One Week

They say that, "One week makes a difference."

And, it does. I've seen the trust we build during church camp. I've seen the trust that we build here. There are a thousand little things about this camp that make it unique, that make it "Royal Family," but, really, one week here isn't so different.

I have eleven year olds, Leaders in Training, kids who are going to age out of camp this year. Girls the same age as the sixth graders I had at church camp. There were six girls in that cabin and seven in this one, but four counselors instead of two. Night falls and we don't read a story, but I pass out the same flashlights and lanterns that were worn to the end of their batteries by the last set of ten and eleven year olds.

Because, kids everywhere are afraid of the dark. And, it isn't only Royal Family kids who have a reason to be.

There are seven year olds at this camp, though, and curfew reflects that. They aren't tired enough to go to sleep. Instead, they lay, quiet, in a cabin full of strangers, not sure yet if this many grown ups makes them feel safer or more uncertain. They don't get the benefit of church camp, of knowing us before they come up, and there is a tension in their shoulders that I have seen in my boys - even at church camp - when we send them off for a first night with a counselor that they don't know.

Eventually, they sleep, they wake up, we start off the rhythm that is camp.

It's slower, this camp, easier in a lot of ways. Boundaries are pulled tight, and they don't try to push them. This is safety, and they thrive in it. Always enough for seconds and food lines that never stop moving, never make you wait and wonder. Snacks come always, during free time and right before bed, often with a little trinket to hold on to and remember.

Only the final breakfast is nasty and not enough, and I see that fear jump into their eyes. So, we talk about lunch instead, where they are stopping the buses, the park where they will be eating pizza. Because, this fear, also, is more than simply Royal Family.

This is the look that sends our church kids sneaking up through the snack shack or coming late to meals. Because so much time in such a long line leaves too much space to wonder and worry and be afraid. Afraid that there might not be enough. Afraid that you might go hungry. This is why counselors hide food away in their suitcases especially for the bus ride home, when the promise of a stop for snacks is not quite enough to erase the feeling of not having a meal.

This fear too is familiar, this week not so different.

So much of it is similar. We swim and play games, sing songs and dance during chapel. My LIT girls harbor crushes on the LIT boys and they giggle for hours over one of the boys that I know from school. They come out of their shells during camp and then slip back into them as they step off the bus.

The leaving is slower and more drawn out, with kids who don't know that they will ever see their counselor again. We "graduate" the LITs with a certificate and a gift and words of affirmation. Tears come the final morning rather than the final night. For some kids they come both, and stories finally begin to be told as they process what it is that they are going home to. Stories that aren't so different from the ones that we heard around the campfire the final evening of church camp, from kids the same age or just a little older.

And, it isn't the familiar that makes Royal Family different. It isn't the water fights or goofy moments with eleven year old boys. It isn't putting on my playground duty hat and sorting through the stories to get to the bottom of what really happened. It isn't even the nervous way that they struggle to focus with "new strangers" setting up a Birthday party a hundred yards away.

The difference comes in counselors and staff who come back year after year after year. Come back often enough for these kids to trust them. The difference is in kids who know, after five years or countless siblings and foster siblings through the camp before them, that this is a safe place to be.

The ratio that the eleven year old boys have, one camper to one counselor, would scare the crap out of most of my kids, if for no other reason than that our culture has taught them a vague distrust of adult men. There is a steadiness here, though, a consistency of ten years of service, that makes these grown ups seem safe. And, you can't buy that or bottle it or train it into anyone. It simply takes time.

One week makes a difference. But, it is week after week, year after year, of staying the same even when everything else in the kids' lives is changing that makes Royal Family different.