AZTI DAY 3 Explained

Day 3 was the hardest for me by far. I got to live through a real life crisis back home where my only form of communication was texting. It was really hard to effectively communicate that way and I had a whole new level of respect for the Deaf community. Let me explain about my day… I woke up that morning knowing that DPS would be opening a job for new officers. This is the first time in 4 years that they have opened any jobs and it would be a fantastic opportunity for Marc. We found about this job in a random set of circumstances and I just kept feeling that it was in answer to our prayers. But I knew that the job wouldn’t be open for long and that I wouldn’t be there to help Marc. Marc was going to be getting off of work at 8 and I knew he would be tired so I thought I would be helpful by emailing him the link to this position. I googled for job openings and after a few different attempts at the links I found the one I wanted appeared. I quickly emailed the link to Marc and moved on with my day. Within a short amount of time Marc was emailed that the job wasn’t open yet and he would have to reapply at noon. I thought that was odd but continued on with my day at AZTI. Within a few hours I would come to find out that by emailing Marc that link I could have cost him this opportunity to test. I found a link that wasn’t meant to be public yet through my search and sent Marc a link that they thought I hacked in to find. There was an investigation opened on me to try and figure out how I breached their security and they weren’t sure if Marc would test or not. I felt awful and was trying to figure out how I could work with the officers to get Marc back in this opportunity and prove that I hadn’t hacked anything and all of this had to be communicated via text messages. It was a really stressful day that ended up turning out just fine. The investigation was closed and it was discovered that I didn’t hack their site and Marc was allowed to test. But all of that stress weighed heavily on me. I couldn’t be the reason that Marc wasn’t allowed to continue on with his dreams and I couldn’t cost him this opportunity. Then we had the scavenger hunt outside and by the time it was over we were all hot and frustrated. Then flip-flop island is meant to stretch you and I just didn’t have as much room to stretch that day as others did. My emotions were right at the surface and I wasn’t afraid of showing that. However, I had the opportunity to reflect on that experience today at church and it left me with an entirely different viewpoint. One of the things I failed to mention in my email home was Maureen. Maureen was a staff member there that was the project coordinator. She was in charge of making sure everything ran smoothly and that we all had a busy day. In the game, the true Deaf members are supposed to take advantage of you. They do things like bump into you and fall and then try to convince the cops that you pushed them. 90% of the time the students ended up in jail after their encounters with the Deaf staff members. I, however, never had that experience. By the time I came back into the room the main goal for most of the staff was to help me succeed. When I went to the veterinarian’s booth I was supposed to be using SEE (Signed Exact English) but since I have never been taught this particular method I was kind of winging it. Maureen, who was pretending to be blind, followed me to the table and just stood there watching my interaction. At one point I signed something in ASL and not in SEE and Maureen kindly showed me the correct sign. I quickly used the correct sign and feared being thrown in jail again. This continued for several tables where Maureen followed me around or watched from a distance to make sure that I was okay. There were others like this in the game as well, several students, the guardian angel, & my friends from Flagstaff. They were all watching me to help me succeed and we were willing to share our tips on what made us successful at each station. Even Miss Information, who was supposed to give bad information, gave me correct information in an attempt to help me be successful. Today in church we were talking about how the Lord knows each one of us and that we are important to him. Even in a world of billions of people, we are each important to him. I immediately thought of this day and how incredibly hard it was for me because all of my support systems were taken away. I couldn’t call home, I couldn’t do anything that would typically solve a bad day but as I was thinking about this day I realized that I was never truly alone. I truly feel that the Lord sent those people to me at the right moments to help me through out that experience. There were moments where I couldn’t take anymore and I was taken care of in those moments. What a tremendous experience this was for me. I am so grateful for the tears and the heartbreak that came that day because it helped me grow and develop as a person. This day also afforded me many conversations in the future to help clear up any misunderstandings I had about that night. It was really hard to feel like I was a bad person after already having a terrible day and through some conversations and clarifications I came to know that wasn’t true. It truly was a life changing experience and I am so grateful that I survive it! I am so grateful to know that I have a loving Heavenly Father who loves me enough to take care of me even when I am simply going through a hard day.