Leap of Faith

When I was between the ages of 10 and 11, my family traveled to Maine to visit our Great Aunt Margaret. She was probably in her 70s and never had kids. I remember Mom pulling my older sister, younger brother, and me aside to tell us, “Aunt Margaret doesn’t understand kids, so be on your best behavior.” At the time, I thought, “She doesn’t understand kids? What’s so hard to understand?”

Now that I’m a childless adult, I occasionally catch myself wondering, What the heck is up with kids?

When the call went out at my church for adult volunteers to be counselors at their summer camp, one might assume, since I don’t get kids, that I’d run as far from the opportunity as possible.

Instead, I signed up. Who doesn’t like a good challenge now and again? Also, there would be safety in numbers. I’d been told there would be an experienced lead counselor, a ton of adults, plus junior counselors. I’d just be a helper. I don’t mind helping. So, I volunteered for a week-long camp, Monday – Friday, 9 AM to 3 PM, for first to third-grade kids.

They had about 170 campers, divided into six different “teams.” I got assigned to the Golden Eagle Gang. We had 28 kids between the ages of 7 and 8. We also had 5 or 6 junior counselors, as well as 5 adults.

Here’s how it went:

Warning! The following week-long church summer camp description might exhaust you. It sure exhausted me! Take a deep breath, and here we go.

The Camper Cast of Characters: One of our little guys had the uncanny ability to locate any piece of string that might happen to be on the floor. Then he’d spin it around his finger. No group is complete without the drama queen. If she raised her hand and didn’t get called on. (Cry) When her team lost a game of “Name That Tune.” (Cry) If the wrong kid sat next to her. (Cry) We also had a boy who would “go” when we said “come,” and “stand” when we said “sit.” Naturally, we were also blessed with cute kids, cool kids, and smart kids. One day during snack time, I got to talk books with a little boy who confidently proclaimed, “I don’t like to read. I love to read!”

Our daily schedule went in this order.

Games Time: I didn’t always understand the rules of the games they played so I was glad to watch and cheer the kids on. The day they brought out the giant parachute, though, I had to participate. When I stepped up to that colorful material and grabbed a corner, one of our little campers looked up and said, “Are you allowed to do this?” She had a point. Those things are heavier than they look. I only yanked on my end a few times before I felt a painful twinge in my back. That seemed like a good time to watch and cheer.

Craft Time: Two words now fill me with trepidation: bead bracelets. Since this was a church camp, the campers slid colored beads and letters onto a plastic string, spelling out the encouraging message:

Since someone else was in charge of the activity, our job was to wander around and offer help where needed. I eagerly bent over the table where one of our little guys strung too many beads onto his bracelet. If he expected it to fit, he’d need to be the size of a sumo wrestler. What I didn’t realize was that nobody had tied a knot at one end. When I picked it up to show him how long it was, all of his carefully placed beads rolled off the end and bounced all over the floor. I crawled around under the table apologizing so profusely, he ended up consoling me. He had just enough time to restring his bracelet. He diligently strung the first three letters.

“Whoops,” I said, “you just spelled dog.” After he fixed that, and thanks to my dyslexia, he looked at the first two words and announced,

“This is going to say, ‘Me guides God.’” He corrected that one on his own, which impressed me. I spent half the night trying to figure out how he fixed it.

Bible Story Time: My favorite time of the day! We got to sit on the floor and listen to the Bible Story lady and her teenage sidekick (beardless Jesus) tell stories from the New Testament. I was impressed by how many of these 7-and 8-year-olds already knew the stories.

Snack Time: That’s where other adults took charge, and we got to watch the campers eat cool snacks, like using skinny pretzel sticks to create a “campfire,” plus graham crackers, mini marshmallows, and chocolate chips to form mini (uncooked) s’mores. Sure, the counselors and junior counselors got to sneak around the corner to the café for our own snacks. But try making a campfire and s’mores out of Cheezits and M&Ms.

Science: Each day, the young woman in charge (or her junior assistant) laid out all the necessary experiment ingredients on the tables ahead of time. Without fail, she told the campers, “Don’t touch anything until you hear all the instructions.” Naturally, everybody touched everything before they knew what to do. Despite that, and with counselors and junior counselors there to help, the kids completed some cool experiments. Like making “snow” out of various elements, using a needle, a magnet, a piece of Styrofoam, and a bowl of water to create a compass. They also made butterflies using a coffee filter, colored Sharpie, a cup of water, and a pipe cleaner. The best one was trying to see how many sharpened pencils they could poke into a Ziplock baggie of water before it leaked. [28 pencils]

Music: During music time, we practiced for a major production that would take place at the end of the week. That included learning the camp’s song, with choreography. Besides that, each of the six teams had its own song and more choreography. We also had to memorize our team’s Bible verse and create a team cheer based on the team’s name. Since we were the Golden Eagle Gang, one of our clever counselors made up new words to the tune of the Philadelphia Eagles’ fight song.

Lunch: We brought our own – except for the day we got pizza. Our counseling job was to remind campers not to eat until the person at the microphone said a prayer. One time, we didn’t realize we came late to the dining area. We all sat there waiting for the prayer, but as we waited, we noticed everybody was eating. We’d missed the prayer! Now, we had to gobble our food to catch up.

Team Time: That was our special time after lunch to gather in our “team room” and do stuff to earn points. If everybody memorized the Bible verse for the day, the team earned points. That’s right. They didn’t just have to memorize their team’s verse. They got a new one each day to memorize. And those little guys did it! They got points if everybody participated in decorating the team banner; points for finding 12 little mascots hidden throughout the building; correctly answering three brainteasers; and putting together a 1,000-piece puzzle. All the teams had the same picture. We didn’t come close to finishing it. Since everybody only had 45 minutes a day to work on it, it’s amazing that the Otter team completed all but nine pieces of their puzzle. They ended up earning the most points by the end of the week.

They also got points for building a diorama (extra points if you added a geode from science). I picked up a cool geode from the science table at lunch and put it in our partially completed diorama box, then sat at the puzzle table. One of the junior counselors said, “Miss Aud, where’s the geode?” That seemed an odd question. How could anybody miss it? Here’s how. It wasn’t there. We looked everywhere. Under the diorama table. Behind the box. No geode. I felt responsible and started questioning myself. Did I really put it where I thought I did? The next day at lunch, our head counselor came to me and whispered, “Is this your geode?” She opened her palm, exposing a familiar crystallized rock. “That’s it!” It didn’t matter how it magically reappeared. What did matter was having it returned in time for the judging.

Electives: They offered Cooking, Dance, Painting, STEM Lab, and “Super Team-Up Challenge.” I helped in the painting class. Since the camp had a northern theme, the campers in our class painted different versions of the Northern Lights.

At the first session, they used watercolors. At the next, they worked with acrylics, following these five steps. Step One: Create a night sky using black paint. Step Two: Let the black paint dry. Step Three: Paint white swooshes over the black. Step Four: Let the white paint dry. Step Five: Add yellows, reds, and greens to look like Northern Lights. Hmm, that seems like a lot of steps. Almost everybody skipped Step Two and then wondered why they’d just created gray. It’s a learning process. There wasn’t much we could do to help, except run around scooping up bowls with murky water, replacing them with fresh water, and trying not to bump into junior counselors running around doing the same thing.

There were two days when we didn’t have electives. Tuesday was water day (no pictures), and on Thursday, we had a visit from ZooAmerica, a zoo connected to Hershey Park.

The Leader Board: At the end of the day, all the campers met in the chapel to perform the camp song, followed by a look at the leader board to see which team collected the most points.

For the first few days of camp, the Golden Eagle Gang came in fifth place out of six. As long as we weren’t last, I was fine with it. After all, the kids were only 7 and 8. What did we care about being competitive? As the days progressed, our score inched upwards. Gradually, my competitive spirit came out. By the last day, a junior counselor and I watched as the numbers showed up, one at a time, on the screen. We looked at each other. We didn’t have to say anything. We knew what we were thinking. “Don’t be in last place.” The last-place team name came up. Not us. Fifth place … not us. Fourth place … not us. We grinned at each other. Third wouldn’t be so bad. Third place … not us! Our eyes widened. Could we win this thing?

Come on. Are you kidding? The Otters finished all but nine pieces of their puzzle. That had to be worth a boatload of points. Still, second place! That didn’t earn us a trophy, but we couldn’t have been prouder.

Performance: Camp ended on Friday afternoon, but that night we all came together again so the kiddos could perform for their families and friends. They showed off their banner, recited their Bible verse in unison, sang their team song, and team cheer. I gotta say, our “Fly, Eagles, Fly” was a hit!

Conclusion: Since I’m childless, it took a leap of faith to jump into the summer camp experience. I started out not 100% sure if I could do it. Would I truly be helpful? Or would I end up spilling beads all over the floor? Turns out you can do both. And as more time passes between the actual summer camp and my memories of it, I’ve decided … I liked it. But it wasn’t about me. It was about the campers. Did they have fun? Well, when they left, they all had smiles on their faces, plus they learned five Bible verses, so mission accomplished. 😊