[Faith-Talk] Intro and Seeking Advise on Accessibility of Prayer Paths

[Ericka Nelson]

 Hey you brought up some very good questions. I have never really done
something like that. Once I did the labyrinth for prayer but I had more
vision done. I’ve never attended a church that did this. You are blessed to
have such a good friend and I understand about the human element. I like
the Victor Stream idea. I would think that the church could   Get the
material out to you faster especially since it’s an event that happens
every year. Did you bring us offering for everyone idea up to your friend?
Perhaps she could record it I had a time.

  It sounds like they are pretty accommodating though for this. Giving your
descriptions of each station and a guide book is great.   I wonder how many
senior citizens would appreciate your audio version as well. Maybe bring
that up to the Pastor or one of the pastors if the church is that big.

On Sun, Apr 21, 2019 at 12:50 AM Tina Hansen via Faith-Talk <
faith-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:

> My name is Tina Hansen, and I wanted to write to this list for advice and
> ideas.
>
>
>
> I know many churches do a prayer path around this time of year. The church
> I
> attend has done this, as it's done for a lot of years.
>
>
>
> I want to get ideas on how to work with  these experiences as a blind
> person
> and share what I've done so I might find ways to improve the experience for
> future prayer paths.
>
>
>
> Incidentally, this church  has sometimes done something similar at
> Christmas.
>
>
>
> Anyway, here's what tipically happens. When members walk through the prayer
> path, they are given a booklet to guide them. The booklet contains the
> story
> from the Bile relating to either Christmas or Easter. The one I did the
> other day was for Easter, so that's what I'll use.
>
>
>
> In the past,  I have used a pen-friend-like device to place audio labels on
> the book's pages. A friend and I walked through the path together, and the
> friend read from the book. She also assisted with any activities the guide
> book asked anyone walking the path to do. We recorded the material on
> location while we were going through it.
>
>
>
> Last year, my friend and I were reminded to keep voices low. This church
> wishes to maintain an atmosphere of meditation, reflection and
> contemplation. Because of this, I decided to forego the audio labeling unit
> in favor of an mp3 player. My friend and I found a location within the
> church to set up my recording equipment, and we recorded the material
> before
> going through the prayer path. I used a Victor Reader unit to record the
> material and to play it back.
>
>
>
> Later that night, I had the opportunity to go through it again with a
> group.
> This time, since the recordings were mp3 files, I dumped them on my phone
> and played them through one of my favorite apps, Voice Dream Reader. Since
> these prayer paths are sequential, you can't skip ahead.
>
>
>
> I also was able to use a Bluetooth headset with controls for playing and
> pausing the recording. I was able to control the volume of the audio, and
> my
> phone was stowed in my backpack the whole time.
>
>
>
> One issue that is more difficult to resolve is when you're asked to write
> something down at a station. This happened several times, and I needed to
> whisper in my friend's ear. I'm wondering if there are any other
> work-arounds that I might use when this happens next time.
>
>
>
> I realized, too, that with many of these prayer paths, there are words on
> the wall put there by the staff. I asked a church staff member to write up
> concise descriptions of each station so I'd have some idea of what it
> looked
> like.
>
>
>
> Each year, the staff usually sends me an electronic copy of the guide book.
> In my view, this is useful for getting some sense of what to expect, but
> it's not uncommon for something to go wrong in the formatting of my copy.
> I've seen words run together, or I've seen words cut off.
>
>
>
> I thought about using Voiceover or any of the electronic voices within
> Voice
> Dream Reader, but I was nervous about doing that. For one thing, either the
> church staff or I would need to do some heavy editing to ensure the
> software
> read it right. Also, even though there is technology involved, I wanted to
> keep the human touch in there. I wanted to have the feeling that a friend
> is
> guiding you through the event, and one who understands the material. The
> software is just reading, as Shakespeare would say, words, words, words. It
> doesn't know anything about the mood of the material. Yet my friend, who
> also happens to have a wonderful reading voice, brought the narrative
> alive.
> I felt a part of it.
>
>
>
> So here's the other dilemma. Because there is no dedicated space, it's not
> possible to prepare accessible materials a month in advance. This year, I
> received the material on Sunday night. Because the church used a location
> that is used for other events, the path is not ready until that weenend
> before it opens. However, I knew this was coming up, so I had already
> called
> my voice talent.
>
>
>
> But the station descriptions needed to be prepared at the last minute.
>
>
>
> When my voice talent and I got to the church, there they were, so we just
> added them at the beginning of each station in the guide book.
>
>
>
> I have suggested the church consider offering a recording of the guide book
> for everyone done by their staff. Since this church is fairly large, I'm
> sure there is someone who could do it. However, if they can't do it, what
> we
> did worked out well. I don't want to use text to speech software, only
> because of the need for one of us to edit the fils, and I want to maintain
> the human element.
>
>
>
> So that's what I did this year. Do any of you have ideas on how I can
> improve  on that? Thanks.
>
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>
 Hey you brought up some really good questions.