"Your job this week is just to love your kids. It's easy to love someone for 4 days! Nothing says I love you, like a water balloon to the face! Play with the kids you brought to camp!" I wonder how many times over my years at Camp Siloam I told those things to a new group of counselors. Okay, so I didn't really want anyone to get hit in the face with a water balloon. I just wanted counselors to realize how important it was for them to interact with their church group at camp. It was a part of my Monday mantra to get counselors excited and it was absolutely important and true.
Often, from my view as the Children's camp director, I saw a group of tired adults bringing kids to camp. Some weeks there was a lot of enthusiasm from the adults and some weeks it was like they were only the bus drivers and nothing more. At least that's how it appeared to me, but I was missing part of the picture.
Despite the fact that I have been a part of children's ministry all of my adult life, I have never understood until just recently the real day to day issues of leading a group of children at a church. At camp I worked with hundreds of children from many different churches. Now I am working with a couple dozen at our little country church. And while I have a great support system and amazing helpers I feel a great burden to care for our little group.
I tuck my children safely into bed at night with full tummies and happy thoughts in their little heads. And then I think about all my other children. The ones who are not my own but who my heart cares for very much. The ones we pick up and bring to church on the vans that go into those not so nice neighborhoods in our town. I lie awake and I wonder have they eaten today, have they bathed today. Did anyone take little Suzie to the doctor for that ear ache she's had for days...., I wonder if Joey's mom was able to get him some shoes? Did Sally get to have a birthday party once their food stamps came? I know that I cannot dwell on their problems or I will drive myself insane but they are on my mind.
I wonder if they understand anything we teach them at church. How can they understand the love of a Heavenly Father when they have no idea what a Father is? How can they learn what is right in the short time they spend with us and then be sent out into a world that is so wrong? How can they possibly remember to respect each other at church when no one shows any respect at home? I wonder how much I can help these children without enabling the bad behaviors of the adults in their lives. I pray... a lot...
And when I am done praying over my children with so many pressing physical needs my thoughts turn to the kids who have parents in our church and my concerns for them are just as real, often my own child is at the top of this list. How can they understand their need for God when they have no real understanding of need? How can I keep them small enough to love the others and not realize their differences? When they do realize the differences how can I keep them humble and teach them to be leaders.
If only I had known as a camp director what I know now I would have been such a better leader and encourager to our children's ministry leaders. I saw you resting and sitting on the benches and was guilty of thinking that you were being lazy. I am sorry. I did not do enough to encourage you. Even though you told me, I did not realize who you were bringing to camp on all those church vans and all that you had done to get them there.
So if I could say anything to the young men and women working at church camps this summer it would be this: Thank you for being here. I need you to help me love these children. Walk beside them and talk to them. Sit by them and make them smile. Give me a hug and pray with me for these children. Understand that we brought children who are wondering who will take care of their younger brother while they are at camp, children who wonder if mom and dad will be there when they get home. Understand that while we are praying diligently for their need for eternal salvation we are often overwhelmed by their immediate needs. Help me show my son, who has wants for nothing, that he to needs a savior.
And I ask you to not judge if for a moment I sit on a bench to rest peacefully instead of playing with my group. For just a while I want to enjoy the feeling that the children I brought here are safe within this little valley. They are full of food, and life and joy at the freedom they have here to just be children and not caretakers of their parents and their siblings. They are in a place where they can feel God's love. And I am busy praying for them.
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