I am going to give you a brief synopsis of my Week at Mustard Seeds Farm which is a special needs camp. To give you a brief prelude, it was my first time at a Special needs camp but I had worked with special needs kids my Senior Year in high school for one period a day.
Sunday: Kids arrived and I got to meet them for the first time... my state of mind? GET ME OUT OF HERE!
Monday: First full day with the kids after a night with them... I got to pray for them the night before before bed and then spent the rest of the night on dorm duty in deep prayer for help form God... my state of mind? I am incompetent... I will let these kids down.
Tuesday: God truly gave me strength and patience, I hit it off with one of the more autistic kids and absolutely felt called by God to be working with him. I spent most of Tuesday talking about God, even though I wasn't sure if he could understand me. He could only say a few words but he had so much love for people.
Wednesday: Everything turned around, I was getting into it more and more every day. Tuesday was great and Wednesday was even better. We had 6 kids all together after gaining another kid from another group today. The Bible time was fantastic and we had a skit night tonight. I taught the kids one of the skits I learned while I was in boy scouts and even though it was extremely hard for them to even get the concept it was amazing and awesome to see them doing it.
Today... I felt like a proud papa is the only way to explain it haha.
Thursday: the last full day. Everyone was getting ready for the dance. The big event of the week. It rained but that only slowed us down. We went back to this 130 foot slide down the side of a hill and to see these kids overcome their fear and shoot the slide into the lake was amazing. Mood? I do not want to leave, I love these kids!
Friday: Time to go home, we spent the day waiting for parents, sitting on swings, playing basketball and volleyball, swimming... My heart broke when my kids went home, especially Kevin (the camper I really connected with). He deserves so much more than what the people who are taking care of him give him. They do not seem to care. I was able to teach him the "head shoulders knees and toes" song and the ENTIRE Greek alphabet. And he learned it without too much of a problem! If I was rich I would get him out of the home he is forced to stay in and give him some sort of opportunity if possible.
As I look back, this was probably the biggest impact on my life ever. My faith has become so much stronger and God truly gave me a desire to continue to work with Special needs kids. Although extremely stressful, the other counselors, the kids, and God helped me through this.
Here are some pictures from during the week.
Doing the skit with the kids.
Teaching Kevin the "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes song and motions"
Adam going down the slide
