But the second person she helped was an older man whose excitement and gratitude overwhelmed her.

"I just sobbed," Martin-Prudent said.

Despite language barriers, the entire trip was an emotional and enlightening experience for both women, who are the owners of the Knox County Hearing Center in Galesburg and the McDonough County Hearing Center in Macomb.

In addition to running the hearing center businesses, Silberer is the audiology clinic coordinator at the Western Illinois University Hearing Clinic in Macomb and Martin-Prudent is a speech pathologist at Azer Clinic in Galesburg.

The mission trip was completed in conjunction with the Starkey Hearing Foundation, a philanthropic branch of Starkey Laboratories, which manufactures the Microtech hearing aids that Silberer and Martin-Prudent distribute to their clients. The two women were among six audiologists and hearing professionals from around the country who participated in the mission trip.

The pair donated $2,000 to the foundation to go on the mission trip, which included their travel expenses. While the mission lasted only one day, they spent several days in Puerto Vallarta to attend continuing education sessions.

Since 2000, the Starkey Hearing Foundation has provided more than 130,000 hearing aids to those in need around the world.

From watching the expression on a young boy's face as he heard for the first time to feeling the satisfaction of truly changing people's lives, the women say the experience changed how they view their profession.

Silberer recalled a family with three daughters who came to the Marriott in Puerto Vallarta where the event took place. The three daughters had identical hearing loss, which Silberer assumed was hereditary. When she asked the mother if the children inherited their hearing problems from her, or from the father, the woman said it was from her - and admitted that she, too, had hearing problems.

At first, Silberer said, the woman declined to be fitted for her own hearing aid, saying it was enough just to have her children get them. She eventually relented, and they all left with hearing aids that day.

This was the first time Silberer and Prudent-Martin went on a mission trip, but it won't be the last. "We are definitely going back, as often as we can," Silberer said.

"A lot of good happened that day," Martin-Prudent said.

Not only were those in need fitted with hearing aids, but they also received training on hearing aid care and maintenance, as well as a supply of hearing aid batteries. The people who received hearing aids ranged in age from 18 months to 104 years old, and about 70 percent were children.

"There wasn't one person there who wasn't -" Silberer said, before her colleague finished the sentence for her.

"Ecstatic," Martin-Prudent said.

By Jane Carlson
http://www.register-mail.com/stories/042706/LOC_B9KTRAGD.GID.shtml