"the week of mass hysteria," aka my first week as a camp counselor

...and I'm not even lying.

This week has been one of the single most stretching, challenging weeks of my life thus far, at least in respect to dealing with other people. For starters, I went from being a single person in charge of me to being a mother of nine within about an hour's time. (Gwen, I have an inkling for life in the Szobody household.)

I fell in love with my girls from the start. All nine are beautiful, gifted, tenderhearted girls who want so desperately to be loved and told that they are wonderful, but who typically don't receive this kind of attention. Unfortunately, this resulted in a lot of acting out in the form of hysterical crying fits, silent treatment, running away, attitude up the wazoo, slapping each other, bickering, and hella whining.

At this point, I would like to restate that I fell in love with my girls from the start. God, however, took over the first evening and loved them through me, because without His strength, patience, joy, and love, I would have died on the first full day of camp...and my kids would have gone out with me.

A little more about these kids that came for "sprint" week. In a past entry, I said that they were from a YMCA group. Correction: they were from various branches of Boys and Girls Clubs all over the south Sound area. Most are from lower income homes in not such great areas and are very tough kids. Moreover, we had 160+ kids at camp--pretty much our max capacity. We had to call in former counselors, brand new counselors, and counselors from our sister camp to help out with the overflow.

Chaos ruled day one of camp, but by bedtime, I was beginning to feel like I had somewhat of a grip on things again. Then Tuesday morning at about 5:30 am, I woke up feeling sort of sick to my stomach. And then the hurling commenced. No idea where it came from, but I threw up a lot that morning before my girls got up. We walked down to breakfast together because I thought I was feeling better, but I was rather mistaken and ended up leaving my cabin in various peoples' hands throughout the day as I slept. (Getting sick probably saved my sanity this week, so God really does work in mysterious ways. ;) )

Although there were bouts of tears pretty much every night--from at least one girl--I don't think I would ever want to trade this week for another one. I am glad that it's over, but I'm just as glad that it happened in the first place. Having the opportunity to see these girls slowly crack from their hardened shells and blossom was incredible.

Attentive during Bible study, but concurrently with the attention span of goldfish, they asked some very good questions. I'm not sure if I managed to get through to them at all, but I know that what God did through me and through the other staff may not be seen for awhile.

The staff blew my mind this week with how energetic and loving they were. I know that if I hadn't had my CIT, LIT, and wrangler helping me with my cabin, I probably wouldn't have made it through the week and, if I had, I would have quit this morning after my campers left. God has truly blessed me with incredible support for this journey that is Miracle Ranch.

I feel like this entry is very disjointed, but I am insanely tired and I'm just writing as thoughts come to me, so please forgive my poor composition.

Highlights from the week:

~all of my girls' smiles, their laughter, their affection, their eyes lighting up when they were having fun wherever they were--from horsemanship class to fireside.

~getting a surprise visit from Stiletto and Wannahokkaloogie while I was trying to recuperate in the nurse's station. They bore the gift of blue gatorade.

~Rising Sun (women's staff counselor) telling that I was doing a fantastic job when I felt like I had officially failed at being a camp counselor or even a believer

~realizing Wednesday night that I only had two more days with my girls (the terrors and angels of my life), which meant that I had only two more days to show them how much I loved them and how much God loved them. This led to a lot of tears throughout evening staff meeting, but it resulted in a renewed commitment to being 100% there for my girls. (Thanks, God, for the gentle reminder.)

~diaper swimming (don't ask)

~hearing various encouragements about how much my girls actually liked me. 1) One of the counselors who led the "showtime" activity told me that for their skit, the kids were portraying various counselors and about five of them wanted to be me. 2) When asked in horsemanship what they liked most about camp--other than horses, they responded with, "Being in a cabin with Hakuna Matata!" 3) This morning the campers filled out surveys to find out how their weeks went, and how we could improve in the future. My girls kept rating their counselor as "10."



My concern now is to avoid complacency. I don't want to think, "Hey, I survived the hardest week at camp, the rest will be a breeze!" I still want/need to rely on God just as much for strength, guidance, and wisdom. Although at this point, I want to make a shirt that reads, "I survived sprint week!" That, in and of itself, is a massive accomplishment. True, there were a lot of tears--and not all of them were shed by my girls--but I feel satisfied with the end result.

Now: to rest. More campers come tomorrow.