Collection › LCMS Convention Workbook (St. Louis, Missouri) › 1969 · 48th Convention › Page 25
LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1969, Page 25

Scan: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

MISSIONS 25

now serves the only liberal arts college for the deaf,
Gallaudet College in Washington, D.C., a campus of
nearly 1,000 deaf young men and women from all over
the world. Rev. Rodney Rynearson serves at the Na-
tional Technical Institute for the Deaf, Rochester, N. Y.,
the first technical college for the deaf in North America.
He is pastor of Alpha Lutheran Church of the Deaf in
Rochester and also serves on two state school campuses
in upper New York.

d. High School Classes for the Deaf. A significant
pilot program is that of high school classes for the deaf,
conducted by Lutheran High School, Minneapolis. The
Board for Missions has granted support for this pilot
program, initially funded by the Wheat Ridge Founda-
tion, to continue through 1969. The teacher of the deaf
is now part of the regular high school staff.

e. The Milwaukee Sunday School Teacher Training
Program. The Milwaukee Lutheran Council of Churches
is in the third year of a pilot program for recruiting
teachers and developing materials for deaf Sunday
school classes, an important need in our work among
the deaf today. A grant from the South Wisconsin Dis-
trict LWML is helping support this pilot attempt.

f. Training for Deaf Lay Workers at LLTI. The
Lutheran Lay Training Institute, Milwaukee, has estab-
lished a training program for deaf lay assistants — for
graduates of Gallaudet College who have majored in
religion and philosophy and for other men and women
who want to enter full-time service in the church. The
Board for Missions provides support for up to five deaf
students per year. Mrs. Doris Myhre, former parish
worker in the South Florida Field, serves at LLTI as
interpreter and coordinator of the training program.
One deaf student has completed his first year there.

g. Foreign Work Among the Deaf. Japan has its first
full-time pastor to the deaf. Four deaf persons were
recently baptized. In 1967 the Taiwan Deaf Association
expressed its appreciation for our church’s deaf ministry
by sending a banner to the President of the Synod.
Pastors involved in deaf work in Denmark, Finland,
Germany, and Beirut, Lebanon, have observed Mis-
souri Synod deaf ministry here in the U.S.

Rev. Louis Jasper, former pastor to the deaf in New
York City, has begun educational and teacher training
programs in Hong Kong. Construction on the Mong Kok
School for the Deaf is to begin this year, providing six
classrooms for deaf pupils. The LWML and the Lutheran
Deaf Mission Society have contributed to this work.
The Board for Missions (in cooperation with the Lu-
theran Friends of the Deaf at Mill Neck, N. Y., and at
the request of the Brazil District) is looking into the
establishment of a school for the deaf in Porto Alegre.
Brazil. Possibilities are being explored for work among
the deaf in India and New Guinea.

h. Reorganization and Restructuring of North Amer-
ican Work Among the Deaf. In this 75th-anniversary
year several resolutions are before the convention that
if adopted will effect significant changes in the admin-

istration of deaf work. The full report of the ad hoc Com-
mittee on the Administration of Deaf Missions (history
of their work, concerns, and resolutions) appears as
Appendix A at the end of this Board for Missions report.
The rationale governing basic elements of the reorgani-
zation follows:

1) The Board for Missions will continue overall
support for deaf missions in its role as enabler; but in
order thet the identity and viability of deaf work be
increased on the local level, deaf congregations are
being urged to join their respective Districts and take
part in District programs. Deaf Lutherans need to be
more closely united with other Lutheran Christians in
their geographic area: Districts need to be sensitized to
the needs of the deaf in their area as part of their min-
istry to the whole society.

2) In order that all the deaf have a voice in their
own affairs locally, the administration of each deaf
“field” will be restructured. Each field will have a cen-
tral board of elders and central treasury. These new
policies will establish a much broader “field congrega-
tion,” involving all the scattered members and mission
stations in the planning and programs of the whole field.
including the calling of pastors.

3) To give deaf laymen a voice in their own affairs
nationally and internationally, the Board for Missions
is suggesting the formation of an International Lutheran
Deaf Association through which they can become fully
informed of and take a more active part in Christ’s
mission. Such an organization will also give Lutheran
deaf Christians an instrument to witness to Christ in
the “deaf world.” This association will represent the
Missouri Synod at forums and workshops and on the
board of the new international Council of Organizations
Serving the Deaf (COSD), a coordinating agency that
represents 17 nationwide organizations working among
the deaf.

2. Ministry to the Blind: Each in His Own Tongue

Sign language is ‘the tongue” in which the deaf hear
the message of God’s redeeming love. For the visually
handicapped, Braille is the main “tongue” through
which they “touch” the Word of God, Jesus Christ.

a. Materials Available Here and Overseas. We are
able to provide, free of charge, Braille material re-
quested by any missionary in any land and in any lan-
guage. Under the leadership of Mrs. Mabel Warnke,
the Transcription Committee establishes working cen-
ters in various parts of the country. Braille Concordia
Sunday school lessons, books, music notation, ete. —all
of this is done by volunteers, God’s people being “words”
to bring God’s Word to others. A working center has
also recently been added in Hong Kong.

Most of the material in Braille is also available in
Sight-Saving Type. With the cooperation of Concordia
Publishing House, Portals of Prayer is produced in both
Braille and Sight-Saving. The entire Lutheran Hymnal
is available in both forms. An increasing number of