The blog is mostly about my
two youngest with special needs but this particular post is a little different.
Don’t click out when you see the word “bible.” I’m not going to preach to you
here. Although my religious beliefs and convictions are extremely important to
me and I’d love to share those with you, I am not going to do that here. I’ll
get around to my autism related thoughts on this post eventually but you’ll
have to take a walk down memory lane with me first. And by the way, if you do
want to know more about my religious beliefs then private message me. I only
have one topic I like to discuss more than autism. It’s the bible.
I just spent a week in Texas
at a bible camp for young people. I was a part of something great there. This
particular week at this particular camp was focused on leadership. There were
classes on how to lead a song, study the bible, and how to outline, write, and
present a lesson. At the end of the week many of the campers presented their
first devotional or led a song or public prayer for the first time. Their
enthusiasm was so encouraging.
Bible camp has been a huge
part of my life as long as I can remember. I loved going as a child. There were
bonfires, hayrides, and late night devotionals, crafts, pranks, and silly songs,
old friends reunited, and new friends made. We had ping pong tournaments, played
card games, and even had watermelon seed-spitting contests. I fell asleep in a
rustic cabin with the sounds of girls giggling and crickets and frogs singing.
The perfume of the week was always bug spray and sweat. Going to camp was as
exciting to me as Christmas. I would pack a week ahead, unpack, and repack.
Before I was old enough to go to Little Blue Bible Camp in Missouri, at age
nine, I jealously watched my older siblings gather their swimsuits, flashlights,
bug spray, ball gloves, and Bibles every year. I’d follow them to their cabins
and watch them choose their bed for the week, anticipating the day I would be
able to do the same. I remember the first year I was old enough to stay. I got
a top bunk and was ecstatic. The abundance of spiders was hard on me but even
those spiders could not deter my enthusiasm for camp. As I got older I also went to camp in Kansas and in Nebraska. I loved every one of them.
When I aged out of going to
these camps as a camper, I began going as a counselor. Between my sophomore and
junior year of college I spent a whole summer working at a camp in Arkansas near
Harding University where I attended college. That was an amazing summer. Three
of my kids have chosen to spend their summers working at a camp after they were
too old to go as campers. Currently, two of my children are working at Green
Valley Bible Camp in Rogers, Arkansas all summer. They are the lifeguards and
kitchen help there. They love their jobs.
The camp I attended this week
was near Maud, Texas. It is called Camp Ida. I was in charge of crafts. I also worked in the kitchen and it was
exhausting work. It was hot and I am covered in mosquito bites, but I am so
glad I went. I made some wonderful new friends and heard some great lessons. The
bug bites will fade but the friendships and wonderful memories will last.
I was asked the same question
many times this week: “Why didn’t you bring your kids?” It is a fair question.
Tate is 13 and Sydney is 11. They should be going off to bible camp each summer
just as their older siblings have, right? Oh how I wish I could have taken them
with me. Most of my readers “know” Tate and Sydney well enough to understand
why I did not take them to camp. Sydney actually would have loved camp. Once we
got past that first hour in the morning and her medications took control of her
hyperactivity she would have been able to sit for most of the daytime
activities. But in order to really participate in things she would have needed
adult support. She may actually be able to go to camp one day.
It makes me sad but Tate will
most likely never go to camp. Tate’s autism and the anxiety that comes with it
keep him from doing so many of the things his older siblings have loved. Tate
is miserable even visiting the campgrounds his older siblings have attended. He’s
grown up watching his older siblings happily ready themselves for a week of
camp but instead of anticipating the day he can go, he lives in fear of us sending
him to camp too. Recently a friend asked him if he was old enough to go to camp
this year. Tate immediately said, “No. I am home-camped.” It cracked me up. He
knows what homeschooling is and extended that to camp. I celebrate when he is
creative or original because there was a time when he was not able to
communicate that way.
As I looked around me this
past week at the beauty of the campground and I heard the children playing,
singing, and participating in bible classes, I tried to picture Tate there. He
would have been using stims to cope and he would have appeared very odd to the
other campers. Being the great kids they are, they would have tried to include Tate
but he would only have wanted to talk about how many days and hours there were
left until he could leave. He would not have been able to sleep at camp and he
would have not eaten most of the food available to him there. He would not have
enjoyed the pool because he only swims at home when it is quiet and there is no
splashing. He would have hated the smells, the sounds, and the heat at camp,
but more than any of that he would have hated not being able to have a dvd
player in one hand and an ipad or ipad in the other. His movies are as
important to him as the food he eats.
I got several texts from Tate
this week and a few phone messages. Although he was being very well cared for,
he was anxious because I was not home. He went into crisis mode when one of his
favorite movies stopped playing due to a scratch on the disc. Of course the
scratched disc is one that is not commonly sold at stores so it had to be
ordered. Thus he has worried, paced, rung his hands, missed out on sleep, and
talked of little else for the past few days. Tate will check the mail each day
until it arrives, insisting the date of arrival we were given is probably a
mistake and it will actually come earlier. This is our life. This is autism. Autism
has robbed Tate of so many precious things, bible camp included. Want to read more about autism? Try this one: Unpredictability
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