His Gift Is Beyond Words

When Kyle R. Jaussi, former president of the Richmond (Kentucky) Branch, chatted with members and visitors in the small chapel foyer on Sundays, the scene was not as typical as it appeared. Kyle Jaussi is deaf, and the more than two hundred members of the branch he led can all hear.

When Kyle was called as president, he asked that a few adjustments be made, such as rearranging the placement of chairs on the stand so he could read the lips of the speakers. Other adjustments followed.

Born deaf in one ear, Brother Jaussi began losing his hearing in the other ear two years after his marriage to Ursula. He was totally deaf by the time their fourth child was born. The cause of the hearing loss went undiagnosed by doctor after doctor and was not arrested until it was too late. The deafness was irreversible, and Kyle Jaussi’s world would never be the same.

Kyle eventually became skilled at reading lips, and with the advantage of having grown up as a hearing child, he had the language background many hearing-impaired people do not have. But watching movies or attending the symphony or opera became pleasures of the past.

His wife’s companionship took on new dimensions. For instance, they developed a whole new nonverbal communication system to cover emergencies that occur when it is too dark for Kyle to read lips. The family’s communication improved because they had to work so hard on it.

Brother Jaussi’s guiding philosophy through all these changes was the same philosophy that had guided him before the hearing loss: “If you do what the Lord wants you to do, he will bless you.”

Both Kyle and Ursula had grown up in Smithfield, Utah. When Kyle completed his master’s degree at Utah State University, he received an opportunity to teach for the Church Educational System at the Seminary for the Deaf in Ogden, Utah, a job that began an odyssey for the Jaussis through five states—from California to Iowa and most recently to Kentucky.

“The Lord opened doors for us that were definitely not coincidences, so I could study and work in some of the best programs in the country in deaf education,” Kyle recalls. Homes sold—or didn’t sell—in the right order to put or keep the Jaussis where they felt they needed to be. He earned a doctoral degree, taught at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, and now trains teachers of the deaf at the University of Arkansas.

Though the frustrations have been real and the challenges many, Kyle Jaussi has used his hearing loss to strengthen him and those around him. For him, the greatest challenge remains the same one we all face—that of enduring to the end.—Kathleen Pederson Whitworth, Richmond, Kentucky