please sit down, come in, I'm so happy you came, etc.  It was a very frightening and uncomfortable feeling, and it makes me so thankful that I can speak asianese! Fortunately, my hubby could communicate things for me - like...here's how you decorate christmas cookies:

Emma and Samantha were good helpers and led by example...

Emma was happy to do some rockin around the Christmas tree:
...and take more than a few pictures! (actually, emma picked up some easy signs pretty quickly and thought it was way cool to speak with her hands...)

So much about the evening was foreign to me - the way they act toward each other, getting used to operating under different standards (ie, they can't hear me...or my kids when they're yelling at each other ;) and not being able to communicate with them myself.  I loved watching them talk to each other and watching Josh talk to them.  I was amazed.  Truly amazed.

One thing that struck me during the party was how totally normal they seemed.  They were nice, clean cut young adults and yet they are on the fringes of society.  They are poorly viewed by society as thieves, dishonest people who will do anything to get a buck.  They are greatly misunderstood and are neglected in ways that Americans (at least modern Americans) would be shocked to hear.  Their stories are distressing, and reveal what has been a life of struggle and hardship.  And yet, to me, they seem so normal.  They didn't look weird or act weird or anything like that.  They were kind and friendly and thought my cookies were too sweet.  Yes, they were very normal!

It was also astonishing how quiet my house was for having so many people in it!  I found myself admonishing my kids to be a little quieter, to not be so distracting...and then I realized it didn't matter quite as much as I thought!

My heart broke later on in the evening when we showed them a movie about Christmas and started talking about this topic.  They had no idea, had not heard, had no concept for what they were hearing.  It was as if the hearing world around them was familiar with the idea, but they stepped out of a bubble that might as well have been in the middle of the Amazon rain forest.  

How could they not have heard anything?