Our Hearing Loss Blog Has Brought Us Blessings...and Hard Choices

Decisions, Decisions

I may have made mention of the fact that we are being relocated. Things have really fallen into place and the Lord has made clear that it is absolutely His intention for us to go to this new place. While we hate to leave behind those that we dearly love here, we know there are blessings to be found there. Hopefully we will also be able to bring blessings to those we meet.

We have a big decision to make right now, though. Where should we live? The decision was going to be quite simple until last week when everything changed for us.

A few weeks ago (maybe even a couple of months), I got a message on my hearing loss blog about a boy who was working on his Eagle Scout project. He was creating a blog and a website for deaf and hard of hearing kids like himself to get to know each other and share stories. The poster asked me to put a link on my blog to his and then to write up a story for his website. No problem. I posted the link, and then went over to his site and told him he could use any stories or experiences from my blog he wanted.

Last week, he e-mailed me and said he’d noticed that I had “I am a Child of God” and “Teach Me to Walk in the Light” playing on my blog. He asked if I happened to be LDS. I told him that I was, and he then asked to friend me on facebook. I agreed.
About a day later, I got a PM from him saying that he’d noticed that I mentioned moving to the place we're going to. This shocked him because he lives there. His dad is the bishop of his ward. He was so excited about this. To be honest, I was stunned. My blog has been up for over a year now, and this was the first time I’d made contact with him. It just seemed like things were falling into place.

We exchanged questions and answers, and I learned that his ward has him and TWO OTHER FAMILIES WITH DEAF CHILDREN. There are 3 year old twins and a 9 year old girl who all have hearing loss in his ward. This is totally unusual for a hearing ward. Plus, all their youth know ASL because this young man has taught it to his peers. Built-in babysitters.

I spoke with the young man’s mom the other day, and she describes the ward as if it’s like the amazing one we’re already in. It’s small, but not minute. There are other parents who have already juggled the school district and told us which schools are great vs. which ones are not. Their ward is having a dinner and silent auction fund raiser for the youth on one of the nights we’ll be there looking for houses, and we were invited to join them that evening. We will be there.

Then, my bishop from when I was a youth contacted me to give me the names of some of the people he felt could help us find a good ward. He had lived in this place, and found some good people. That sister called me today and went on and on about how great this young man’s ward is and how happy we’d be there.

It’s very close to the oral Deaf schools, the children’s hospital, and really anything we’d need. The catch? It is about a 30-45 minute commute for Byron. We really didn’t want to consider an area with more than a 20 minute commute. It really feels like we’re being led to this particular ward in some ways. So, what would you do?