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After two weeks of meetings in Denver, Tom and I are back home and settled into our routine again. The meetings were a kind of real-life test of hearing effectiveness for me. Some of the meetings were held in a mid-size conference room with about 20 people around a U-shaped table arrangement. Generally only one person was speaking at a time and I could see them and follow well. Just like in noisy restaurants, when lots of people are talking at the same time, it's harder to "zero in" on the conversation in which I'm taking part. But overall, I was encouraged that I could participate in the discussions and even catch most of the jokes. There was one participant who had a ready, loud, distinctive laugh who drowned out some of the jokes when she sat beside me, but I just laughed along anyway!
The second week, we were moved to a big hotel where the conference room held 100-150 people around 10-chair tables. When we were listening to a speaker or musician, I caught most of that as well, because the sound came out of speakers aimed at the audience and my T-mic microphones picked it up well. When we had big-group prayer times where various people around the room prayed, I could hear very little of that because of the distance and lack of amplification, and because people often pray quieter and with their heads bowed. I took comfort in the fact that other people struggled to hear as well.
The worst listening scenario was during the Recognition Luncheon when we were in a big ballroom where the program was piped out of speakers in the ceiling. There was no direction to the sound; it just got lost all over the room. With the clanking of silverware and glasses and the squirmy children and servers doing their thing, I could understand next to nothing from the podium. I was near the back of the room as well, so my visual cues were limited. I did catch when they called our name to go forward for recognition for our years of service with the mission. I felt that many people who knew of my situation this past year were cheering a little extra, glad to see me back in the game.
By the time we left to come back home, I felt reinvigorated by the fun relationship time we had and the spiritual renewal times. I was charged up with ideas for follow-up on areas of ministry both here while we're Stateside and for our work back in Mali. But most of all, I felt like I functioned nearly normally and that my gifts and availability for service are still needed and useful. Tom and I need to gear-up now for our return to Africa at the end of the school year.
We need to start looking at buying our plane tickets, sorting and packing our things stored here at my mom's house, continue our speaking engagements and efforts to discover the rest of our needed monthly financial support, and work on all the other details of finishing the school year, and getting my speech processors ready for a year overseas. I need to set up a meeting with my surgeon, my main audiologist and me to strategize how to best arrange my programs for maximum effect while keeping third world challenges in consideration.
