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| Little River |
As I worked the entire summer (five sessions), I had the honor of attending five River Reflections. They provided the appropriate closure for the session and, in the case of our final session, appropriate closure for the summer. Therefore, this post presents closure for me personally: my own River Reflections.
I lived in two cabins over the course of the summer: my first cabin was for ages thirteen and fourteen, and my second housed girls eleven to thirteen. My co-counselors (fellow college students) and I often wondered aloud to each other: "Was I like that when I was their age?" We encountered strange things, like eleven year olds with cell phones and boyfriends, or thirteen year olds unable to deal with a simple disagreement. Thinking back to my middle school days, I realized so much has happened since then. If I compared my twenty-one year old self to my middle-school self, I am almost a completely different person. I mean, I'm still me. I'm still Alex, introverted people person who likes mint chocolate. But since then I have learned how to drive, I have moved away from home, started college, had actual jobs, my car's broken down, I've made friends my parents have never met, I've been out of the country, I've driven more than five hours by myself, I've done my own laundry, shopped for and cooked my own meals... I am closer to twenty-four than I am to fourteen.
Yet what was so incredibly cool is that camp breaks down the walls between my twenty-one year old self and these thirteen year old girls. Yes, my co-counselors and I are the authority figures. But we are also friends with these girls. No one is driving, no one is using their cell phones, no one is cooking their own meals, everyone sends their laundry out on laundry day and has to go searching for it the next day. We were more equalized than we would have been in real life.
This gave me the opportunity to speak into my campers' lives. I read Bible verses and prayed with them at bedtime, spoke positive words over them, and played games with them. In fact, when one of our girl's parents arrived to take her home this last session, she gave each counselor a letter she had written for us. She mentioned in the letter that it meant a lot to have someone like us to look up to. I grew to really love the girls each session. Sometimes I became apathetic towards building new friendships with them, since each group stays for two weeks or less and then a new group arrives, but God always sent encouragement my way to keep loving on them.
One of the most difficult aspects of camp by far happened because I loved these girls so much. Ironic, isn't it? Over the course of the summer, I dealt personally with young ladies who were involved in self-harm, bullying (both sides), who struggled with parents divorcing, eating disorders, who were developmentally delayed, and much more. Not only did circumstances like these require me to heavily depend on my co-counselors, head counselors, and the directors, but I was broken for these girls before God. I learned what it means to ache for someone and realize there is little to nothing you personally can do for them. I remember one night, after a particularly difficult day, getting into the shower after all the girls were in bed and just crying. There's so much I can't do, but I learned what I can do: pray and speak truth and love.
I truly learned to love on some precious girls.
Late one night, after tucking all the campers into bed, I was reading my Bible and reflecting on the day. I began contemplating on our one Jewish camper. Now, the camp itself is a Christian camp, but we accept girls of all religions who are of good character. We model Christianity through our actions and we teach it at morning watch and campfire, but many nonbelievers or other-believers choose our camp regardless.
I wondered that night whether I should encourage her sharing about her religion or ignore her differences. I knew I would respect her and her beliefs, but I wasn't sure how that would work with camp and the other campers. I debated whether or not to read only Old Testament passages at bedtime or to eliminate mention of "Jesus" when I spoke around her.
And then I thought about her faith. I don't know how devout her family is, but Judaism as a whole is a very intriguing religion. Jews must have the most hope and faith of anyone I know. Case in point: they believe that the Messiah has still not come - and that God is still silent. He has not spoken to the prophets since Old Testament times, and they are still waiting patiently for their Redeemer. What awesome hope is that!
While I praise her hope, I am heartbroken that she is still waiting for the Messiah. "Hope deferred makes the heart sick," says Proverbs 13:12.
I chose to read from the Old Testament when I put her room to bed, but I didn't shy away from Jesus. He, of course, fulfills and proves the Old Testament. And I came to love her as person, not seeing her religion, but seeing her heart, seeing her likes and dislikes, loving her humor and smiling at her jokes. I pray her experience at camp planted a seed or maybe watered a growing one, but I know God is working in her.
This summer, I worked on the ropes course and co-taught a few knitting classes. And if you know me, I am not much for heights. At all. But I signed up for the ropes course because I love the thrill of the adventure. I'm tired of being boring.
We went through a week of intense training on the elements, sometimes going through each element (zip line, V-swing, climbing tower, swing by choice, etc) as many as ten or twelve times and then training on each element for two or three participants before sending ourselves. It was very intense. I faced a number of fears, learned boundaries and restrictions (my own and those of the course), and grew to trust Adam, Shannon, Ali, and others I worked with and on whom I depended.
We also learned something I had never heard before about ropes courses. I cannot tell you how many times I heard Adam express some or all of the following statement to girls on the elements:
It's okay to be afraid. Fear is your body's normal and natural reaction to heights. The ropes course is a challenge by choice. So, you make the choice to push yourself to try new things even when it's scary. Or, you can make the choice to be lowered. If you keep going, you might like it, but you can come down if you don't want to keep going.Camp's ropes course philosophy can be summed up in two mantras: Challenge by Choice and the Full Value Contract. It's your choice to be challenged and how far you want to go - we can lower you at almost any point. The Full Value Contract exists to make sure each participant is treated with fairness: each person gets the same opportunity.
In life, we don't always get to choose our challenges. But we are given a choice in how we react to them. And often, we are afraid. Unlike some believers who assume that all fear is bad, I think a certain level of fear is good. I'm afraid of going outside in the woods in the dark by myself. That is a healthy and good fear because it keeps me safe. We know that if God has called us to something, he will be with us and will protect us, and we don't need to be afraid, but fear is normal. We can also learn to overcome fear, as I eventually slid off the zipline platform like it was nothing by the time I had been on the zipline a thousand times.
I gave a morning watch devotional one morning about how God's got us, mentioning both the big storm we had the night before and the ropes course. Just like the ropes on the course can hold up to 5,000 pounds and the cables are the same strength used to hold up airplanes, God is not going to let me go. I used Psalm 91 as my key passage. Verses 9-10 read: "If you make the Lord your refuge, if you make the Most High your shelter, no evil will conquer you; no plague will come near your home."
I'm learning how to be a more adventurous person. I love adventure. Secretly, I love thrill-seeking, but don't tell my mom, haha. However, there is no way I could pursue the adventures I'm after, like Thailand, college graduation, life after college, moving to a new place, a new teaching job, a Masters?, a family?, etc., if I did not believe wholeheartedly that God's got me. And he will not let me go.
