Four times a year, the Interchurch Deaf Pastorate organises a youth service in Dutch Sign Language. Recently, it was my turn again. In such a service, I leave out my voice and do everything in Dutch Sign Language. Why? Because many deaf young people have that language as their mother tongue.
Leading a service can also be done with voice and supporting gestures. These gestures then support the spoken Dutch. Especially old(er) deaf people are familiar with this, as they were not allowed to use gestures in schools for the deaf in the past. They had to learn plain Dutch by means of speech-reading. A tough job!
Dutch as a second language
Fortunately, deaf youngsters have grown up with sign language. That language has its own grammar and all kinds of techniques that make it possible to communicate very visually. So for these young people, ordinary Dutch is a second language. I notice how wonderful they find it to experience a service in real Dutch Sign Language.
In such a youth service, of course, everyone is welcome. There are also always hearing people present. For them, there is a voice interpreter: a sign language interpreter who translates everything I communicate into Dutch. There is also a writing interpreter present. The speech interpreter literally types everything the voice interpreter says. People read that directly on a tablet. A speech interpreter is mainly meant for people who are deaf or hard of hearing and not able to use sign language.
Service in sign language
A pastor in sign language, a voice interpreter and a writing interpreter together are the ideal combo in a Youth Service. But then someone must not fall ill. And just that happened last time: a few days earlier, the voice interpreter reported sick. Now I know a lot of interpreters, so I sent a message to about twenty-five interpreters. Can you interpret on Sunday? Unfortunately, no one could. Other deaf and hard-of-hearing people also searched in their networks. There is a special 'Last-minute interpreter' group on Facebook and Tolkcontact, the national organisation for requesting interpreters, also searched. In vain. Now what? I could just do the service in sign language, but then I excluded the hearing people present. And without a voice interpreter or my voice, the writing interpreter couldn't do anything. So then we would mainly exclude the hearing impaired.
Too few interpreters
Here we ran into the problem of the shortage of interpreters head-on: there are simply far too few sign language interpreters. That problem is particularly acute on Sundays. All sorts of solutions are being considered, but for now there is no solution. Do you understand what this means for deaf people? Just imagine being deaf and wanting to go to your own church every Sunday. Very often, they can't. As a result, they cannot receive God's message in their own language.
How did we solve that in the youth service? After consulting with the speech interpreter, I finally chose to communicate in Dutch with supporting gestures. Cancelling the whole service was not a solution. At the beginning of the service, I took some time to explain why we did it this way. Fortunately, the young people understood, but were sorry. It also really bothered me that I had to communicate with them not in their mother tongue, but in their second language.
Becoming a sign language interpreter
Does that concern you or you too? Consider whether the sign language interpreter training course is for you. Even in church, everyone should always be able to participate fully, right? I read that in September 2024, only about 20 students started training as sign language interpreters in Utrecht. That's really far too few! So check out www.hu.nl for information.
Rev. Martin Visser
pastor deaf chaplaincy, Christian Reformed Churches
and Interdenominational Deaf Chaplaincy
