Kid's Camp/Birth Control

So maybe "birth control" is a little harsh. I actually had a really good time at Children's camp this last week. I did get to have a healthy taste of what parenting will be like. Andrew, or any of my married friends reading this, I can give you some pointers. Most of them I learned through personal failures, luckily though, they weren't my kids. I might actually write a post strictly on how bad a job I did from time to time on said camp. Although, right now, I'm going to focus on what may have been the funniest moment in all of my camp life.

To set the scene you need to understand that there were 9, first through fifth graders jammed into our room. Myself and Marcus, the other counselor, had been up for about 3 days and the kids weren't quiet any of that time. Well, after the downpour for the day, did I mention it rained everyday? Because, it did, it rained all the time. Oddly enough, it was a blessing as that area had been in a drought for quite a long time.

Right, so there we are half mad from sleep deprivation, dripping, and cold from the rain. On top of that we were tucked into a space with 9 little arrows. All of this to set the mood and scene for what was one of the best and most hilarious cabin devotionals we had all week.

It all began like normal, because normal meant I had no idea what was going on. On the fly I was asked if I wanted to do the devotional for the night, feeling super spiritual I said, "Sure." The next thing I know I'm talking about God keeping his promises by helping a very old woman in the bible, I think Sarah, have a baby. Perhaps it was my delivery, but octogenarians giving birth didn't seem to peak the interest of third graders. So, I picked up the theme of prayer and ran with it.

I asked the kids if they wanted to pray about anything. No lie, these kids ate up the opportunity to lift up legit, non-vain, prayer requests. Of course they came from the mouth of babes so they were tempered with natural immaturity, but to me that made them all the more sweet. A boy asking for God to protect his family from Satan, because his mom broke her toe. The little guy who just wanted us to pray for his grandma with the broken hip. These kids were all so not focused on themselves, which was an alarming change since the whole week had been focused on them. I was a bit taken back, at some point Marcus told me he got teary-eyed listening to them voice very personal needs.

Until one kid prayed for us to be protected while we were at camp. That just sparked the imaginations of every one of those boys. All of the sudden there were ax murderers and werewolves in the woods. In their minds, at any moment the wind could carry a tree right on top of us. But, one guy shouted out, "Bears! Bears could attack us!" Everyone lost it, and I had to try and pull back together what had been a very touching moment. All the while the little boy sitting next to me was saying, "You know what's scary? You, you, you know what's scary?"

As soon as things died down I looked at the kid sitting next to me to see what he was trying to say, and just as thing got completely quiet he blurted out, "BEARS WITH MACHINE GUNS!" I don't know if it's as funny when you read it. In fact I know it can't be as funny. I kid you not after I got the group to pray, which wound up being just as lovely as the period before the NRA Bear Scare, Marcus and I went back outside to work on moving stuff and died laughing the rest of the night.

Genuinely though, it's hard to really grasp Christ's affinity for children until you are a parent or spend time teaching them. There is something special about their faith. I always had trouble with the idea of a child like faith. It rang of an immature faith or a thoughtless faith, but these kids were more like, "Duh, why wouldn't we be Christian." They saw the joy of serving God. They could trust easily, because all they knew was trusting in someone. It was nice, I really learned something from them, something that I don't think I can easily put down in words. Go spend some time with little kids, I think it's worth it.

Some night I might try to type up the story about the kid who did "Funny Voices" at the Talent Show. I literally fell on the ground laughing.