The unwelcome shrill of the alarm clock beeps incessantly. Birds chirp cheerily outside the window, accompanied by the hum of early morning traffic rushing through the street….
These are the noises that awaken many of us to each new day. We turn on the morning news as we sip our first cup of coffee, or listen to music as we prepare for the day, or chat with a spouse about upcoming plans over the dog’s loud barking and children arguing over who gets the toy in the cereal box. Traffic reports flood our ears on the drive to work, where we try to tune out the drone of a dull co-worker or listen intently to customers on the phone lines. After work we might head to the gym where we converse with acquaintances or listen to our ipods, before going home and calling a friend or sharing dinner with family in a boisterous restaurant.
These are the sounds of our everyday lives. Sounds that we take for granted.
But what if one day, you couldn’t hear the alarm? Or listen to the news or hear your kids; couldn’t make a regular phone call or hear the honk of a horn, warning you of impending danger on the freeway. Couldn’t hear the waves crashing at the beach or stand in church and sing along to the beautiful music that stirs up your heart?
For most people, losing such a critical sense may sound like a nightmare. Yet it is a daily reality that many face. In the case of Rudy Campos, part of the deaf community at RockHarbor, it is the story of his life.
The first ten years of Rudy’s life were fairly normal while growing up in a Christian family and attending elementary school. Rudy’s brother went deaf as a toddler, so the Campos family learned sign language and began to adjust to the special requirements that his brother needed.
Life changed dramatically when Rudy hit the age of ten. Not only were some minor hearing problems getting worse, but he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. Doctors began telling him that he would probably lose his hearing completely, but he didn’t believe them, sure that his hearing problems were just temporary and would clear up. But the doctors were right.
At 11 years old, Rudy became sick with spinal meningitis and went deaf as a result. He quickly had to learn how to go between two worlds – that of the hearing, and of the deaf. Between those that only accept someone if they are deaf, and those who do not know how to accept someone if they are. “It was a mess, being torn between two cultures,” he recalls. “I grew up in fear. I was changed and worried that the world wouldn’t accept that.”
The loss of hearing was not only hard for Rudy, but for his family as well.
They had become accustomed to having one deaf son, but his parents still felt helpless and unable to do anything, though Rudy says, “It wasn’t their fault. It’s a part of life. Life isn’t perfect, everybody knows that.”
Rudy’s high school years were terrible, struggling to fit in and requiring an interpreter for all of his classes. “A lot of deaf people don’t have the ability to articulate like I do. It is frowned upon because to some people it means that is the level of intelligence they have,” Rudy explains.
Rudy admits that at times he ran away from God, trying to deal with his difficulties and figure out how to fit in and be accepted. At that point in his life, acceptance meant going to parties and drinking with friends.
“I was angry, punching my brother and damaging things….It was my release and way of dealing with what I was going through.” He began seeing a therapist who pointed out how lost and angry he was, upset at having something taken away from him. “She said, ‘It wasn’t God that took it away from you’.” And after that conversation at age 16, Rudy says his anger disappeared, “Instead of shaking my fist, I reached out to God.”
During college Rudy was thrown a new set of struggles. He once again found it difficult to function with hearing impairment while not yet fully integrated into deaf culture. Then at age 22, the thyroid cancer came back.
“I was at the point that I wanted to give up on my faith. I thought ‘this is too much, I don’t want to be sick anymore.’ It was turmoil for a year….three times I came close to dying. And it’s hard because it hurts your family and your friends because they love you…and you realize they’re suffering more than you ever can. And when you’re a person that puts other people first, this is the only time you can’t, because you’re the one they’re worried about”.
Now age 25, Rudy has overcome cancer twice and when he reflects on his life has determined, “If I don’t accept my deafness, then I’m not accepting God.”
Still, life for the hearing impaired presents a unique set of challenges and frustrations that many people never think about. They can’t go to movies unless there are captions, order fast food, go to the doctor without an interpreter, and have a hard time asking for directions or for help at a store. Job opportunities are scarce because so many require phone communication, and deaf employees are considered a liability.
Despite limitations, Rudy worked from the time he was fifteen, doing everything from life-guarding, to coaching swimming, to teaching CPR and coaching at the Special Olympics. Rudy speaks passionately when he say, “God has used my deafness, my cancer and my life to be an example to people to say that things will happen to you, you may lose something and you may never get it back, but you can put it to good use…. No matter if you’re sick, no matter if you’re dying, you can still serve people.”
A few years ago Rudy started attending RockHarbor and appreciated that the deaf were integrated with everyone else and not put in a separate room like many places he had been to before. “My life really started changing when I came to RockHarbor because I found the right kind of acceptance.”
Yet trying to get involved in church was still a challenge. Rudy was apprehensive to join any groups or participate in events like Serve Day. “People seem to have a fear. They don’t want to hurt me, or miscommunicate something and upset me. And I’m thinking, ‘No, you don’t have to worry about it’,” Rudy says of those unfamiliar with the deaf community.
But what about worship? What is that like for someone who can’t hear the music or close their eyes while they listen to prayer? Rudy responds, “My eyes kind of listen for me, I can feel the music a little bit, I watch the interpreters sign…or I pray with somebody, shoulder to shoulder. It’s incredible, its like everything is shut off and everything inside your body fires up and you’re getting 150% because you don’t have your hearing. It’s an incredible position. It just brings you to your knees.”
Rudy also experiences physical worship through weekly communion, about which he says: “We owe God so much. No matter how much you do in life, you can never do enough. That’s the best thing about God; you can do so much more every single day, there’s always another thing you can do. And we do that at communion, we thank him for his blood and for carrying the cross all the way up that hill… I thank him every day for making me who I am…’Thank you Lord for putting me in my place, thank you for the cancer.”
God recently closed the door on working for Rudy, but has opened a window to go back to college to be an Occupational Therapist Assistant. “He put me in a humble position again. It’s a struggle financially, emotionally; sometimes I feel like I’m useless. But he taught me that it’s for a reason, to regain humility, to know what it’s like to struggle, to be thankful for every small scrape of anything you get.”
When asked if there’s anything else that Rudy would like people to know, he replies with a smile, “Don’t be afraid to try anything in faith…no matter how hard difficulties are in life, don’t be afraid to try anything, because you don’t know how much you’re missing out….best to take that extra step of faith…adversity can be overcome, faith is all it takes.”
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