Yesterday wrapped up my first camp week, and I had some awesome campers. This week's camp was called Leadership Camp, it was for individuals that will have the opportunity to come back this summer and assist those that are mild to severely disabled. It was a small group, and out of the six, four were very high-functioning. All of them had such kind hearts and were definitely not afraid to share what was on their mind :)
Such examples: (keeping in mind Upward-Bound is a Christian-based camp)
"Lori" is a girl deep in the faith. She always carries around/quotes her Bible and isn't afraid to belt out any gospel song that is currently on her brain. One day as I was talking with another camper, she noticed my St. Joan of Arc necklace...
Lori: "What kind of necklace is that?"
Me: "A necklace with a saint on it."
Lori: "Like a Catholic saint?"
Me: "Yes...like a Catholic saint"
Lori: "Are you Catholic?"
At this point, I tried to go back to the conversation I was having with the other camper to avoid conversing about denominations, but Lori was incredibly persistent.
Lori still searching for her answer: "Hummingbird, are you Catholic?"
Me: "...yes, I'm Catholic"
Lori: "Oh...that's okay." She said somewhat disappointed.
She never brought it up again, and didn't seem bothered by it. However, on the last day, right before she left, in front of the camp directors, and her foster parents, as she was leaning in to give me a hug she asks:
"Are you really Catholic?"
Me, flooded with embarrassment: "Yes..."
Then I proceeded to give her a hug.
I am such a HEATHEN.
I'm learning just how touchy religion can be at a Christian camp. One day, a counselor went on a rant about religion while there were campers at the table working on a craft. He turned to me and asked, "So, what denomination are you?"
I shrugged my shoulders and told him, "I'm a follower of Christ, and that's all you need to know."
The other counselor in the room joined in and said that that was a good answer, and told interrogative counselor in the most polite way as possible to can it because UBC is non-denominational.
People, I don't care what you believe. Denominations mean nothing to me, it's your life. Just be a good person and be able to sleep with yourself at night. Seriously.
ANYWAY.
Learning continued into the world of individual care...one of the moderately disabled women "Daisy" kept us up for most of the first night by being very verbal in her sleep. Kiwi luckily had Muskrat come around midnight to give her another dose of melatonin. I'm so grateful Kiwi came all the way from Corvallis to help out this weekend. She's in pre-nursing and was a counselor last year. She get's the job done the first time and was awesome to have around. She's a rockstar.
I definitely learned to be more patient for campers to come through Daisy. She has dysphasia, so she had to be fed. One meal as Kiwi and I were taking turns feeding her, she sneezed a mouthful of food all over our own plates. The next morning as we were dressing her, as soon as we took off her night pants she relieved herself on the floor. It's moments like that when you have to smile and be grateful she decided to urinate AFTER the fact your face wasn't by her ankles.
One activity (out of several thousand) that we did this week was "three headed monster"; when three people stick their heads out of one sheet. The object of the game is to complete sentences and ideas by one person saying only one word at a time. Three counselors demonstrated at first, campers asking questions, then campers had an opportunity to be a three headed monster. One question that was asked was what their favorite verse in the Bible was. They did really well (let's face it, these people know more scripture that I do) and quoted John 3:16. Everything went smoothly until... "For God so loved the world that everyone who believes in Him..." and one girl said, "will", as in "will not perish" However, the camper that was to say a word after her, ever so deep in his reverent thought with his eyes closed said, "Shall" as confident as can be.
So it sounded like, "For God so loved the world that everyone who believes in Him will SHALL"
Everyone cracked up. :)
We won't have campers for a while on the mountain, but I'll be training in the coming few days!
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