"he came early so he could leave early"

On most Thursdays at camp Willard comes to volunteer.  He often drives the backhoe and fills in pot holes in the road, drives things around on the tractor and does a ton of other manual labor.  This summer he dug a 4 foot deep trench around on of our bathrooms because we needed to find a water pipe that was leaking (still looking for it...).  Willard came up and for a few days dug around with the backhoe and by hand.  He sits on the backhoe in the sweltering heat, wearing jeans and a work shirt.  He made the comment during the week where it was a hundred plus degrees outside that it had to be another 20 degrees hotter on top of the backhoe.  Yet he still did it willingly.  In fact, when asked if he would rather do something else inside, he said no because that project was important to get done.  I went with Willard and another staff member Jay to pick up some logs from a home near here.  A gentleman had cut down some cedar trees from his property and was donating them.  We needed to cut them into smaller pieces and load them into the back of a van and on a trailer.  I thought that Willard would come out with us and use the chainsaw to cut the logs. No.  Willard went straight for the pieces that were already cut and told me to hop on the other end to start carrying them with him.

I went up to breakfast this morning and saw that Willard was here already.  I made the comment to Jay (also the maintenance guy) that Willard is here early.  He told me that Willard came early so he could leave a bit early today.  Here's the cool part.  Willard is into his 80's!  He's lived life and is retired.  He doesn't have to come to camp to do all this manual labor.  He just does it.  He does it because he cares about this place and the ministry happening here.  He does it because he believes in what this camp is.  He's a wonderful man who is giving up his Thursdays to help out with manual labor.  And because he needs to leave early today, he showed up early so that he could give the same amount of time as he usually does.

This was really inspiring to me!  He could have just as easily taken the day off or just left early anyway.  Instead, he showed up an hour or two before he usually would and got right to work.  Right now, I can hear him out on the tractor taking stuff to the burn pit with Jay.  I hope that when I am in my 80's I can still be half as active and half the man that Willard is!  The guy is a true champion!  He's a man of very few words but when he does talk, he's inspiring.  A man of few words, but lots of action.  A man whose actions can teach so much.

Thank you Willard!

Update letter!

Hi Everyone!

Well, summer has come and nearly gone as the first part of my new adventure is nears an end. This summer at camp has seen a lot! We started the summer off with about 50 girls showing up for girls week. We brought in a female program director along with an all female staff. The girls did all of the regular camp activities that the boys do, including skeet shooting and rock climbing!

In my last update letter I asked for prayer in a few areas. At the time of my last update letter we had 160 kids signed up for the summer. My prayer was that that number would be doubled. Praise God that we ended the summer with somewhere around 300 kids! Out of that 300, 44 boys and girls made decissions to follow Jesus or to grow deeper in relationship!  While we praise God for those kids, would you also pray over two very specific kids. Ethan came to camp while his older brother stayed home this summer. Their father is not in their lives and their mother is dying of advanced cancer. Ethan and his family decided that he needed to be away with other boys for the week. He did very well at camp but will very soon feel a hurt that is like no other.

Would you please also pray over Mike. I wrote a blog about Mike that you can check out at my blog site (http://raydsmith.blogspot.com/).  The specific blog is here:  http://raydsmith.blogspot.com/2011/08/sometimes-our-attitudes-choose-us.html 

Mike came to camp and had to be sent home half way through the week due to behavioral issues. As his story unfolded we learned that he was adopted from an orphanage and is dealing with a lot of hurt. Please pray for him to find true peace.

I asked for prayer in guidance for Kenya as well. About two weeks ago I had enough money set aside and courage to finally book my plane ticket. I fly out of Newark, NJ on September 5^th. It will get to Nairobi, Kenya on September 7^th in the morning. Please continue to pray as I am still a little short on the support I need to raise. Also, please pray that I remain open to the Lord's calling as I go to be a learner. There are a lot of decissions to be made in the next 5 months, but pray that I remain in the moment and not spend too much time worrying about the future.

A final prayer request is for my family as we learn new ways to communicate and are not on the same continent during the holidays this year. I am very blessed to have two beautiful families. I am confident that our relationships can and will grow stronger during this time as communication becomes more and more intentional.

Thank you all for your support during this new season of my life. I love you all and would love to hear how your life is going. What is God doing in your world?

Be blessed my friends,

Ray Smith

Tax deductible donations can be sent to:

Payable to Sequoia International

ATTN: Faith Wise

PO Box 56

Exton, PA 19341

Memo: Kenya, Ray Smith

"Sometimes our attitudes choose us"

Again, I wrote this last night:

Tonight was a tough one for me.  Seems like a theme of this week right now.  My buddy Keith is up here as a counselor for the week.  Keith is an EMT and is jacked; I think his biceps are the size of my head!  The first time I met this guy he was rooming with me in the lodge (the camp staff house) a few years ago.  I heard stories of this guy picking up junior staff and putting them in the trash can and all kinds of stuff like that.  When I heard he was not only moving to camp that summer, but also rooming in my room, I was…cautious.  I met him and he immediately pulls out his new machine gun with a bayonet on the front of it.  He says "yo Ray-man!  Check this out!" as he jams the gun into the bed frame, lets go and the gun is hanging there.  In the bed frame.  I liked him right away.  

Keith is the guy that you don't mess with.  You behave if he's your counselor.  His groups always have a blast.  Most end up with a new nickname.  Most will hear him joke that you need to "man up, cupcake".  And Keith can take a lot of stuff and keep his group in control.  That's why when on Sunday night he told me and Chris (camp director) that he just about had it with one kid I got a bit worried.  Keith must have sat this kid down close to 20 times before today to talk to him about his behavior.  I watched as this kid mouthed off to him and ignored him.  I talked to him earlier today about why he needs to behave.  I told him that if he keeps acting out and picking fights and ruining everyone else's week I'd have no choice but to send him home.  That was about 2 hours after lunch.  By dinner time I had to go out to this groups' lean-to site because the kid was acting out again.  The way it was told to me was that he picked a fight and another kid was ready to throw punches.  I walked out with Keith and the kid is laying on the trail.  I wasn't going to send the kid home yet.  I was going to make him pack his bags and tell him that if he doesn't shape up he'd be packing bags for real.  Then I saw the kid he picked the fight with.  A good 10 minutes had gone by and this kid was still sitting with clenched fists.  It was obvious that I couldn't keep this kid in the same group.  And if he wouldn't listen to Keith, he sure wouldn't listen to anyone else.  So we made the decision to send him home.  

Sounds like the right thing to do.  And I agree.  There're 10 other kids in that group that were being affected.  But still, it breaks my heart.  The parents showed up and as I talked to the dad, this kid's story came out a little bit more.  He is 13 years old and adopted.  He was the kid that no one else wanted.  He was the kid that had to fight for attention.  He was me at his age.  The more of his story the dad told me the more I looked at him and saw me at his age.  I know exactly how he feels.  I know the anger that he feels.  I know the abandonment.  And I know how much it sucks that we just did the same thing to him.  We kicked him out too.  We were very clear many times that we don't want to send him home and would rather keep him here if his behavior changed.  We also stressed that he was welcome back again next summer.  I even invited him and his dad to a father/son canoe trip in September.  But I also know how the 13 year old mind of a kid with his background thinks.  And all he sees is that we kicked him out.  Part of that is his own attitude.  Part is his own hurt.  Whatever the reason, he's hurting because of us.  He's looking for acceptance.  If he's like I was, he's even looking to be kicked out.  It sounds strange but it's what I did too.  I wanted to see how far I could push people until they booted me too.  

I stand firm by the decision to send him home.  But it still really sucks.  My heart breaks for this kid.  You can say the same old crap that "we all choose our own attitude" and maybe you're right for - most people. But sometimes our attitudes choose us.  When you go through what this kid did it's not so easy to choose a different attitude.  It can be done.  I did it.  But it takes a lot of effort.  It takes a lot of time.  And it takes a lot of patience from others.  It takes a lot of healing.  When you experience the kind of hurt and betrayal that he has you're heart is naturally filled with a lot of anger and hurt.  And it's not easy to turn it off.  No, let me rephrase that:  you can't just turn it off.  Not until you begin to deal with the betrayal and hurt.  That's what takes time.  What really sucks is that I understand this kid's heart and can't do anything for him.  That really breaks my heart.      

On a different level, I think about this kid 20 years from now.  I think about how just like I understand his pain better than anyone else here, he too may find himself in a situation where he can help someone else through their pain.  But for now, it just sucks.  

A scary adventure

I wrote this last night but couldn't post it until this morning...


Have you ever had that feeling deep down?  You know the one.  The one where you realize suddenly that something bad happened?  Someone could be hurt?  Or worse?  That was tonight for me.  

Today began the last week of our core program at camp.  Things were going great.  We had the kids playing some sports outside after dinner.  We lined everyone up to do a head count as we usually do.  We had everyone and then moved the 61 kids to an outdoor pavilion for a quick puppet show to kick off the spiritual theme for the week.  I took a moment to grab a drink and sit down outside of the dining hall to take a quick break.  Also, I've seen the puppet show a few times already.  Then I saw a couple of counselors come back as they were looking for a camper.  They said that one from a group was missing.  This actually happens often as campers stop to use the bathroom or get something to drink.  Sometimes they go back to their cabin to grab a flashlight.  It's usually not a big deal.  So I told them to check the cabins and bathrooms and get back to me.  

Then it happened.  The words that I was hoping not to hear: "he's not here".  I had the kids' counselor check the pavilion a few more times.  I watched as he looked every single kid in the face and reported back that he wasn't there.  Then the search began.  We rechecked the cabins, the bathrooms, the nurse's station, everywhere at upper camp.  No sign from him as we looked and called his name.  We started checking under buildings and inside of staff buildings.  I checked the pool about 3 times to make sure he didn't sneak there and climb the fence.  Nothing.  No sign of him and it was getting dark.  Our search party slowly grew as a few others who didn't have campers started to help.  We spent about an hour and a half running all over camp looking for this camper.  We searched the ranges, the staff houses and office on the lower camp, the woods around our lean-to sites.  We even had someone out on the roads driving around looking for him.  The puppet show ended and was being stalled to keep everyone else in one area.  The sinking feeling in my gut grew more intense the more we searched and came up empty handed.  Finally, the kid was found.  As it turns out, he was in the pavilion the entire time.  In the front row, actually.  

After an hour and a half of searching for a kid that isn't really missing, I was pretty ticked off that the kid's counselor didn't see him sitting in the front row.  But at the same time I was also very relieved.  Relieved that the kid wasn't missing and wasn't ever missing.  I was also proud.  I was, and still am, very proud of the way that the staff responded.  Our cook asked me what the plan is for something like this.  I was able to answer that our plan was exactly what we just did.  Our next step was to call the parents and police.  Luckily we found him before this.  The staff here responded the exact way that they should have.  The counselors with groups stayed with their groups and carried on.  Chris, the director of camp, was performing the puppet show and he carried on and allowed the rest of us to search as he kept the rest of the kids occupied and in one area.  We split into teams and searched everywhere we needed to.  It was a job very well done by the staff here and I am so proud of them!  

Something else hit me too.  After an hour and a half of running there was a bit of sweat on my shirt (it's pretty hot here!).  Someone pointed out to me that the front of my shirt had a heart shaped sweat stain.  I found that interesting as I joked that I sweat pure love.  It reminds me of how God the Father dropped everything to find us when we were lost.  He is all over searching for us and calling out to us.  Desiring to find us.  In that hour and a half my sole desire was to find this kid.  Not to yell at him, but to find him and make sure he was safe.  That's God right there!  His sole desire is to rescue us.  He's not looking to yell and punish us.  His heart shaped sweat stain looked more like a bloody Roman cross.  That's how passionate He is for us!  

This was a scary experience.  But how awesome it is to look back now and see God's grace on the situation.  This could have been so much worse.  This kid could have been really missing or even worse.  But he wasn't.  He was still safely where he was supposed to be.  And our staff got to practice our emergency action plan.  It's good to know that if this had been real we did the right thing.

"Be still and know that I am God".  Psalm 46:10  

Ticket has been booked!!

Newark (EWR) to London (LHR)

09/05/11

9:20 PM - 9:25 AM+1 day

Virgin Atlantic 2

 London (LHR) to Nairobi (Jomo Kenyatta Intl.)

09/06/11

9:00 PM - 7:50 AM+1 day

Virgin Atlantic 671

 Nairobi (Jomo Kenyatta Intl.) to London (LHR)

01/05/12

12:50 PM - 7:05 PM

Virgin Atlantic 672

 London (LHR) to Newark (EWR)

01/05/12

8:10 PM - 11:25 PM

Virgin Atlantic 17

It's official now.  I'm definitely going to Kenya in September.  I booked a flight last night.  I fly out of Newark, NJ on Sept. 5th, fly through London and into Nairobi on Sept. 7th.  I make the same flight back on Jan. 5th.  

Over the past couple of weeks I have been reminded a few times that I really need to get a flight soon.  Yet I was putting it off.  First my reason was that the interns were not all selected yet which meant that dates weren't set (I'm meeting the team of interns in Nairobi and traveling to Kitale with them).  So that enabled me to put off a flight.  Earlier this week a message was put up on Facebook that we will all be in Kenya in about 5 weeks.  That got me a bit!  WOW!  Saturday night my dad took me to a baseball game.  On the car ride he asked if I had a ticket yet.  He also reminded me that I need to do it soon before prices go up.  

This week I decided to get a bit more serious about it.  I needed to stop with excuses.  A big one lately has been time.  I've been busy at camp!  And I only have internet down at the office which is about a half mile from where most camp activities happen.  Still though, I have been in the office every day to do other work.  Yesterday morning I put aside my other work and looked for a flight hoping to find one I could afford.  I found one on Virgin Atlantic Airlines for $1274, including tax!  AMAZING!  That's even cheaper than my last flight in October.  I didn't book it.  My wallet was up at the other end of camp.  Everyone in the office told me to go get my wallet and book it before it's gone.  I didn't.  I saved the trip itinerary and went back to work.  It was on my mind most of the day.  

I started asking why I was so afraid to book the flight.  One reason took the top reason:  Things would be real when I book the flight.  There is no turning back anymore.  I'm not having second thoughts at all.  But still I was held captive by this fear.  This summer I have fallen back in love with camp.  I love being here and have been pouring myself out into this ministry.  I thought I could come into it with an attitude that this is a summer thing and I'm out.  I feel differently though.  I've treated this summer as so much more.  I've grown more passionate about this place.  Booking a flight means that this summer is going to end.  And I don't know when I will be back here again.  

Another reason for fear was finances.  I'm still about $1300 shy of what I need to raise.  Booking a flight means trusting that those funds will come in.  That's a hard area to trust in sometimes.  

As I thought about these fears last night and prayed over the situation it became clear what to do.  I needed to declare a victory over my fear and book the flight.  We had two campfires last night with staff speaking.  Once they finished I snuck away, took a shower and decided not to wait any more.  I got my laptop and walked the half mile to the office in the dark.  My thought was that if the flight was still open I'd book it.  It took me about three tries to confirm the flight because I kept forgetting to fill in some of the boxes.  But I finally did it.  A few moments later the e-ticket confirmation was sitting in my email box.  

So there it is.  This trip is real now.  I'm going to Kenya for 4 months.  What happens after January is still a mystery.  I don't know.  I may not know until January.  But I'm letting go of the fear.  I'm trusting that funds will be there when they need to be.  I'm trusting that things will work out.  I'm trusting.  I'm not trusting in myself either.  I'm trusting in God the Father.  The One who has my best interest in mind.  The One who will take care of me.  The One who always has.  

A week of lessons

It has been an interesting week to say the least.  I'm still at camp.  This week was our girls week program.  I've never been around during this week before.  In fact, when I worked here full time I switched it from a half week, end of summer program to a full week.  I then left camp before that summer.  This week (4th of July week) was becoming difficult to fill with boys camp so it became girls week.  It's our 2nd largest week of the summer right now with about 50 girls signed up.  We have a female program director for the week who did an amazing job putting together a new spiritual theme and program.  There is a really good group of female counselors for the girls.  We sent our junior staff home for the week and just kept the senior staff.  They are older and there are fewer issues with male staff mixed with female campers and counselors of about the same age.  I love that someone made that decision; I've heard some of the stories over the last few years.  Overall, this week has been running very well, I think.  There are even a few new ideas that I might carry over to boys camp next week.  To be honest though, as well as this week has been running, it's been a difficult one for me.  I really began asking myself why I came back.  Wondering why I thought that after being away for 5 years I could come back and run a program.  I talked to my friend Liz on Tuesday night and told her how it was a really long week.  Her response was that it's only Tuesday.  Yeah, one of those kinds of weeks.  But through this week, I've learned a few lessons:

1.  Conflict. While talking to Liz I was really avoiding the rest of camp.  I had no desire to be where the rest of the campers or staff were.  Monday and Tuesday really got to me.  I had some issues with a staff person.  I wont go into details because it isn't important.  But know that I was pretty discouraged about some things.  That's when I was questioning whether or not I would last the summer.  Liz mentioned that I really must not like conflict.  I've realized she was partially correct.  I don't really go looking for it.  But I can deal with it if it comes up.  What I don't like, though, is petty conflict over nothing.  And that's what it was.  And after a day or two, it went away like nothing happened.  You may be thinking I should still talk things over and normally I would agree.  But I know well enough to leave this one go.  Things actually are okay on this one.

2.  Patience.  I don't know that this one needs more explaining right now.  There were a few other little mishaps that came up that taught me more patience too.

3.  Serving.  I really planned to be in the office most of this week working on boys camp.  Instead, I've been in the kitchen helping prepare food and cleaning up.  I'v been helping run activities and running ranges.  I've even worked the camp store.  And it's all okay.  I feel a little behind on a few things, but I'm getting it all done.  And I think that it's only fair that if I am asking my staff to serve, than I need to lead by example.  I am much happier filling in these little gaps than I would be in the office.

4.  Chivalry.  Let me explain before you judge this one.  I think that chivalry is all but dead in America.  Far too often we view chivalry as just what we do when we want to date someone.  But I think that it's more.  This week we have about 6 or 7 male staff here.  And we have 50 girls plus about 20 or so female staff.  As a man, I think that it's important to treat women with a level of respect for more than just the purpose of trying to date them.  That means helping female counselors build fires if they've never done it before.  That may mean taking some extra time to explain how to shoot the gun, or the bow and arrow.  It may mean sending an extra guy to help load and unload canoes at the lake.  I think that this week is a great opportunity to show the girls, campers and staff, what a true man is supposed to be.  One who acts in such a way and expects nothing in return.  I hope I did a good job of explaining this.  I'm exhausted right now.

5.  I can!  Through everything, I've learned that yes, I can make it through this summer.  I may have been away for a while, but things are working out.  I'm getting reacquainted to how things work.  It's going to be a great summer!

6.  Camp is a LOT different when there is a group of girls instead of a group of guys!  We hear a lot more pleases and thank yous.  And less belching and other random noises.  We hear hair dryers in the morning and more people come to breakfast with clean clothing faces.  We smell more fruity body spray and less nasty BO.  The pool has fewer campers trying to dunk the counselors or playing water polo and more people lounging at the side of the pool with their feet in the water.  Camp is very different.

Those are just a few lessons.  The bottom line is that this week is running successfully.  As much as it's been a difficult week personally, I'm thankful for what I've learned.  I look forward to many more lessons.

 

2 more chances to get this right...

Yesterday I blogged about what the past few weeks of camp have been like.  I left one thing out though.  Partially because of shame.  Partially because I was still processing it.  Partially because I was low on time as I wrote it.  But I think that it's important and I want to share it.  

This week we are hosting a family camp.  We have three families that are here.  One of them is our weeks nurse's family.  We have another family of 4 from a local church.  Then we have an aunt and her niece and nephew.  Here's where it gets interesting.  I knew about this family for a while.  The niece and nephew are both coming back for a full week over the summer.  The girl is here next week for our girl's week program.  The boy is back in a few weeks for boys camp.  Sounds normal so far.  Here's the thing.  The boy is from Spain.  The girl is from Columbia.  The aunt lives in the States.  The Aunt is the only one to speak English.  

As the guy running the summer program, I have some reservations on this.  There is a huge language barrier.  We have one guy on staff this summer that is also from Spain so he can interpret.  And we have a female counselor for girl's week to interpret for the girl.  But I look at a safety issue.  We have some big ranges here.  Large pool, rifles, shotguns, trips to the lake and down the Delaware River.  Archery, horses, and 200 acres to get lost on.  Okay, that aside.  The mission of the camp is to "grow boys into Godly men" (adapted to growing girls into Godly women for girl's week).  We put together a full spiritual theme with dramas and songs for the summer.  Our staff lead discussions and devotions at night.  We have a guest speaker at a campfire one night and a staff member sharing their story at another campfire later in the week.  And these two kids can't understand it.  So are we really meeting our mission?  Okay, that aside.  These two kids are isolated.  They will continue to be isolated as they cannot communicate with anyone other than one the interpreter.  We don't mix the girl's week with boys camp so they won't even have each other.  Every part of me says this is bad for the child.  You never want to isolate them.  Yet, here we are without much choice.  

All of these may seem like pretty legitimate concerns.  In fact, they probably are.  No, they definitely are.  But I missed something.  I wrote a blog a few months ago that I called a language louder than words (click this link to read it:    Click here! :)  ).  

How quickly I forget.  I wrote yesterday a bit about Peter and how he really messed up a bit.  I feel a bit more like that as I write this.  I focused so much on the language barrier.  The other night I remembered writing this blog on how much louder actions can speak.  It started to hit me as we were swimming the other night.  The girl and her aunt joined us in a 3 on 3 game of water basketball.  This girl had a great time.  She was laughing and high-fiving.  And she was better than most of us too.  Apparently back in Spain basketball is her sport.  Before that there was a staff vs LGP game of soccer.  The boy went down and played that with our staff.  Soccer is his sport.  I wasn't there but I'm told that he was the star player!  Then I started to watch them at meal time and during our dramas.  They were both laughing and enjoying it.  I'm not sure how much of the message was translated accurately, but they were having fun.  It hit me again that we don't need to speak the same language to show compassion.  These two kids seem to be having a great time.  I watched as the girl interacted with another daughter here last night as we played a game called counselor hunt.  It's basically where the staff (and parents this time) hid in the woods with candy and the kids had to tag them to get candy.  This other daughter hung around with the girl from Spain as they looked for staff and parents together.  It was awesome to see.  They found their own way to communicate.  

What gets me the most is that I could make it this long with this low of an attitude about the situation.  It's not ideal, but it's happening.  I've been striving in other areas to keep a positive outlook on other policies that I may not agree with.  But somehow this one slipped through.  The good news is that both these kids are coming back again.  For me, that means a do over.  I get two more chances to get it right.  Yes, there are still some concerns that I have with safety and such.  But my job is not to make others worry about those things.  I trust the guys that I have running ranges here.  I trust the counselors with the groups.  It will work out.  Two more tries to get it right...