Kids Camp

Children!

There is a clip from an online cartoon called “teen girl squad” on homestarrunner.com (I think it’s the first or second episode) that has kept coming to my mind this whole weekend. (Okay first of all, this cartoon is ridiculous, really random and has an odd, but awesome sense of humor. It generally tells the story of these four teen girls. The whole comic is drawn like stick figures on notebook paper). At one point in this particular episode the teen girl squad gets “mauled” by the huge sign that says “CHILDREN!”

Yeah. It doesn’t really make sense but that’s exactly how I felt this weekend.

This weekend my RJ team had to help out at the children’s encounter camp. (Thankfully the camp building the church uses for these camps, which happen seemingly all the time, is right on the church’s property so we didn’t actually have to go anywhere and when we could sleep, we got to sleep in our own beds. That was helpful). For the most part, I tried to go into this thing on Friday with a positive perspective. Yet, knowing our entire weekend was going to be more exhausting then the week was not a very thrilling thing. Counting the hours until Monday is really pathetic. Besides, when we arrived Friday evening, the first thing we noticed was that we were supposed to report to the camp at 5 freakin’ 30 in the morning.

Crap.

We did a lot of “sucking it up and serving the Lord” this weekend.

Okay, so generally speaking I don’t enjoy spending time with children (unless those children are Titus and Mikaela Yoder). So working at this camp was something I was dreading anyway and I knew that after the first announcement of “we’re not here to have fun; we’re here to praise the Lord,” that it was going to be an interesting weekend. It became even more challenging the longer we had to sit in the sessions (for various reasons. If you want to know you can ask me later. I am not sure if I want to post all of them in this blog).

At the camp, I once again became aware of how distracting my presence can be to the kids solely because I am American. There are a lot of kids in this country that really want to be Americans based on the life they see portrayed to them through the media. (There are a lot of Hannah Montana and High School Musical t-shirts floating around here). When I am in the group, the kids don’t want to talk about Jesus but would rather ask me questions. For instance, I was asked crazy things like if I know Beyonc­­­é, Chris Brown, or Mirah Carey. The weirdest part is that the kids are genuinely surprised when I laugh and say no. One girl in particular asked me the most ridiculous question-whether or not I had met any “Negros” before. (I am not exactly sure what perception the kids are getting from their TVs. My favorite story like this though has to be when a little boy asked Kyle if he knew the rapper, Eminem. When Kyle said no, the kid said, in shock, “but you’re white”).

On a serious note though, the biggest challenges for me came at two different times: The first was when I realized that the girls in a discussion group I sat in on did not realize that Jesus had rose from the dead. This was not the beginning of the camp. (Apparently the staff forgot to bring up that important part of the story after they showed the kids the crucifixion scene from The Passion of the Christ. Oh man). The second came later on Saturday evening when the leaders of the camp (including the RJ team) had to lay hands on the kids and prayer for them. Okay, first of all, I have no problem with doing this and what I prayed for the girls was sincere and honest. However, after I finished praying for someone, I looked up and realized that almost everyone was lying on the floor being “slain in the spirit.” As I looked around, I couldn’t get away from the feeling that this was just a dress rehearsal. That we were teaching the kids what is expected of them in the worship life of the church. And they were acting the part. I knew I could not judge what happened in those kids hearts, but I also had this real sense inside of me that I couldn’t ignore. I had to get out of there. I left the building really upset.

After that experience (well and for most of the weekend), Kyle, Connie and myself spent a good amount of time helping the catering team. It actually turned out great since I am not sure how they would’ve have accomplished everything themselves since there were only three of them and 75 people including children and staff. In retrospect, I am so glad that we got the opportunity to work with Auntie Phyllis, Dawn and Sharon. These women are incredible and very loving people. Without their friendship and list of things to do, I am not sure how I would’ve made it through this weekend. They were so glad to have our help, especially Kyle’s (who soon became known as “sausage man” for his sausage frying skills each morning). The catering team seemed really impressed at this male who was so willing to help with “women’s work.” I told Kyle that he helped tear down gender barriers this weekend. Ha. Ha).

And now, at the end of the weekend I feel this real sense of dread in me. Why? Well, these camps happen a lot and the women’s camp is coming up in November. I don’t think we have a choice of whether or not we want to go or not.

Oh man.

After a weekend like this, I can’t help but think that this is going to be a very hard year…