| In appreciation: The Rev. LeRoy Schauer BY CECIL P. E. POTTIEGER When Carole Jean Schauer called to tell me that her husband, the Rev. LeRoy Schauer, had died, a lot of very pleasant thoughts flooded my mind. We met while I was an executive staff member of the former National Division, Office of Urban Ministries, General Board of Global Ministries. Like LeRoy, I was also not hearing impaired but for individual reasons we both found ourselves working together with the deaf. When the Rev. Jack Hagar retired from the Office of Urban Ministries, it became my lot to coordinate the several United Methodist Deaf Ministries across the country. I began, knowing absolutely nothing about my new assignment. LeRoy was at that time pastor of the Washington, D.C., Church of the Deaf and assisted us in the formation of the National Divisions National Conference of the Deaf ministry. He and several other pastors, along with a fine cadre of mostly hearing-impaired lay people, helped to make that organization possible. Apart from the fellowship this new organization would provide for people who lived in silence, it also gave them a voice through which they would be able to appeal to The United Methodist Church. Just to meet together was a plus. The relatively small amounts of funds from the Office of Urban Ministries, helped to bring about an annual meeting, the National Congress of the Deaf. I shall forever remember the night before the closing events of the Congress, how LeRoy suggested that as coordinator, I should sign the closing benediction. I smiled but graciously refused the offer. He persisted and said he and members of the committee would help me. They showed me how to sign the benediction and I practiced half the night what pastors of the deaf would effortlessly say at the conclusion of every worship service. God, with the help of LeRoy Schauer, allowed me, using the new language I had learned, to offer the benediction. It was the first (and only) time that I ever received applause for saying a benediction. Despite having lost personal contact with LeRoy after my decision to leave the board in 1978, I continued to hear through others of his sacrificial work among the deaf community in the Baltimore-Washington Conference. LeRoy will be greatly missed by his family as well as by those of us who worked with him and knew him as a devoted minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Rev. Cecil P. E. Pottieger, retired, Eastern Pennsylvania Conference, lives in Frederick. He may be reached at
. Editors Note: In Appreciation is a new feature in the UMConnection, seeking to bring a brief look at the meaning of life well-lived. | 
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