One More Time

We are all so blessed to be here! There is no easy way to describe what we feel when the day is over. Exhaustion is part of it, so is a sense of accomplishment and an event greater sense of having achieved the unachievable. You walk into these camps with an emotion that can span from shear, unbridled joy and hope while the person next to you is bearing trepidation, and dread. It’s a peculiar sight. When is truly remarkable is that on the next day, those emotions can switch places.

Yesterday morning, we started the day off at camp #40 – the younger kids camp. It’s hard to describe. A dozen or so non-descript buildings nestled into a forest b the edge of the sea. The building themselves resemble something out of a fairy tale. Not quaint, like Alice In Wonderland and night quite The Brothers Grim, but perhaps something in between. Maybe Little Red Riding Hood. A sweet faced girl with some unspoken … discomfort lurking about. There is a large grassy area in the center that is unleveled, full of holes from removed trees and absolutely infested in mosquitoes. Did I mention those? They come at you in squadrons here. They attack and suck the life right out of your heart. “Bzzzz. Fat target – red shirt – 3 o’clock!” The first thing we do upon exiting the bus, and it’s only a 10-minute ride from the hotel to the camps, is to apply copious amounts of bug spray.

The kids at camp #40 were really sweet. We start the day off with a puppet show and music. The translators know some children’s songs and the kids love the puppets. Honestly, they could just raise their puppets above the curtains and then fall asleep and the kids would love it anyway. They smile and giggle and rock back and forth and you chuckle and take their hands into yours, and they feel the love and recognize that they are unique and special in God’s kingdom and you laugh at their joy and they laugh at yours and suddenly all is right in the world.

After puppets, we go off into our individual areas – 4 of them – and do crafts, Bible stories, more crafts and generally allow ourselves to be inundated with spit and love – both of which are rather sticky, thank you. I have been taking pictures and helping out with logistics, but I have also spent some time with the more “active” kids. This is a nice way of saying that they are typically insane with energy. But, yesterday was different. When I walked around to “my kids” and we all refer to our children with similar possessive feelings, I saw a very unusual sight. They were sitting down, in a circle, doing a craft! Stickers on a door hanger! “What miracle is this?” I asked myself. Usually, they would have eaten the door hangers and stuffed the stickers in your nose – this is amazing!

All the kids were sitting at a little table with mismatched chairs and with the team members wedged in. As I further rounded the corner, I saw one of the kids that I truly adore. He has cerebral palsy and is quite a little sweetheart. I approached him and sat down after getting some stickers and a door hanger from the supplies. I reached around with my right arm and snuggled him in close, so that he could lean against me. No, really, he needed to lean into me, not me into him. Really, I didn’t need that all.

Well, maybe just a little. After the stickers exercise, which he used to teach me the Russian words for what each sticker represented, we started playing with what I am convinced is a hat, shaped like a mouse. He thinks it’s a dog, but it sure looks like a mouse to me. Anyway, as we’re playing with this, he is pressing the nose and it sings a little song. So, I stick my hand inside the mouse (dog!) and start making movements in time with the music. In between each line in the song, I touch the snout of the … whatever it is to his nose and he begins to laugh. And laugh, and laugh, and laugh. Leaning over, not quite falling off the bench, laughter. Then he starts pressing the button like he’s the character John in LOST. Over and over and over he is doing this.

But, I also realize he is saying something in between the laughter. I listen in, and he is repeating a phrase that I only partially understand. Yan, our interpreter, walks over and listens in. The little boy tells Yan what he is saying. Yan laughs, looks at me, and says something that takes the breath way.

My heart stops. Whatever words I had turned to a lump and my chest closes, and suddenly I feel the warmth of this small child pressing against me. The day turns to colors that are resplendent in a glory that can only come from above. I am stunned and I am at home and I am overwhelmed.

This child, whom I loved last year, in these few words, has yet again been a silent thief to my heart as he says in Russian; "One more time."