Camp is Over

Home.

Or at least I am as close to home as I can be.

I am worn out from a week of untrustworthy bathrooms, cold showers, and less oxygen. I am sick from a cabin of boys that do not cover their mouths when they cough and people that take bites of your food when you do not look. I am bleeding from boots that cut my feet and a kid that doesn't know what nail clippers are. I am exhausted from a week spent with 10-18-year-olds, trying desperately to teach and to love and to serve.

I taught two classes five times each, delivered one sermony-type lesson, MC'd a talent show, and "slept" in a cabin with five smelly teenage boys.

It was a good week.

The snow made things interesting. My first night there, I wanted a shower more than anything in the world and thus ran outside in just my towel and flip-flops. I trudged for a while through snowbanks, confident that there would be dry land before the bathroom. There was no such land, and soon my pace was slowed to a crawl by my sinking in up to my knees. Finally, I reached into the powder, grabbed my sandals, and sprinted in spite of the cold and the blood.

And then the water was tepid.

The highlight that made the week worthwhile: after one class about how we are lovely and valuable because we are created in God's image, I was a little disappointed by the lack of participation from the youths. Miss Ann talked to me afterward and said that one girl had given me her complete attention throughout. This was decent news, and I was grateful.

Later, Miss Ann came up again and told me that this girl had talked to another counselor. She is 13, but has already tried to kill herself. She has a poor home life and had mentioned to me before that "most people don't remember [her] name." Her counselor asked, "Do you know that you have value?" The girl responded, "I know that now, after Lucas's class."

And I wept. How can we let a 13-year-old try to end herself? Have I failed the world that lets this happen? Do I encourage its death-life? Its empty existence and offer of hopelessness? How can this happen?

But God has dreams for what this world will be, and he is changing it. And he let me witness his working, his doing, his being, this past week. This girl wants to become a Christian, but doesn't know how. So we will continue to talk, and I will continue to pray.