Dearest Readers,
Every week
of camp has left me feeling something different, but some of the emotions are
always the same. I always feel the same sadness when my campers leave. Their
parents just whisk them away and suddenly the ones who have made up my world
for five days are gone, and I feel very bereft. I always feel a little bit (or
sometimes, like this week, a lot) of failure for all the things I wish had happened
and the conversations I wish I had gotten to have. I also always feel an
overwhelming sense of wonder that this is the life I get to live. That even as
these precious ones are leaving, I know another group will be here in just a
couple days. I feel like squeezing my co-cabin leader really hard (and often
do) because she showed me so much of Jesus in our week together and getting to
serve these amazing kids and love on their SOTKs (servants of the King) together
is the most beautiful thing ever.
Camp has
been so much more than I ever imagined. It has been simply incredible. I want
the friends I’ve made here to follow me around for the rest of my life. I’ve
learned a lot about living with purpose because you only have a few days with
these campers and SOTKs. I’m also learning so much about praying expectantly. I’ve
read so many books about missionaries and the ways God fulfills promises and
does amazing things on the mission field. The same things are happening here at
camp, and I want to keep praying expectant prayers even after I leave.
Everything here is tailored to fit people with disabilities—even the way we
applaud each other, by clasping our hands together above our heads and shouting
“O”—a standing ovation that you can do sitting, even if you can’t clap or if
the sound of clapping is too much for you. I love living in a world like this.
A new
emotion I felt this week was frustration at unchanged hearts. I’m getting to
live in a world this summer where people with disabilities are viewed as
perfect and beautifully and wonderfully made—and it’s amazing. But we also get
new volunteers each week, and sometimes that isn’t the way they see our
campers. I’ve struggled this weekend with so much anger and hurt and wondering
at why I can’t better communicate how much I love these people in a way that
makes everyone around me love them, too.
I started
writing this to process that—the impossible struggle of living in a world that doesn’t
view these people the same way. But last night, we stood outside and let the
rain run down our hair and onto our feet and worshipped, and God changed my
heart. I realized I had been focusing so much on all the wrong things.
The night
before one of my friends had encouraged me in this struggle—she told me that
this battle to try to convince people to see what to me is so obvious but to
them is just not is like the way God tries to tell the nonbeliever about His
love, or even our own stubborn hearts. He must get oh so very frustrated when
He has told me I can trust Him and it’s the simplest truth to Him, and yet for
me it will be a struggle to understand for my whole life.
We have
little “mailboxes” where staff can write each other encouragrams, and one of my
friends wrote and assured me that God was the one who got to change those
hearts, not me. Another wrote just with encouragement. And I was held this week
as I cried over this failure that hurt really bad. I was met with so much love.
That’s what I should be focusing on. This week was really hard, and I do feel
like I failed, but camp is probably the perfect place to fail and to hurt,
because you are met with an overwhelming amount of love and truths.
I am
working on letting go of the fact that I can’t change all hearts to match mine.
But I’m also going to celebrate the beautiful gift that there are so many
people who see these dear ones with the same eyes—and I get to be surrounded by
them this summer. What a joy.
Your
blogger,
Claire (or my camp name—Sonrisa)