My Trip to Kentucky...Day 3

Saturday October 14th 2017

 

                We woke up the next morning, got ready for the day, and ate a hot breakfast at the hotel, before meeting in the lobby at nine. For some of us (me) this was normal, other people thought this was the crack of dawn. Before we set out we passed out our matching T-Shirts so we could easily find each other at the museum that day. Then we all piled into the vans and rode over to the museum where we had a group picture taken first thing so we wouldn’t forget.

Then we walked through the outdoor gardens and went to the petting zoo. They had goats, llamas, camels, a Zonkey, and a few other animals. We had a wonderful morning with the animals and many of us fed the animals and took pictures with the animals. One of my friends was getting a selfie with a camel and it tried to eat his shirt. We all laughed at him but the picture wasn’t all that bad. After we finished outside we went inside for lunch in the Noah’s Ark café. I had the chicken Cesar Salad and it was really good.

Then we went into the museum itself. It is set up in a way that once you go in you go through the entire museum before you can get out. It’s set up this way because it is in timeline order and it won’t make sense if you were to skip around. The first exhibit shows the difference between creation and evolution using a dinosaur as the main feature. It discusses how both a creationist scientist and an evolutionist scientist have the same evidence but because they have different starting points they find different conclusions. It then shows different times through history God’s Word has been tested and persecuted and how it is still around today.

The next exhibit is the first C. The museum is based on 7C’s, the first of which is Creation. This showed the Garden of Eden and how everything was perfect before sin. Animals and Humans all lived in peace and there was no killing. The next C is Corruption. This shows how sin entered into the world and the consequences. It shows death, labor, pregnancy & pain, and murder. It also shows how sin affects the world now giving a reason to the question, "why do bad things happen to good people?"

The third C is Catastrophe which is for Noah's Ark. We skipped over this exhibit because we knew we were going to the Ark Encounter the following day and we wanted to save time. The C after that is Confusion. This shows the Tower of Babel and  the disorder that happened when God gave humans different languages (they also showed this in the Ark and how each culture around the world has towers they build, but I am getting ahead of myself).

After this we had to skip the last three C’s (we went back later) because we were running out of time to reach the Deaf presenter. When we arrived at the room where the presentation would be I was overwhelmed. It was loud and yet oddly silent at the same time. With the number of people in the room most people would have expected it to be louder and yet it was oddly loud for a room of people who didn’t talk with their voices. We all sat down together and waited for the presentation to begin. We arrived fairly early because we wanted to make sure all of us could sit together and it was a good thing too; it wasn’t long before the entire room was filled with people. Everywhere you looked there were people signing. People signing to the person right in front of them, and (a cool ASL thing) people signing to each other across the room because as long as you can see them you don’t have to worry about being “too loud”. It was amazing to see all these Deaf together in the same room all waiting to watch a Deaf man present on the Dinosaurs and the Bible. There were people from all over, close to every state was represented, and there were even people from Canada and UK who came just for Deaf Day at the Creation Museum.

The man who presented was Calvin Farley. While I learned some from his presentation there were too many other exciting things going on around me. I was trying to watch Calvin and compare it to the voice interpreters, ask the Interpreter and Deaf woman next to me all my questions on the signs he was using, and follow his presentation at the same time. Part of the way through one of the Deaf men in our group who was sitting behind me poked me (normal Deaf culture) and asked me if Calvin was speaking or if there was an Interpreter. I told him there were two voice interpreters who took turns speaking for all the non-signers in the crowd. When I turned back around the Deaf woman sitting behind me on the other side poked me, (again, Deaf culture)she was not a part of our group, and asked if I was hearing. This overwhelmed me. By the way she was signing I instantly knew she was Deaf and the fact she thought I was Deaf until she realized I knew there was an interpreter made me so happy. When I confirmed that I was hearing, she asked if I was using the interpreters. I replied I was simply because it was there, I thought I would be able to follow if there was no interpreter but because they were speaking I continued to notice I was depending on them instead of myself. She told me that next time I should bring earplugs so I wouldn’t be able to hear the interpreters. I agreed and will do this in the future.

Not long after this all happened my friend sitting next to me noticed there was someone signing in the front row. We both watched for a while, confused as to why, and then we realized, she was interpreting for a Deaf/Blind woman. The way the interpreter was signing made it seem like she wasn’t fully blind but she was blind enough she couldn’t see the presenter from the front row. She was holding on the interpreter’s wrists as the interpreter copied everything that was signed on-stage. This was interesting, and once again I was distracted from actually watching the presentation.

When the presentation finished some of us who hadn’t finished the museum before the presentation went back into the last room. The last three C’s were all in the same room but were divided in a way which showed they were different aspects of the story. They were Christ, Cross, and Consummation. These explained the birth of Christ and how He was born of virgin and a short version of the Christmas story. Cross explained Jesus’ crucifixion, burial, and resurrection and how this meant He bore our sins so we could be forgiven and go to heaven. Finally we arrived at Consummation. This explained the second coming of Christ, the Judgment Seat, and eternity. This was the hardest part to explain in ASL. Trying to explain that we know the future and you have a life choice to make right now which determines where you will go for the rest of eternity was a struggle. We finally portrayed it in a way they understood and after answering all of their questions the interpreter and I were wiped, and ready to leave.

We went back outside and joined up with the rest of our group and went to eat at a food court. There was a two story carousel inside which had a dragon as one of the animals. I found this ironic because we just finished listening to a presentation on Dinosaurs and how they were called Dragons. After we finished eating we went back to the hotel and had a few hours to chill before we needed to go to bed that night. We ended up playing a youth group game called “Big Booty” and then we played UNO before going to bed.

My Trip to Kentucky...Day 4 will come out on Monday so check back to find out what happened on Sunday when we went to the Ark Encounter!

Love God, Love Others, and Love Disney
~Lacey