NEW HOPE KIDS AND COUNSELORS

...Just after I volunteered to be a counselor for children's camp, I began to remember church camps I attended as a kid.  I recalled singing fun songs, eating cold watermelon, swimming long hours, and tormenting counselors.   Each year, we boys tried to make sure that none of them would ever want to be a camp counselor again.  For example, as they slept, we tied them up with twine and decorated them with shaving cream, honey, and/or ants.  Just after I revisited these fond memories, an unsettling scripture came to mind:  "A man reaps what he sows" (Galatians 6:7, NIV). 

            My first job as counselor was to drive a van loaded with 12 pre-teenage boys.  They were in every way just like I was at that age:  hyperactive, loud, and bent on mischief.  At times, I felt like I was having a nightmare, that I was trapped in a scene from "Dumb and Dumber." 

The night of our arrival, when I found a fake snake in my sleeping bag, I knew the war of nerves had begun.  I tossed the rubber reptile back at them defiantly, but then they looked at me with sardonic smiles:  "We've got toothpaste!" 

"Yes," I quickly retorted, "but you don't know what I've got!"  I was bluffing, of course.  After that, I was paranoid and checked everything meticulously before I used it. 

I didn't get much sleep, not that I thought I would.  "Lights out" was at 10 p.m., but we all know that's a joke at camp.  In their minds, 10 p.m. was the ideal time to begin fights with pillows and plastic bottles, tell really bad jokes, laugh loudly, and pretend to snore.  At about midnight, after a half-dozen threats from weary counselors, things finally started to quiet down.

            This particular camp had over 1000 children in attendance.  We did the requisite rounds of songs that involve movements of one or more body parts, "Father Abraham," "This Little Light of Mine," and similar aerobic activities.  I found it quite interesting and enlightening to live for three days in a zone prioritized for children and to see God and the world from a child's point of view.

During one altar call, ministers were asked to come forward and pray for general needs.  My experience there reconfirmed what we all know, or should know:  our country's spiritual decline has placed children under enormous stress.  I prayed with about ten kids.  One boy of 12 told me, "My parents fight all the time."  Another little girl came and hugged me tightly, saying,  "I miss my brother."  Still another victim of a broken home wept and trembled as she said,  "I miss my dad."  Children are the innocent casualties of our spiritual neglect.  They need to know that God loves them for who they are.  They are desperate to be accepted by their peers and to be loved, just like us older folks...