Camp Week 5 - Differences

One of the coolest things about camp is that I get to see a lot of it. My job allows me to visit a lot of the activity groups. I get to see that Christmas in July is chill, and Cars is rolling right up the walls. I get to see Dance campers trying on their poodle skirts for the first time, and sometimes I have the freedom to drop by Cook & Create just as the apple turn-overs are coming out of the ovens.

Have I mentioned before that "my job rocks"?

One of the coolest things I get to see is how God brings a whole lot of different staff members together to meet the needs of our campers. 

We are so different. 

The differences go beyond extrovert/introvert. They are as complex and multi-faceted as we are. There are differences in backgrounds, personalities, financial statuses, strengths, weaknesses, fears, joys, ages, and favorite snack foods - just to start the list.

We are so very different.

And this is just a fraction of what it looks like:

I've seen the leader with a loud voice and a big personality, take charge and rally a high-energy group of campers, tearing them away from toys to gather for carpet time with an ease that seems magical.

I've seen the quiet engineer keep free play time away from a hitting, punching, toy throwing chaos, because he's sitting on the floor building Legos right along with the campers and inspiring them to create their own visions.

I've seen the nurturer that is the first to hear a crying child, even if they are on the other side of the Zone. The one who wraps arms around and makes camp a safe and comfortable place, where minutes before it was loud and overwhelming.

I see the organizer who knows how to get all the towels, shoes, wet swim suits, and campers all in the right place on Water Day, with an efficiency that makes it look easy. (It most certainly is not.)

I see those who can multi- task to degree that brings a level of astonishment at how many different directions they can go in at once and still be cognizant of their surroundings. (Yes Stephanie, you are Elasti-girl.)

I see the protector, the one whose mind is on safety, who can handle the drama, blood, and sundry emergencies, even though we still aren't totally convinced about a taser. (I'm 99% there - just so you know.)

I see those who are driven to be busy, who keep camp running through a sheer expenditure of energy. The ones who don't give out until everyone else has left. And show up on the weekend because there was no one else.

I see the planners who have the schedule ingrained in their memory, who are figuring out choreography for next week, or how to make slime for painting - even though that activity isn't for another four days. And I have a deep appreciation for this, as do those who need to purchase supplies.

I see those with the creativity to come up with a new direction on the spot when the spoons for puppets were all used for dirt cup snacks in another activity group yesterday, or those who can tie Christmas in July to archery by stating that the red balloons are Rudolph's nose and get the campers singing Christmas songs while they wait their turn.

I see those who from a background of hurt are able to connect to campers who are facing hardships, campers whose families are dealing with divorces, anger, hurt, and grief. And while I never would have wished those scars and wounds on you, please know that in God's plan they turn into something beautiful when they put you on the path ahead of others so that you can show them the way.

We are different.

And those differences can work together in our favor to accomplish amazing things.

Amazing, miraculous things.

But,

those differences can also tear us apart.

You see, at this point in the summer the energy reserves start to bottom out. The quirks you were able to ignore on week 2 become traits that rub. And with enough time and tiredness the rubbing can get raw.

Our differences mean different ways of communicating. Different ways of working. Different ways of processing. Different ways of handling the strong emotions of fear, joy, grief, and discouragement. And pretty soon in all those differences the cracks of division start to form. They always will form. It's a law of humanity. Because we are all broken in the first place, coming together doesn't heal that. It just makes a bigger pile of broken.

It takes God to overcome that. And lest I lay all the responsibility for divisions and strife and malicious thoughts and actions at his feet. I will also state, that he will overcome it, if we are willing to follow his lead. The cracks become wider when we feed them. And when we follow God, they can heal.

What does that look like? 

• It means extending grace.
• It means tapping into patience, even though you've asked them to help that camper find their lunch four times now.
• It means finding kindness even when you really really don't feel like it, and it takes all that you have not to offer a sharp verbal slap.
• It means not envying the pay, responsibilities, positions, teams, campers, or friends that other staffers have that you do not.
• It doesn't fall into boasting about how well you handled lunch time or the potty emergencies or the bounce house mishap.
• It means not focusing on building yourself up, in your own eyes or the eyes of others. It can do a job quietly and not feed the need for recognition.
• It doesn't cut others off, or seek to be the first back to the bathrooms on water day, or leave messes for others to clean up.
• It means giving up the activity that you wanted to do in favor of someone else's idea. Or doing the "invisible jobs" that aren't recognized. Or forgetting about yourself and how silly that will look to make the day for a bunch of pre-schoolers - even though the pictures may haunt you on Facebook for years to come.
• It means swallowing anger when it rises - and with all those differences and all that rubbing - it will happen - friction builds fire, and you will have choices. Will you feed it or douse it?
• It means forgetting how many times that person has slighted you, it means not keeping track of all of the ways that fellow-staffer is failing to perform. It means not keeping track of all the times the big kids infringe on your space leaving you to do yet another head count to make sure your chicks haven't followed in their wake. (Because if you stop and think about it - we've infringed on their small group times with animated preschoolers all yelling "Boo Boo Butt!") yes that happened. sigh. and it was a group in my charge.
• It means not standing by waiting for others to fail at getting the carts up to lunch so that you can point it out. Or pointing out to your friends how incompetent they are and reveling in that on the inside.
• It means finding and pointing out the good. Telling others about how well they handled that difficult camper, or how much you appreciate their reliability. Finding the good and spot-lighting it. Being an encourager.
• It circles around our campers and each other with protective arms and words. It gives the needed back massage or the listening ear as a co-worker faces battles.
• It lays the impossibilities and hurts in hands that are infinitely bigger than ours and it works at leaving them there in trust.
• It finds the bright side, the mission, the hope for our campers and our friends and the co-worker that you still don't quite know yet. The hope that God will grow us this summer.
• And it means keeping on going. Putting one foot in front of the other. One more snack out on the table, one more activity in place, one more case of separation anxiety, hitting, kicking, or mean words to rest. It swallows frustration one more time. It extends grace to an upset parent one more time. It keeps on going until the finish line when the last snow cone is handed out, the last armband is scanned, the last block is replaced on the shelves and the last bin is stowed for the summer.

Heh, that's quite a list. And it isn't really mine. 

And just so it's entirely clear, I struggle with a whole lot on that list. This is one of those days when I am writing to myself more than anyone else. And I have to remember that in my flailing about trying my best to be patient, trying to forget myself and focus on others. In my struggle to trust. 
That it has a vector even though it is slow and struggling (and sometimes I can't see it) because of an amazing God. Allow yourself the room to struggle, the room to fight it forward. The Christian life is the hardest thing I've ever attempted. Struggling is living. 

And I would fail utterly and completely without two things. 

The first being the body of Christ, believers around me who have both differences and similarities. I would falter without the support of those who think like I do, and those who have a completely different mold. I need all of you whom God has placed in my life. Each and every one of you.

And I need God. yeah. That one almost doesn't have to be said does it. Because tackling I Corinthians 13 in real life is just not going to happen without supernatural power. And even though I hung out a lot with Super Hero camp last week, I know it didn't rub off enough to make it another week with out the real deal.

But to all my co-workers on this path with me, when camp is over. 

I vote for going for shawarma.

Camp Week 3 - . . . in the details

It is said the devil is in the details, and perhaps he is so devious that he can create details that derail us. But he is not the only one with a grasp on the details.

Some days when the chaos of 230 some campers hits home it's hard to even grasp the details. When yet another lunch bag, backpack or pair of water sandals goes missing, when I can't find the craft supplies that were set aside yesterday for an activity group, or when it takes a minor scavenger hunt to find a working thermometer.

The more you get to see a large operation like this, the more you realize that you are not in control - like not in control at all.
You can plan,
you can pray,
you can follow it with organization and hours of work,
but control is elusive.

Maybe control was never meant to be a human domain.

But those details can stack up. And some days you can drown in them.
But when you think your head is about to go under,
interesting things happen.

Things like the wavering over whether to make a Walmart run for more
bait during fishing.
Wavering that might have gone on and on until a camper accidentally dumped another bait box out.
I went inside to see if we could use some of the staples from my fishing days as a child - things like marshmallow bits or hot dog buns. However our pond is stocked and that includes some regulations on bait - wax worms, night crawlers, no foodstuffs that we had laying around in storage.

So I hastily typed "Walmart" into my GPS and realized why the wavering was as steep as it had been, 16 minutes to the nearest location - 32 round trip if I could teleport inside the store and find the bait effortlessly, get through the check-out and make it through traffic. 30-ish minutes was do-able, after all there was still some bait left.

Maybe it would be bad to say that I enjoyed the first part of those 16 minutes. The road, the quiet cocoon of my car. It was a moment of pulling back that I needed.

Well, until I missed the first turn-off in traffic and the GPS recalculated to 20 minutes. I sighed, traffic was not conducive to turning around, so I swallowed and tried not to worry about getting there too late.

Then I pulled up to the Walmart in question realizing that there weren't a lot of cars in the lot, but hoping for some really short register lines.

Nope. The Walmart was relocated.

I considered calling it a day and just heading back sans bait.

But then I figured I'd see how far out of the way the second location was.

Turns out it was much closer to camp.

A helpful Walmart employee got me set up almost immediately and I walked out with my three boxes of wax worms.

I gulped a little as I saw the clock in the car. But the bait was bought.

I pulled into the closest space in the lot to the pond and stumbled down the hill with a handful of bait only to hear an excited cheer.

"We just used our last worm."

On my journey to get bait,  I'd missed the three messages from my daughter on the phone.

"Hey, can you get 5 bins of worms instead of 3. . . we need a lot more."

"The fish keep eating them."

"I also stabbed myself with the hook."


In the end, while most of the kids caught multiple fish, they did stop feeding quite as insanely fast (one group of campers had caught 27 fish on their pole in the 45 minute period they had at the pond - thus the "fish keep eating them" comment from my daughter.) The three boxes were enough with a few worms left-over to throw in the water sans hooks at the end as a peace offering. My daughter's run-in with the sharp end of the fishing line was not serious (which I could have surmised since it was a text complete with punctuation.) And we had a whole lot of ecstatic campers, who all got to fish.

Details don't seem quite that big of a deal some days, and other days they become all that matter.

When they pile up and start to become overwhelming there is often a reminder of who really holds control. On that day it was a reminder that Jesus controlled fishing before and he knew how many fish those nets would hold and he certainly knew how much bait we were going to need on what time schedule.

If he has the hairs on our head numbered, the bait in the boxes is no big deal at all.

And some days I can see and rest in that knowledge and control that he has. I can remember how big God's hands are.

Some days.

Other days, I sink.
I thrash like Peter trying to walk on water.
I forget just how big God is.
I forget he holds every atom in existence effortlessly.

So I find myself writing about wax worms so that on those days, I can remember better.
So that when the big things hit I can remind myself that they are just accumulated details.

Camp Week 2 - Phobias

A friend of mine just blogged about the danger of using the word "fine".
          the-f-word
But transparency is really hard, especially when it hits those things that others aren't going to easily understand. There is a spectrum of connection out there. For instance, many get it when I can say that I am frustrated that my attempts to shrink my jeans size through diet and exercise are not having the results that I had hoped. That one has almost universal connectivity, at least among people my age.

There is a whole lot less of a connection when I say that the bounce house terrifies me. I don't mean, frustrates, or concerns me, I mean terrifies me. In the way where my jaw starts to clench, and the bile starts to boil up into the back of my throat. Yeah, people don't understand that one. Not exactly a common fear: a bounce house full of pre-schoolers.

This last week has been one where fear has raised it's head. From the things that I simply find uncomfortable, to things that are full blown phobias. And I have fought it: some days I've won, but other days the struggle has been a draw, and still others I've been beaten.

Some of them are somewhat understandable. I fear campers getting hurt. It's what drives me to watch the waterside or the wading pools on water day - to make sure no one collides, or is pulled under. It's what makes me confront parents who pull their campers from the safe zone to walk by the pond during morning drop-off. It makes me bark at my volunteers who are trying to use the carts as bumper cars. It's what makes me watch campers who are prone to running away like a cat watching string.

I fear not doing my job well. I am afraid of not finding the right tools to help, or reacting with the wrong response. Knowing when to pull out a firm voice, when to allow a camper to cry it out, when to contact parents, they are all difficult to answer when you are dealing with children who have special needs. I fear doing the wrong things, of not knowing enough, having the right set of experiences to draw on. I fear making a situation worse rather than better.

There is the fear of doing additional damage to the child misperceived as a problem, as disobedient and willful, when I know that it isn't the entire picture. When I know that child's brain is wired differently. That it doesn't ever take a break, that it spins in patterns and gets stuck there, that noise and light are assaults to be endured instead of the forms of input that the rest of us experience. And there is a fear of the damage that child can inflict unaware of right and wrong, needing a sense of pressure that drives the pushing, hitting, and scratching that we try to prevent.

I fear what others say and think of me. I know I shouldn't. I know it's narcissistic and broken. But it's there and something I grapple with. And I project the negatives from my own mind and past onto the quiet conversations in the corner, even though those conversations are probably about the distribution mechanics of hot dog day, not the failings that I see in my own character.

Then comes the march of the irrational fears.

In my youth I read of a circus strongman, who fearing that others would think his weights rigged, went to lifting human beings in the circus rings. That picture has made an indelible impression. A consciousness of weight loads combined with a highly over-active imagination makes crowds difficult. It gets added to the stories that soldiers could not march over bridges so that the resonance would not collapse them. Having a father whose own imagination helped him train schools after the Columbine aftermath brings an added dimension. I am cognizant of support beams, of doors and line of sight, and the idea of a shooter in a gym with six hundred children and four hundred adults haunts me. And then there's that horrid bouncy castle. . .  I am beginning to dread Friday.

Sometimes the only way to stop the thoughts is to avoid the circumstances. So this week instead of watching campers show off their week in dances and artwork and cardboard armor, I moved the snack storage out of the sensory room in alphabetical order. Possibly because I have OCD tendencies, but also because that order was a little way of fighting back against fears I find overwhelming.

There is a fable about two wolves.

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.
He said, “My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all.

“One is Evil – It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

“The other is Good – It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf wins?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

I find that this parallels some Biblical advice: "Whatever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, with good recommendation, virtue, and praise - think about these things."

Funny thing is that verse is sandwiched by others that talk about the presence of "the peace of God," and "the God of peace" in our lives. There is a way to combat fear, that which is rational and that which is not. And it isn't in my own strength, but in remembering the God who holds the oceans in his hands. So I am making an effort to leave my fears in those hands through prayer. And I am attempting to feed the things in my life that are true and good.

I have to remember that it is better to try and fail with children than to not try at all. That failed attempts mean we are just learning what doesn't work. I need to remember that the imagination that sees shooters in the shadows also can come up with camp themes by the dozen and game and craft ideas with ease. And that walking a line close to the things we fear helps us see how to keep things safe. That line is a slippery one so to keep from slipping over into paranoia, I am going to focus on the words of a very wise young camper.

His family was going camping for the first time and there were fears of the dark, so mom was explaining that they would have flashlights when our preschool camper smiled and said, "We don't have to be scared, God is always with us."

Truth from a 4 year old.


In a slippery, scary world, that really does balance everything out with the security we need doesn't it.


"Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9

Camp Week 1 - Mad Scramble Mondays

I have the amazing privilege of working as a special needs director at an incredible summer camp. I love the job. Which I still find somewhat surprising, because I never would've seen this in my future a few years back.

It's been years with a lot of learning, about myself, about others, about the world we live in. I've learned that Mondays are hard. I work primarily with preschoolers and while we have some registration forms where parents fill in their campers needs and they do a good job of listing out special support the child might need, we have a lot that go blank, for a lot of reasons.

Sometimes, parents don't know their child has needs that don't fit in the range of "average." They haven't experienced school or large group situations where they can compare and contrast their child with others. They have been with their child since birth and the fact that their child moves constantly and doesn't like lots of noises, covering their ears when the vacuum or television comes on is just normal. Kids that age do that right? Kids this age are picky eaters. That's just normal.

It isn't until comparison in a larger setting occurs that one can see the rest of the kids that age seated in a circle for story-time, while yours paces a pattern in the carpet in the corner of the room. Or that other children do eat fruits and veggies occasionally, or at least ham and cheese sandwiches, they aren't locked into pre-processed foods and only certain brands of those. They don't refuse to eat their fruit snacks when the company switches from corn syrup to cane sugar in their recipe. When parents see their child covering their ears and rocking back and forth in the middle of a group of other children who are sitting and laughing delightedly at a puppet show. It isn't until that happens that the differences become clear.

For many, preschool day camp may be their first exposure to the range of age appropriate behaviors. And for the first time their child is being talked about as "different," "special," "having some needs." I have to say that I dread these initial conversations with parents. They are hard. I pray about them, and go into them with a knotted stomach, because I remember the first time someone said that about my child. I remember the surge of emotions, I remember the denial, I remember thinking that the person talking just couldn't see the reality of my daughter, that they were the ones that didn't understand how to reach her. I remember what it felt like. I remember the time it took us to acknowledge that our eldest needed help that we could not give her. And I remember the pain, the grief, the feelings of shame that you couldn't pin down - because it wasn't her fault or ours - it just was.

Others know. They have the IEP from kindergarten. They have already been through the diagnosis stage. They are no longer unaware or in denial, but they hope that camp will be different from school. It is more active, more fun. They think that what wasn't working at school might work here because it is a different environment. They hope that they can take their child off of the ADHD meds that he hates taking, because camp will be different. They don't give us a heads up, because they have a hope that we won't need it. That this will be the environment that their child thrives in and becomes part of the "normal" crowd. And sometimes they are right. There are children that thrive here where they didn't thrive in pre-school. But for every one that thrives, there are a lot more that still struggle. There are still sit-down times, there are still rules. There are still places to be and groups to stay with. But in my gut, I understand the hope that "this time it will be different." Because you cling to that, sometimes for a long time.

Some parents are afraid of giving out the information. They are afraid that we will call them back and  say their child can't come. They are afraid of rejection or labeling and how that will impact their child. They will be silent because they feel that giving the information will set their child up for failure rather than success. That wearing a tag of "autism" or "sensory processing disorder" will hurt them more than help them. And so these parents are silent, fearing the phone calls, the labeling they don't want and sometimes cannot accept. Hoping that this time nothing will happen and no one will say anything. Hoping that their child will blend in and not be the one in the group that is different.

Some parents don't understand the camp environment. They don't realize that we have water day and make slime, and have dance parties to Disney songs in the black light room. They don't realize the number of triggers here for sensory challenged children. They don't realize that we simply tell a group that if they need to use the bathroom, right now is a good time to do so. We don't track who went and who didn't, unless we know a child is struggling in that area. They think that we have enough leaders  to have a 1:1 volunteer with each child that is having a rough time. And some weeks we can do that, but more often we are stretched further than that. And even when we can do it, it takes time to figure out where those 1:1 volunteers are going to be placed on a Monday when the notes are all blank.

Which means that Monday is a scramble day. There are parents to meet with at check-in. Especially those that did say something about their child's needs.  Parents whom I need to get information from about triggers and stims and key words and coping mechanisms. There are the cases of separation anxiety that crop up because there are campers brand new to the program coming in alongside those who have already been here. There are velcro parents and helicopter parents and parents who are 15 minute late for work already, and cannot understand why Monday check-in is so much longer than any other day of the week. There are the walkie talkie calls as we realize that one of our undocumented children is a flight risk. . .
And we are outside. . .
And the campus pond is triggering their fascination with all things water.

Mondays are mad scramble days.

But they are also the start of wonderful new journeys.
Because that child with the "autism" label, he will change you this summer.
The flight risk will give you heart-attacks and make the story of the prodigal son real in ways you never could've understood before. You will learn to be thankful for the staff member who guards the pond faithfully every morning, a job that goes unseen most of the time.
Your prayer life will deepen. Your trust in God will grow. Because you will start to realize how totally and completely out of control you really are.
The work you put into finding out what works for a child having behavior or sensory issues, will draw you closer to them.
And in that closeness, you will find out unexpected things about yourself, and about God.

To my staffers and volunteers and Student Leaders in Training, brace yourself for Monday, but don't brace too hard, because the guy standing behind us is God, and he works miracles on Mondays.

He puts the right people in the right places. What looks like chaos to you and I, is all figured out in his hands. He has the right person with the child facing separation anxiety, the right volunteer buddy with new one coming in with autism. He knows exactly when playtime is going to be over and he works out the details of who gets inside with which leaders, which campers are going to be in the same activity groups and which leaders are going to have "hopping" rooms this week and which will have the ones that are more sedate.

And dear parent who leaves the notes section blank for whatever reason, please know we love your child just like the rest, even though they are not the rest. They are wonderfully distinctly themselves, and we are glad they are here to walk with us through this week, or longer; to teach us things that we never could have learned without them.

The pathway here. . .

There are some days when you sit down to blog and you could go a thousand different directions. Today was a day that spent me spinning down paths of rejoicing and paths of grieving, pathways of finding confidence in God and pathways of questioning Him.

When you attend the funeral of a father of an 8, 6 and 4 year old, you ask God, why?
When you hear of brokenness and abuse and little ones harmed by those who should be protecting, you ask God why?
When you look at a family struggling through a process of grieving over a child that will never grow up to marry and have a family, or hold a job due to disability, you ask God why?
And you can ask why over and over, loudly, in anger, in grief, quietly in the night, and the silence always answers back.

There are pathways that we have no answers for. And perhaps looking for those answers isn't the right way to go. Because that seems to bring us to the place where we start saying things like "God will bring good out of this." And sometimes that seems too trite and convenient a thing to speak into devastation. Sometimes all you can do is cry.

Reading that back it seems bleak and a bit fatalistic. I do believe God works for good in our lives. I really do. But I am at a place in life where I feel that what he can see, what he knows will be good, is so far outside of what we can understand sometimes that there is room for swallowing those words and letting the sadness and hurt seep in and walking alongside others allowing them the dignity of a true struggle without trying to lessen it.

That was one part of the day. And my thoughts do keep turning on it, because the other was a path of joy, of a homecoming for me in some ways - a homecoming because of past struggles, a road that has taken a long time to walk.

When I was 8, I wanted nothing more than to be an astronaut. I lived through the glory days of the NASA shuttle program. I was 11 when Sally Ride became the first American woman in space. I was 14 when teacher Christa McAuliffe died in the Challenger shuttle explosion, on her way to talk to  kids from space. At 17, I realized that I didn't have the math skills needed to head to Huntsville's "rocket school". And I started looking for other career paths, trying to figure out what I loved "the next most" to looking at the earth from orbit.

I realized that my time as a camp counselor at our summer Bible camp ranked pretty high on the list, and was ecstatic to find a Christian College in Wisconsin's northwoods that offered a degree in camping. My parents helped me pack, drove 1,500miles and dropped me off at a campus I'd never seen before. The next day I found out that the Camping program was only for male students. A combination of guilt, embarrassment, and stubbornness kept me there for the first semester, and some other erroneous, but widely preached ideas that you should finish what God had you start, kept me there through a degree in education.

Camping still called to me though. Every summer I would apply to work as a camp counselor at the Summer camp that operated on the college campus. And every summer I would be denied. I didn't understand it at the time. All I knew was that it hurt. I felt they saw me as deficient, defective, too different to fit what was necessary to minister to kids. So instead I worked campus services, cleaning toilets, or in the kitchen washing dishes. Close enough to keep looking on and wondering why I couldn't be a camp counselor. Hoping when attendance swelled, that I would be one of the workers they pulled to help run a cabin full of pre-teens or squirrelly junior campers.

I never was, not there. And those cuts burned for a long time before they started to heal. The pathway forward carried a disastrous year teaching in a Christian school, where once again I left broken, questioning what I was good for, not understanding - grieving for a bunch of broken dreams.

I got older, got a job in the business world, where oddly enough - I grew up a lot, not in the cradle of Christendom, but corporate America. I graduated from that into full time parenting with three amazing little girls who also grew and got bigger and bigger. And then they went to camp. And I threw my hat in the ring to go help out with them. Only it didn't happen exactly the way I thought it would.  My hat lay in the ring where I thought I would do the most good and it got dusty. No one took me up on my offer in that ring, and being focused on what I thought my abilities were, I ignored offers from other quarters.

Old wounds reopened, exacerbated by 2 degrees in education and a round of fruitless interviews in that field at the time. I questioned myself, my worth, my abilities. I questioned God and he was silent.

Or maybe he wasn't.
Because someone offered me again a job that I had rejected once before. . .
in camp. . .
with preschoolers.
I resisted.
Preschoolers were not conscious of personal space, they were like herding kittens and needy. And all of that freaked me out. I knew my sweet spot was at least upper elementary and really 5th -8th grade. It took crashing and burning - needing to be totally desperate for a job before I said yes.

And it was one of the best things that happened to me.

Today, camp staff training started. It was good, so good to see the staff come back, to hear them doing ice breakers. See them taking things in and building new friendships and strengthening the old ones. It has been a long road to get to this place of feeling that this is the job I was made for.

I resonate some with Moses, who felt his calling earlier than it arrived too. We both made some painful, scarring decisions, and the waiting was hard, and when the opportunity came back  - yeah I get Moses reticence, it didn't look like what he imagined it would, and he was full of self-doubt by that time. So full of it that he argued with a burning bush.

And once you get past the initial call and acceptance - well I don't know if Moses ever got back to that place of saying "I was made for this." In my imagination he does. Stop and think about the training he was given in Pharaohs courts, training for leadership. But what I do know is the uncertainty of a path that took him before Pharaoh and into a leadership that was ever so much more difficult and frustrating than he could have imagined.

And also miraculous.

And amazing.

And epic.

I know that even though God actually did speak to Moses - he didn't give him all the answers he wanted. He didn't explain the path. He didn't make it smooth of bumps and struggle, and pain, and grief. God was silent far more than he spoke.

And oddly enough I find that comforting. This scary path forward. It has been walked before, by others. I am too little to see the design. Too finite to feel the pattern that the up and down of life brings. Some days too saddened and other days to silly with joy to grasp the epic story that he has at the end of all of it. But I trust him. I trust him through both ends of the human experience, and on the pathway between them both to walk with me,

even if it is in silence.

Tips for giving direction (Zoom)

Cue Billy Joel soundtrack For the Longest Time

Oh, oh, oh,
Get with your group
Oh, oh, oh
Quiet that war whoop
Listen to the leaders when they talk
When you cross the street you need to walk
Don’t hit Don’t bite now,
Don’t ‘cause a fight now,
Or you will end up on the time out bench.

Please, dear helper come and join the game
Standing ‘round can get a little lame
Jump in and help out
Don’t make us ask you ‘bout it
Please try to see those things that we need done

Oh, oh, oh
Don’t rough-house in the halls
Oh, oh, oh
Don’t climb the chapel walls
Little ones are watching what you do
And they so want to be just like you
If you break the rules
Then they will want to too-oo
You gotta be a good example now.

Oh, oh, oh,
Get with your group
Oh, oh, oh
Quiet that war whoop
Listen to the leaders when they talk
When you cross the street you need to walk
Don’t hit Don’t bite now,
Don’t ‘cause a fight now,
Or you will end up on the time out bench.

Leadership isn't easy.
And every summer we throw a bunch of teens into rooms with dozens of squirrelly little pre-schoolers, a handful of pre-teens, and a lot of prayers that things will turn out on the other end from senior staff.

Some are going to learn on the job, learn what didn't work one week and try something new on the others, and in that aspect camp is a wonderful experimental lab where young adults can develop and grow. But every once in a while you see them floundering, and you think - hey maybe they need a floatation device, maybe they need a coach to show them how to do it.

And that's where I flounder. Because I don't feel like I have a good enough grasp on a lot of things to be that coach. But when the chips fall down, I do have a few more years, a few more tools in my toolbox, a few more tips and tricks. And while I can't claim to be good enough to coach, I don't mind being the team manager and making sure that tools get into hands that need them.

So, one of those areas where all but the most charismatically gifted start to flounder is in giving direction. Whether it is "line up now" to  group of preschoolers who want nothing more than to play with the toys in the room that they've seen but not been able to touch all week, or "could you help out?" to a pre-teen who really only wants to goof off with their friends, directing others can be a sticky spot.

And this is supposed to be a mini- lesson, so let's just tackle one of those two age groups right now - directing middle school volunteers.

Tool #1 Monday AM meet & greet - It's more than just their name. Try to ask about what they like to do, if they've been to camp before as a helper, etc. Goal: Fitting your volunteer into places they can shine, and grow. And you absolutely cannot do that if you know nothing about them.

Tool #2 Communicate what needs to be done clearly, never assume - Set out tasks and take the time to let your volunteers know where you need them and what you need them to do. Some will jump in, but most need some guidelines, a place to belong, a job description.

Tool #3 Invite them in as a part of your team and treat them with the respect and courtesy that you give the rest of your co-workers. If you can do this successfully, your week will be easier by far.

Tool #4 Check-in with them, see how they are holding up,  ask them what has been good, what has been hard.

Tool#5 If you have to give the "don't do that" statements: remember there are scales on reactions.  If they are giving piggy backs on the stairs again, a gentle hand on the shoulder and a smile, when you say "Hey I'm sure it slipped your mind, or maybe you didn't know. . ." will go better than a bark from 15 feet away of " Put that kid down NOW!"

Tool #6 Again with any "negative" feedback, try to provide the reasons. People like to know why they cannot do something. (This works with preschool too.) Let students know the reasoning behind decisions. (If we climb down in the window well to get the balls when the campers are looking on - they are going to want to do it too. And it would be dangerous for them. Maybe you can do it with Ashley after we leave, You both can catch back up with us at snack time.)

Tool #7 Talk to volunteers like you talk to your friends. Do not treat them like campers. Do not call them "boys and girls". Do not adopt a "singsongy" voice or word patterns that are used with younger kids.

Tool #8 Remember them some way during the week. It could be that you spring for a cold can of soda after getting the kids to rest/movie time on a hot day, it could be a note of encouragement, telling them something you saw that they were doing great at. Those things will go a long long way.

Tool #9 Remember that Jesus invested more in the disciples than he did in the crowds. You have limited time during the week, and a lot of it by necessity is going to be camper focused. But try to set some aside for volunteer helpers, even if it needs to come out of preparing for that craft or setting up another activity station. The time you spend investing in the volunteers will pay off in the long run.

Tool #10 Give them responsibility. Let them own a part of camp. Whether that is being a buddy to that one camper that needs extra, or being in charge of getting snack out, or leading a game - maybe even leading a small group once during the week - yup there are some that are ready for that. Try to give them places where they can grow.

Tool #11 Team up.  Pair volunteer helpers with staff so that each person gets a chance to mentor someone. This divide and conquer tactic means that the room leader isn't fully responsible for checking in with all of the volunteers on top of the rest of the responsibilities they have. It also gives a chance for a relationship to happen more than one person shouting out duties all the time. On the "team up front," if your duties are done and theirs aren't,  ask if you can help out. Serving together, watching out for each other - these are good things.

Tool #12 Play. One of the great things about camp Zoom is that we get to play. Playing together builds something inside us. If you can get a group of campers and a volunteer playing and you are in the mix too - that is a cool place to be rather than watching it all from the shade trees or counters.

Tool #13 There are times when none of the other tools have worked. You might have switched up your teams in hopes of finding the "right" staffer to be the buddy for that one volunteer that won't talk to anyone,  you've written notes, tried to look for positives, given clear directions, and nothing, nothing is working. Before you scream, cry, or get to a state of frustration that eats at you, hand off the situation to senior staff. That's what we're here for. Know that you aren't expected to solve all of these sticky interpersonal issues all on your own. You have back-up, so know when to call them in!

13 tools - a bakers dozen and something to start thinking and praying about!  While you're praying, say a few for our volunteers coming to help this summer too.
:)