wwW - Week 2 Camp Zoom

Week 2 has been a little harder. Everyone is a little more fatigued. The needs have been more challenging, the misbehavior more obvious, more pervasive, and for me anyways, the muscles sorer than they were the week before.

Let's face it, there are some days where it is simply harder to find the positive than others.

And a little voice inside says that on those days it may be even more important to look for it.

The truth is that underneath the fatigue and the misbehavior of little ones that can push towards annoyance and frustration - is the fact that there is no place that I would rather work. I love camp. I have since I was a camper not much older than the kids in Zoom, and I've never grown out of it. I chose the college I went to a million years ago because it had a degree in camping. It has taken me time to get here, but that makes it something I want to savor even more.

I am slowly getting use to little bodies and am finding myself falling into a fascination with pre-schoolers instead of getting freaked out when some random little body plops itself on mine. My own dislike of being touched is slowly starting to get anesthetized. In fact I think I am starting to learn some pretty deep things from them that have been triggered by unexpected hugs and random encounters during quiet time.

Things like what trust really looks like. One little one had no clue who I was. I remember the movie stopping, the light going on, and a little face looking up at me and asking "oh, who are you?"

There isn't a whole lot of caution in that type of trust, no tentative behavior, no wondering if I've had a background check, or work well with kids,or have a cool hat. To be honest not much thought at all. I probably looked like a good big shadowy chair in the dark. It was the type of trust that was so entwined with simple action that it might be hard to separate the concept of trust from the act itself.

And I want to trust God like that. I want to throw myself at him when I'm in the dark and not even have to think about it. Those are the things I am learning this summer. I am learning to be hungry for a simple trust.

                                       Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
                                       and do not lean on your own understanding.
                                       In all your ways acknowledge him,
                                       and he will make straight your paths.
                                                                                       Proverbs 3:5&6

I think some days that verse was written for me - especially the leaning on your own understanding bit. I LIKE to understand. I like getting to know some of my little charges and find out what is driving them, why they are reacting and thinking the way they do. I want to go home and research strategies and behaviors and keep on experimenting in a quest to understand.

And understanding is not a bad thing by any means. But some days I come to the end of myself and realize, I'm not going to get that understanding.  And maybe that is because I need to step back for a minute and realize that this God we have is bigger than anything I am capable of comprehending.

I am learning that this God who does business in little things from the firing of nerve sequences in our brains, to which child is in which room with which peer group, is no less in charge of the details on a harder week than he is on one that is running entirely smooth (though I think that type of week might make me a little freaked out). He hasn't stopped weaving things together. I'm just in a place where it might not seem quite so obvious to my worm's eye view.

So what's working?
I am where I want to be, working alongside some amazing people, for the best goal I could think of, and I am learning a lot too: from ways to use touch to calm children to some deeper things rattling around in the maze I call a brain. Yeah, some things are working, and with God involved most likely they are way bigger than the ones I see that I think need to be fixed.

What's Working on Wednesday

I'm inspired by a young fellow I know in a wheel chair today who asked me what my favorite day was. His is Tuesday, mine like many I know was Friday (the promise of the break ahead is so tantalizing some weeks). Then he proceeded to ask me what my least favorite day was. It took me some thinking, but I had to admit that it was Wednesday (yes my energy levels do sag at that time). His was Friday, because he misses the teachers and friends from camp when he has to say goodbye. Did I tell you how sweet this little guy was?

So in honor of TGIF and tbt, I'm instituting another acronym that I actually need - WWW (Shhhh, I know it's already taken - but since I've seen only about 20 seconds of that world, and 20 seconds was about 15 too many for me - I figure I can use it anyways.) Maybe I should just uncapitalize it - www (uh - that's taken too), or use proper grammar wwW. Uhm yeah, It's been a long day can you tell?

You see I am an observer. I watch. Sometimes too much with too little action. And I think. And the combination often produces insight, but it also can produce criticism and negativity. I battle there. And some days there is no triumph in that battle. So, I am committing one day a week to blog about what I see that is wonderful; to what I see that is working; to what I see that speaks to the wellness that is still out there in life.

So without further ado, my first What's Working on Wednesday:

What could have been a stormy grey day with tensions and tornado drills came together with team-members who were so understanding and flexible that many of our young charges didn't even know it was raining. The staff set the tone and while there were yawns and some fatigue, the smiles and back massages were real. I'm working with such an amazing set of young adults and teens who are already well into the land of responsibility and leadership. They continually make me smile as I get to know them better each day.

And my kids.
My charges with special needs, some with physical limitations, some who think entirely different than anyone else in the room, so different that it can be a struggle to relate, so different that anxiety levels are constantly high. My charges were playing with their peers today. Socializing, integrated into games and dancing, and movie watching, and imagining. Knowing the alternative for these kids - my heart was soaring.

And it was moved when one of my different thinkers ran out to another camper who was crying in the middle of the gymnasium. He was saying "E281, E281" to her over and over. I didn't get it for a minute and ashamed to say that I initially thought that he was the cause of the tears. It was only afterwards that I realized what was really happening. E281 was the number by the door of the Camp Medic's station. My guy was helping. He was interacting and responding to distress in the way that he knew how to . He was fixing a problem. He was showing compassion.

The high point of my day was playing sharks and lifeguards with the parachute. It's a simple concept. A few people are chosen to be sharks - they are under the parachute, another few people are chosen to be life guards - they patrol the perimeter of the parachute. The rest are swimmers with their legs under the edge of the chute, using their arms to make waves in that brightly colored parachute ocean. Sometimes a shark drags a person under and they join the ranks. Sometimes the lifeguards save them by pulling them back before they disappear into the depths.

My little guy in the wheelchair next to me screamed as his chair rolled under the chute from a tug, and I darted under with him, all concern - he laughed at me. "You are supposed to scream when they get you." I laughed at myself then. We had a good time exploring that ocean looking for a swimmer to grab and make scream in return..

The last round I was totally caught off guard sitting next to his chair.  My legs weren't under the chute - I considered the two of us a single unit - his wheels were shark bait and I went along wherever he did. But four or five of our young campers didn't see it that way. Little sharks grabbed my hands and shoulders and started happily laboriously trying to pull my grown up bulk under the chute. I played along shouting for help from a lifeguard and waving my long legs. Looking up and seeing my guy doubled over laughing as I got my teen daughter instead of a lifeguard. She decided to join the sharks and helped them drag me under.

Somehow there was magic in that moment for me. For me personally. Oh we so underrate playtime. And laughter. And happy screams.

There has been another layer to what has been working, and it goes so far beyond the stuff that we have control over. Yesterday, I heard the crash of the table, the scream of a child, the gasp of volunteers running. Accidents, out of our control, never intended - they happen. But this time there was a young teen there to slow the descent of the table and a toy bin to take some of the impact. What could have been so serious turned into a bump and some scared people, myself included. I couldn't have caught that table or placed that bin, but God saw to it.

Tornado warnings, black skies, water coming from the heavens in sheets. Somehow it happened on the day after the Lego Movie was released on DVD and some leader with great foresight purchased it and brought it in. When you are 5, you don't care what the weather is when you are watching Emmett save the Universe. You can't convince me that it is all coincidence. So it is good to see the things that you have no control over in His hands.

Because it is always amazing to see what he is doing for us.