I thought that training week was going to be the end of it all. Last post I wrote about realizing that God doesn't include my comfort in His agenda when he works in my life. Even out of my comfort zone, I know I needed to find contentment in God. It wasn't just a profound realization that made rest of the week easy either. Every time I found something to complain about, I had to make the decision to put God above my comfort and rest and find joy in Him. After the training week was over I said to myself, "OK God, I am definitely out of my comfort zone. Can I just have an easy 5 weeks looking after kids?" I don't know why I thought this but I just did. Little did I know REAL training came when the children arrived at camp.
I don't know what I meant when I told Mr. Gamble and Mr. Jeffries that I "had a heart for inner city kids" during my interview to work at Promise Camp. I've never worked with inner city kids. Why did I say I had a heart for inner city kids? I guess in my mind when I thought of inner city kids I thought of children so scared and scared from all the shooting and gang and violence in the city that they would be submissive and willing to listen to this 20 year adult who had gone to a private school. I thought I had something to offer to them. I lived in New York City for a year, right? It's terrible, I know. But really, what did I know about inner city kids? The real inner city kids who knew were those I had vaguely encountered in high school while I became involved in a tutoring project. Our history teacher gathered a group of us and we went out to tutor underprivileged children in Paterson. That was for two hours after school. That was the extent of my involvement with them. I didn't live with them, sleep with them, feed them, go to the bathroom with them in the middle of the night, teach them about the Bible, show love to them, give to them my clothing. But in my mind I had judged these kids, labeled them as "inner city kids" who weren't to tough to handle.
Being a counselor was like being a mother to these children 24/7. There is being a mother to a child who listens, obeys, respects and loves you and there is being a mother to a child who disobeys, lies, disrespects and hates you. I don't know why I thought all the girls that I would be working with would belong in the former category. It's like, whenever Mr. Gamble warned me that "these kids are from very rough background and it will be tough working with them," the comment went into one ear and out the another. I imagined a happy-go-lucky, family-type of camp where I will surely love these girls with no problems at all. I even saw myself as the super counselor who would come and rescue these girls. The theme of this year's camp is "Are you a 10?" which emphasizes that we do not have to have the world's standard of physical beauty on the scale of 10 to know that we are beautiful. When we have Jesus on the inside, he makes us a 10. Having struggled with body image issues and eating disorder, I knew exactly what this theme was getting at. In fact, this theme was so personal to me. "I got this," I thought. "I am so ready to minister to these girls."
Oh boy. Was I in for a surprise.
The first week wasn't bad. I had 5 girls in my cabin and they were ages 8-10. They were young enough that if you threatened with disciplinary measures, they listened. Sure, I was tired when they woke me up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and when the kitchen staff didn't provide enough food to feed all of us, but they loved me and respected me. The highlight of the week was when I was teaching Bible study one morning, one of my girls accepted Jesus as her Savior. I had asked, "How do you think you guys will go to heaven?" I received various answers. When I explained the gospel, one girl said, "Wow, I didn't know that story before." I then asked her to pray and it was sure that she totally understood the message. She then told me she wanted to cry. That was so early on in the week that I was amazed that how fast God moves sometimes. It was on a Tuesday and the rest of the week went smoothly. I shared my testimony on Thursday night and it turned out that one of the girls in my cabin (who had just finished 5th grade) had an eating disorder when she was just in 3rd grade. Someone had made a comment about her body and she refused to eat. I couldn't believe it. I told her that it was not the outside but the inside that mattered. I told her about my history with boys and how I thought being pretty on the outside was the most important. The girls were silent but I could tell they were thinking. We ended the week with hugs and on a good note.
The second week was unquestionably the hardest week of my life. Puberty hitting teens from various backgrounds overwhelmed and challenged me throughout the entire week. i could tell that these campers were different than the previous weeks, not only because of their age differences but because of the lack of things they brought to camp. One girl brought one pair of pajamas and one pair of pants. That's it. One girl didn't even bring a pillow. One had no blanket. Another had no sheets. After getting them settled and providing them the necessary bedding and clothing, I realized they had a different spirit in them as well. One was very upset with her mother who had tried to kill her. (I didn't even know about this until the end of the week.) This particular girl had ADHD and could NOT sleep at night for the life of her. When you are running around with children all day, the last thing you need is a girl whispering and laughing at night when you are trying to sleep. She also could no focus and did not listen to directions. I tried to discipline her many times but that made her hate me even more. One night she peed in her pants and the next day she stank the entire day, even though she changed her pants. She also did not get along with other girls. This girl, Ina, was one of the roughest kid I ever handled. I tried to discipline her and she disrespected me even more. The entire cabin of eight girls began to follow her suit. The camp director had to become involved and spoke to them about their need to respect me. Finally, on Wednesday, I broke down. During my rest hour in the afternoon, I went off by myself in the woods and sobbed. I got on my knees and cried out, "I can't do this anymore God. I can't love these girls and I just want to go home." My soul was crying out because I was not able to love this particular girl. I had no strength or energy to continue. Despite this, I felt the prodding of the Holy Spirit in my heart to pray for these girls by name. I didn't want to. I desperately did NOT want to. But I did. Face down in the floor, I mumbled their names and prayed that God will work in their hearts individually this week. That God will give me the strength to continue and love them. After I finished the rest of my prayer, I felt peace reigning in my heart. Walking back to the campground, I felt strange joy in my heart and the knowledge that I can make it through this week.
Wednesday night, Ina had wet her bed and needed pajama pants. I looked at the pair I had on. 'This is my favorite pair,' I thought, 'and she might pee in these again.' So I knew that God wanted me to lend her the pair of pants. During shower time on Thursday, I handed Ina my pants and told her to put them on. She got out of the shower and put the pants on. They were so big and were dragging on her feet. I tied them and rolled them three times. As I stood over the child, smelling the stink of her dirty clothes though she had just gotten out of the shower, I realized that the only clean clothes she had on was my sweatpants. She wore the sames socks, shirt and hoodie to bed the entire week. My sweats were the only clean piece of clothing she had on. As I stood over her and smelled the stink of her dirty clothes on her tiny body she had just washed, my eyes began to water. 'This is a child I love,' I felt like God saying. I saw behind her smell, dirty hair and mischievous grin was a soul that God loved. And I loved her as well. Was this how Jesus felt when he washed the disciples' feet? While I was pondering these things in my heart, she complained of her ankle. She had mildly twisted her ankle when my girls were causing a pandemonium over a moth in the cabin. I took her down to see the paramedic on campus and he wrapped her ankle. When I commented on the nail polish on her toe nail and showed her mine, she said, "I can't see color. I only see black and white." That was when I broke down. This poor child was color blind and I hadn't loved her the way I should the entire week. I had seen what was on the outside - her clothes, her smell, her disrespectful behavior - and failed to see that Jesus loved this poor, suffering child.
That night Ina accepted Jesus as her Savior. The assistant camp director, Mr. Issac, delivered the gospel message to powerfully and called anyone down who wanted to accept Jesus in his or her heart. To my surprise, the rebellious Ina came down. Mr. Issac called the counselors forward and I stood behind Ina. I put my hands on her shoulder and began to pray that the enemy will not confuse her or embarrass her because of her desire to accept the love of Jesus. We sat down and I began to pray for her. Tears rolled down my eyes and by the prodding of the Holy Spirit, I prayed that Jesus will show her how amazing and wonderful she was. I prayed that she will let go of the anger in her heart and will be able to forgive the people who has hurt her. Later that night, I found out that she lived with a foster mom because her own mother tried to kill her. It is amazing how God will prompt you to pray for a specific thing even when you do not know why you are praying like this. I didn't know for sure that Ina was angry, bitter and could not forgive her mom. But the Spirit gave me the words to say and this was how I prayed. Then something amazing happened. This disobedient, rebellious and cold-hearted girl began to cry. She put her head on her hand and sobbed. I cried with her. I then told her, "Ina, I love you. Don't forget that." She nodded.
It was truly a beautiful moment and I am so grateful that God allowed me to be part of it. To be sure, it was this moment that the enemy dreaded and kept on discouraging me from loving this child. I ended up giving Ina my pants to keep. "Please remember me and what kind of time you had this week at camp," I said to her.
I am home for this weekend. It was a beautiful but an exhausting week. My heavenly Father has shown me many things and given me strength to bear much burden. By his grace, he has allowed me this weekend to come home and be refreshed by the love of my family. It has been an amazing 24 hours being home and not worrying about being hungry, being able to go to the bathroom without telling my junior counselor and sleeping in peace throughout the night. I will be leaving tonight back to Clinton for another three weeks of camp. I can't wait to see what God has in store for me.
Today's message in church was not forgetting what God has done for us. Time after time, Israel turns away from God and forgets how God has led them out of slavery. God laments that Israel had been unfaithful in this way. I do not want to forget how God had worked these last three weeks and go back to my similar pattern of thinking only about myself. Being home has made me realize how susceptible I am to focus only on myself and become content without God when all my needs are met. I have three weeks left and to be 100% honest, I am not looking forward to going back to Promise camp. It is definitely easier being home and relaxing with my family. But I will finish the labor for which God has assigned me to do in advance through the strength that Jesus gives me.
Here are some pictures from past three weeks:
No comments:
Post a Comment