I-N-G-S is for In Neenah, Good Speech

What I enjoy about asking believers how their faith impacts their work is that I am always surprised. Their responses are as distinct as their jobs and as the gifts they have been given to do them. I invite you to this enjoyment by asking fellow believers this question.

Michelle Schaafsma is a speech therapist for Theda Clark Hospital in Neenah, Wisconsin. She likes that her patients are day-old newborns and centenarians. But what does a speech therapist do with a newborn?

Communion Assistant

MS: "The field has changed. At first it was to help with sound production, the physical. But soon it began to work also in the cognitive area, where the brain produces speech. Then also abstract reasoning. I had a 19 year old accident victim who because of his brain trauma could not understand figurative expressions.

"But since I entered the field, we have also taken on people's problems with swallowing. That's why I work with newborns sometimes, or any age who can't swallow because of stroke or trauma. It is so important because if people don't swallow right, the food goes into their lungs and breeds pneumonia. They can die."

TM: Before speech therapists did that, how were swallowing problems addressed?

MS: "They weren't. It was bad. But now, I am the bringer of bad news: 'You can't eat or drink for now.' This is worse than the dry mouth and empty stomach. Eating and drinking are so comforting to us. So someone already traumatized is now deprived also of an essential form of comfort. But I especially like this part of my work, just because it is medical.

"Though this was not what I expected. When I started, I wanted to help kids with their r's and l's, traditional speech therapy, because our essence is defined by our ability to communicate. We have a human need to communicate and be known. God created us to be in communion, in communication. I wanted to help people find their voice, so that in communication they could receive more."

TM: That sounds to me like "being made in the image of God," as in Genesis 1 and 5: the capacity and desire to be in communion with others by communicating ourselves to them. That is the image of God, for He Himself is like that. He broaches communion with us by making Himself known through His communication. He sends His Word, both in the messages to the prophets and in His incarnate Word, Jesus Christ.

MS: "I had a case where a child had developed normally until eight months, then started sliding into autism, withdrawing into himself, not communicating; no words. My therapy was to elicit some response from him, to influence him to interact with me. So I created a stark, bare setting where the only thing for him to be aware of was something desirable, a toy. I would show it to him briefly, then hide it, to draw a response from him. I would use my hands on his to teach him the American Sign Language motion for 'more.' I kept encouraging him, 'If you want to play, show me "more."' When he finally did I picked him up and swung him around with so much joy that I hurt my back! From that interaction we could begin to build, and by age three he was on normal development again."

TM: That reminds me of two stories. It is like the Helen Keller story, how you saved that boy, at least in social terms. The other story is God's. The sin in which every human child is born is a kind of spiritual autism: a self-absorption which makes us incapable of being aware of the Trinity's grace. Not only uninterested, incapable. So the Father shows us something desirable to "elicit a response." He sends the Son, holds His huge grace in front of us on the cross, as something to be desired. If He can spark our interest, He can use Christ as the basis of interaction with us, and use Christ to lead us to Himself.

Are you an agent of God in your work?

MS: "Not only at work, but in all of daily life: at home, in my marriage, everywhere. God wants me to pay attention to detail. So when I go through the hospital door daily I pray, 'God, show me what you have in store for me.' It may not be only patients, but their families, or the hospital staff or colleagues. What does God have in store for me that He has created me to be His instrument for?"

TM: God is such a good manager that He matches your abilities to the needs He presents.

MS: "I also look for Christ in people. Most of the people I see are suffering intensely from losses, by maybe stroke or cancer. Worse, they also have lost their dignity and independence. And Christ experiences all of that. Because he came into our suffering, just like these people, I think there is a kind of communion these sufferers have with Jesus Christ. I remember that as I work with them."

tbcm