7/4/07
I'm not black enough, according to my campers.
I'm just sitting in bed, letting the girls get ready to go to sleep. We're learning about each other. One of our more "challenging" campers will now do anything I say because we sang Aretha Franklin's RESPECT together... so she's (for once) getting ready on her own. Another one of our campers is threatening us by saying "I'm going to hang you from a tree if you don't get over here." Same camper who keeps freaking out when I go near Cory. "Don't you TOUCH my baby, now. I'll mess you up."
She's harmless.
Megan: (singing) "what's your name.. gonna buy you a drink"
camper: "yeah, right."
It's been quite a day.
For some reason, I struggled a bit today. I feel fake, if that makes any sense... like I'm trying too hard to do everything right, my anal side is kicking in... and people get critical, which makes it harder to focus on serving God rather than myself.
The day overall was great, though -- a wonderful 4th of July. We went hiking to Table Rock, and three of our campers stuck out the whole hike. I honestly didn't think two of them would... we didn't go very fast, but there were lots of rocky steps and hills, so i was really proud of them. Camp is it's own little world... I'm realizing that I've stoped seeing the campers' disabilities as much as I did before. You notice what they can do, you work with that. They always surprise me.
Our Cory-obsessed camper is a hoot. Crazy for sure, but pulled together. She's just fun to talk to -- we had a blast on the hike. Little things -- we were hiking and talking about a snake we had seen on a log, and she turned to another camper and said, "if that thing was closer I'd leave this one (pointing to me) in the dust, for sure...." She's just funny.
Took a break during naptime and went shopping.. Old Navy, Ingles, Starbucks.. I was productive.
Had a breakthrough with one of our most difficult campers today. She's an escaper... runs off in the middle of the night numerous times, so we have to set the door alarm and chase her down. She's in her own world, too.. and occasionally gets violent if you push her too hard. But yeah, everyone was sitting in the canteen, so I decided to see if she'd walk with me.. we took off for a waterfall, and she started talking to herself so I just decided to listen for awhile. I realized she was talking about her grandmother and what used to tell people about her.
"There ain't nothin' wrong with her. You just have to be stern wit her. Give her respect. Just a little respect. That's all she needs."
So I started singing Aretha Franklin softly, and she smiled and I said, "okay... I'll respect you and you respect me." She looked at me and nodded, "that's our deal." and from then on, no trouble. She did everything I asked her to do (after I reminded her of our deal). And when people yelled at her, I'd tell them to stop and explain our deal. And she stopped freaking out.
It's hard to treat her like Christ all the time... especially on the front porch at 4am when she's run off and I had almost fallen out of bed trying to chase her down. I think she just doesn't get reminded of her dignity enough.. schizophrenia doesn't help, for sure. But yeah, we're pals now.
Had hamburgers outside for dinner, spent time singing on the swings with one of my favorite campers.. it was a good night. So that's today. Good, solid day. Learned to respect people, speak softly, and love, love, love.
Then love some more.
They keep saying we
Laugh just a little too loud...
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