More Ramblings on Day Camp

The children at the Stewpot Summer Day Camp make me so happy. I can be having such a stressful day with all kinds of anxieties and distractions floating around in the back of my mind, and just a simple hug or grasp of a child's hand is enough to make me feel so much better. Last Friday we took them bowling (every Friday is field trip day), and observing them enjoying themselves and encouraging one another (from high-fives to handing each other a bowling ball) gave me such a sense of hope. While there is no way to fully understand the circumstances and trials that these children face in their homes and communities, the hardships they hide beneath their smiles, what shows among them is resilience and joyfulness. The realities of their situations are at times probably extremely difficult, but at the core of their beings one can find their true "kid essence."


I think I have finally made friends with the sixth grade boys. We've gotten along pretty well since camp started a few weeks ago, but up until last week I felt a layer of hesitation between myself and some of them--a hesitation that I presume stems from their feelings that, because of our differences, I can't understand them. Last week, however, I began noticing more initiative on their part. As long as I converse with them, reinforcing that they are fellow human beings longing to be understood as well as to understand, relationship building can occur. If I talk to them about what they like sometimes, connecting with them on a level that they can relate to, I can be their friend. While I do have to be firm with them sometimes, they subconsciously remind me that merely bossing them around is not going to build a relationship.

The children are teaching me more about their world and more about myself every day. I find myself very comfortable in the classroom. I am excited when I see the kids engaging with me, the subject matter, and each other. In what better setting than the classroom can ideas flourish? It becomes a sort of cave, a place of refuge for discussing and kneading the very stuff that life is made of: certainties and uncertainties, pleasures, hopes and injustices. These hopes, fears, and dreams are represented in the imagination of children--in drawings of rainbows and flowers, sharks and cartoons, and the fact that they take place in such a way does not diminish what they are--a person's direct confrontation with the world in and around them.

So how does the word "service" fall into this notion? After all, my work here is a service fellowship through my school. In one respect, I see service emerging from the idea that my work at this day camp is constantly revealing the God-given, inalienable right that every human being, regardless of anything, should have the right to be educated, and to explore the world in an environment that is safe and exciting. To bring this about is nothing less than service in its most raw form.