BLIND AND CANNOT SEE, DEAF AND CANNOT HEAR

SMUG were at Central Queens United Church in Hunter River this morning, performing a total of 10 selections that seemed to delight the congregation. In the absense of the minister, The Reverend Barbara Wagner,the service was conducted by Mr Roland Easter with SMUG doing two anthem selections and the message brought by our own "Pastor" Maurice Steeves.Christine Belanger was the organist, assisted by Nancy Rackham. Maurice told the congregation the most wonderful story of how his father was both deaf and blind,his mother deaf, and what Louis Braille was eventually able to do for them to enable them to communicate. This heart-warming tale which began in the very early 1900's, tells of how his father was sent off to a school for the deaf in Saint John, where Maurice's mother and father met and eventually were married. Maurice explained Braille and how Louis Braille put it together to enable the world of blind people to read.There were samples for those assembled and Maurice explained the process and how a typewriter was eventually invented also to make putting Braille down on paper so much easier to process.The Braille passage that was sent around for the congregation to see said : "Count Your Blessings", one of the hymns sung in the morning service.