Eagles in Flight

It has now been over ten years since I first volunteered at Camp Barnabas; I thought it'd be interesting to look back on it now, having seen some of the path it set me on.

Not a lot else of note happened in 2005-- I got to attend a good number of The Elms concerts, I worked at the Indiana State Fair for a second year, my brother started college, & I went on a mission trip to Kentucky with my youth group to help on home repair projects. Okay, yeah, actually that does sound like a lot! I have definitely spent years thinking 2005 wasn't very eventful besides Barnabas, but I guess Barnabas just outshone the rest for me or something. Interesting.

2004, on the other hand, has always felt like a big deal. I can't even tell you all of it, but a relevant bit was related to Camp Barnabas, so I will mention it. You see, I'd been pushing my youth group for a mission trip for a while. I'm 100% sure there are perspectives I'm missing, but it seemed like no one else cared for the idea. I was led to believe that if I wanted such a thing, I'd need to find one myself, & then maybe it could happen. I had a friend who had been to Camp Barnabas-- I can't remember if I'd seen him mention it & decided to ask for details, or if I'd told him I was looking for a trip for my youth group & he suggested it. (Maybe give me another seven years or so & I'll be ready to write about that friendship.) Either way, he sent me information & I poked around on the internet. Camp Barnabas is a Christian camp for people with special needs, located in the southwest corner of Missouri. Each camper session focuses on a particular set of needs (for example, adults with developmental disabilities have a session, kids with autism have a session, kids with physical disabilities have a session, etc). Each cabin has two staff counselors, who are college-aged folk who are there for the whole summer, & then they get mostly high-school-aged persons as volunteers, who are (in almost every case) each assigned their very own camper, one-on-one, & then of course campers & counselors are part of a cabin, a unit that does almost everything together. I explored different mission trip options, thought about it, prayed about it, & always came back to the Barnabas idea.

I'd never been to a summer camp before. Partly because I knew it cost money & my family didn't have much money, partly because I knew I didn't want to be surrounded by strangers, partly because I didn't seem to have much of a success rate in being friends with girls & obviously my cabin would've been all girls... but my biggest fear was actually that they'd make me get in the pool. No joke. I had this weird idea that swimming was mandatory, a huge part of camp, & I'd end up nearly drowning & being embarrassed in front of the entire campground & crying & stuck in this strange place with people I probably wouldn't like in the first place.
Uhhhhhh yeah, camp isn't actually like that, but how was I to know? (ISTJ childhood...)

So anyway, the point is I approached my youth group with the idea & they said yes. Once again, I must be missing so much perspective. I only have my very own side of the story, so I'm very limited, but I can present you with the facts... I knew about what time frame we should have settled on what week we wanted to go, so we could all get our applications sent in. It wasn't happening. No one wanted to talk about it with me. I had to corner people individually & ask them what weeks wouldn't work for them, & put all of that together myself to come up with when we should go. (Turns out we couldn't go the same time as my friend would be returning. :-() The term that ended up being most optimal was called Eagles in Flight.

More facts... it turns out the rest of my youth group was talking about it, but behind my back. They decided that they didn't want to go. They were very intimidated by the idea of working with people with special needs. They decided to plan a trip to Kentucky, where they could do construction things instead. I will probably never know why they couldn't just talk to me about it, or when they planned to break it to me (obviously they'd have had to at some point), but it ended up being very painful for me, & impacted my relationships with everyone involved, & changed how I thought about friendship overall. The breaking point was when we were having a sleepover at the church, & I caught people avoiding my gaze, & conversations ending when I entered the room. If you know me, you know I have zero intuition, so you can count on these things being pretty obvious for me to have noticed at all. I told them I was leaving if no one would talk to me about what was going on, & they kept telling me they'd tell me "later", so I called my mom & had her come get me. I was sobbing & in the passenger seat before one brave soul (I'll always love him for this moment) decided to give me a bit of a synopsis of what it was all about. I still get choked up thinking about it, wondering why the group would rather scar our friendships for life than have a conversation. I can tell you that I still love & respect the adults who were in charge, & I stuck with the whole group for years after this event, but when I think "youth group" I think of the time they nearly unanimously decided that telling me the truth would be worse than making me feel cast out. (I also think of pizza, bowling, camping, the first time I saw The Elms, that time we all watched the 1998 Les Miserables movie & people thought it was going to be about the French Revolution... but yeah, my perspective on all of it is colored by how they treated me when it mattered most to me.)

Not long after that, the leaders did pull me aside for a talk. They sounded so scared, so delicate. But I was so relieved. Sure the truth can hurt sometimes, but when the not-telling is becoming torturous to the person you're "sparing", at least then you should be able to present it as if it matters. I can give them the benefit of the doubt, I can believe they just cared about my feelings. But there was so much more involved than feelings. Anyway, this isn't supposed to be about how I feel about people trying to spare my feelings when what I need is to know the facts so I can decide how to feel... *ahem* They did say that the group would help pay my way to Camp Barnabas if I was still going to go. So that was nice. The youth group started taking on the church's custodial duties in exchange for funds for my Barnabas trip + everyone's Kentucky trip, which was pretty cool. So that's how it happened that my mom & I ended up going to Missouri together, a rather convoluted trail of choices & efforts.

Eagles in Flight is the session for kids with chronic illness, cancer, or burns. I was a bit terrified. Also in 2004, I watched a grandmother die of cancer. So it seemed a bit fitting, yet also dreadful. How could I relate to these campers? How would I know how to best help them? But I knew I wanted to try, I wanted to grow, I felt like I was meant to go. To me the most comforting fact was knowing that the camp did this all the time. They'd been around for years letting teenagers have these responsibilities, & they accepted my application, so surely I could handle it if the others could that had. (More ISTJ principles!)

On our way to the camp, we stopped at Lambert's Cafe, which remains my favorite restaurant of all time, plus we stopped at the home where Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote the Little House books which was really lovely. Missouri is so beautiful! We were also going to go to a rodeo, but that didn't pan out. The morning we set out, we stopped at the best Dairy Queen in the world (Spencer, IN!) for breakfast. Yes, they serve breakfast, full beautiful breakfast. (Though I just had potatoes & tea.) When we arrived in Sikeston, MO (where Lambert's is) & tried to find our hotel, we got lost. We stopped at a gas station & mom asked for directions; they told her that it was all the way on the other side of town... which was actually very close, & we had a good laugh about that. Hey, we're from Indianapolis, where getting to the other side of town can take you an hour easy.

Arriving at camp was just about the most excited+scared I've ever been. Knowing how adaptable, spontaneous, & learn-things-as-I-go I have NEVER been... it was pretty fascinating. I was clutching to what I knew I was supposed to do, which was go up to The Fish House to get my cabin assignment, info packet, & t-shirt. I was assigned to B4... B meaning it's a boys cabin. Having a tendency for more female volunteers than male, it does happen sometimes that a girl ends up working with boys. I hadn't dared to hope I'd get to be one of those, but I was pretty excited. (I probably owe you a whole 'nother blog post to give you background on my history with girls to help back this up. Just trust me for now, okay?) They've got a special cabin just for the female volunteers who are working with boys, so there's no mixed-gender sleeping areas, but I barely even saw those other girls.

The first 24ish hours are for orientation. We got to hear about all sorts of things, from feeding tubes to wheelchair etiquette. In another weird it-was-possible-but-not-common-so-I-hadn't-really-thought-about-it happening, I wasn't going to be working with any of that at all, in fact. Eagles in Flight also makes room for a couple cabins of deaf/hearing-impaired campers, & I'd been assigned to one of those. I had taken American Sign Language my last year of school, not being super fluent or anything but evidently much more suitable for a signing cabin than most volunteers. The cabin leaders were skilled in ASL, my fellow volunteers ranged from comfortable signers to having only had a bit of exposure, & we had an interpreter assigned to work with us to help bridge the gaps. The interpreter & I were the only females of the group. All of our campers were pre-teen or teenagers. There were cochlear implants, hearing aids, & all-natural non-hearing ears. There was one autistic, there was one ADD, there was one with a learning disability. The camper to whom I was assigned was one of a trio of boys who were good friends who attended camp together each year, they all were in their young teens & had cochlear implants.

Camp felt like a whole 'nother world, & the deaf members were like a subculture of that. It actually felt like a rather good way to be introduced to what Camp Barnabas was generally like, as a part of it & yet kind of separate-- most of camp was geared up to accommodate the wheelchairs & medical needs, just with an ASL interpreter tossed over to the side. We weren't much pressured to sing the songs that I was still learning, participate in the responsive chants that took me a while to grasp, or care when campers would take the stage to sing a song during mealtime, for example. I got to witness weird camp traditions without any expectations of participation, which was the best thing that could have happened to me. ;-) There's a tradition for birthdays. There's a thing involving marching around with forks... yeah... Sometimes there'd be an attempt to interpret things for our campers, but for some things it would've taken too much explanation & just... still wouldn't really have carried over. For example, a lot of the chants = shouting a thing that rhymes with the thing the other person said. You can to an extent explain rhyming to people who'll never hear it, but you'll still feel goofy signing out the response when it feels like the meaning is stripped away. They can see that your mouth makes closely matching shapes; for example, "how now brown cow" is a favorite of mine, to be chanted following whenever a speaker says "now", but no matter how fun it is to sign out "how now brown cow", when you take away the sounds you're just tossing large animals into the situation for no particular reason.

My camper was actually late. Typically, the campers arrive in time for dinner, a bit of settling-in, & then a party before bedtime. Mine didn't arrive until the first activity the next day. Canoeing! They put me in the middle of a canoe between my camper & one of his buddies, & you don't take cochlear implants anywhere near water activities, so my first interactions with my camper, & my first activity ever, I spent barely communicating with anyone. It was kind of hilarious. We dropped a paddle at one point, & the campers immediately turned to me for direction of what to do, & I'm like... I don't know, can we grab it? We did in fact rescue it. & we saw some animals. Snake & turtle are both pretty memorable signs.

Another of my favorite stories is our cabin flag. For an activity period, you get to paint a piece of fabric (I think it was a portion of bed sheet),  after having as a group decided on a design. With deaf teenage boys, it's a challenge & an adventure to try to communicate anything as a group!  But it worked out really well, a lot of teamwork & different people contributing in the ways that suited them best. It was determined that we wanted a cross, a snake, & flames, so my camper drew the initial snake design, I helped our colorblind lead counselor blend paints to make the colors we'd need, some hands did the detail work while some hands filled in the large gaps. The result was fantastic.
The activity immediately following was the high ropes course. Not needing much counselor involvement for that, & my camper being rather independent & reliable anyway, it was decided that I would stay back & help clean paintbrushes with our lead counselor & we'd catch up with the rest of our cabin at high ropes after that. That's when I learned a bit about myself-- I like to clean paintbrushes, & I love to do the little tedious generally-disliked tasks, helping behind the scenes to help the whole work more smoothly. <3 I was introduced to the custom of some folk leaving their painted hand prints on the side of The Lodge, which was old & dilapidated even then-- I'd be surprised if it's left standing now, as it was pretty expected to collapse even when I was there. But for however long, it had my mark on it. On our way to meet up with the others, the lead counselor & I had conversation including him complimenting my work ethic & encouraging me to apply for summer staff the next year. I felt like I was right where I should be.

There's an award at the end of each session, I can't remember the name of it... part of the problem is it's an acronym, but it's actually an incorrect acronym. Anyway, a boy cabin & a girl cabin get chosen, based on good behavior & things like "enthusiasm" (I'm 98% sure that was part of the acronym). & we were chosen as the champion boy cabin! Basically all it meant was we got to have cookies & ice cream in a little private after-party while everyone else headed off to get ready for bed. The plates were styrofoam, & if you're holding a styrofoam plate you can feel it vibrate when people talk. That's one of the most memorable observations I picked up from spending a week working with my deaf boys, & I remember that night each time I use disposable tableware. There was someone there, I think she was a counselor with the winning girl cabin but I'm not sure; she came up to me, said I stood out to her but she didn't know why, she just felt like she should lay hands on me & pray for me. I think it was another sign that yes, camp was a thing that needed to be a part of me, & I needed to be a part of it.

That feeling was pretty much my entire week. I knew I was truly helpful, I was part of a team, there was hard work but we had a blast & everyone helped everyone. There were moments of real connections. Iron sharpened iron. I don't remember what the actual cause was, but right at the end of the session when campers were starting to leave, something happened that did quite disrupt that feeling, & I felt... I barely remember specifically now, but I felt left out & I felt like I wasn't contributing. I was probably mostly just exhausted! I got up super early each morning to shower & have some time alone, but other than that I was surrounded all day each day by other people, & struggling to communicate in another language for most of the day, & just all of the activity & emotion & jeez yeah it's a wonder I held up at all. I discovered a whole side of myself that could do just about anything if it was what was needed; I fell madly in love with camp & it drew strength from me I never knew I had. But for some reason there at the very end, I was hurt. I don't know if it was evident or not. But our interpreter lady pulled me aside, & without a word she took a ring off of her own hand & placed it in mine. Her action & her expression told me that I mattered, & that blew all of the hurt aside.

Each of the next two years, I returned to Camp Barnabas for two sessions, & there were always those moments of knowing undoubtedly that my love of camp was something special. The volunteer coordinator remembered me, & trusted me in unique situations that came up. One of the other year-round staff made it a point to tell me that in all the years he had been there, he'd only seen one other person "glow" at camp like I did. I continued to be the one who would chop carrots, fetch scissors, dance with a little boy; whatever was needed people knew I could be asked, & that is absolutely one of my favorite feelings I've ever had. I went on to be that person at multiple other camps (some Christian, some special needs) in various positions (kitchen staff, program leader, etc), always finding that feeling of love & home & meaning, & those weird little opportunities to step into tasks when others wouldn't. Always signs that as much as other people love camp, somehow it's different with me. It's my passion like nothing else is, evident enough that people feel compelled to say something to me about it.
(As I've mentioned on this blog before, similar things happen when I go to concerts. Not quite to the same degree, but concerts are special to me.)
Camp was the best thing, & I'm thankful for the years I got to spend making it the focus of my efforts. I picked up jobs to pay my way. I quit jobs to go spend my time at camp. There was literal blood, sweat, & tears involved in not only working at camps but in the circumstances it took to get there. I think all together it made up the majority of my "coming of age", or just plain "growing up", whatever you want to call it. My resume is pretty pitiful as a result! I'm very thankful for my mom, who accepted my decision to not go to college, drove me to other states, & never pressured me to settle on something more "permanent" instead of living summer to summer. The older I get, the more I see that my mom did things that I'm sure many moms wouldn't have, & she gave me the opportunities in those formative weird tough teenage years to grow in the ways that felt right to me.

I still hope to someday be involved full-time with a camp. It's a life goal. But I have reached a point where I am sure that right now being a wife, in this house, in this community, with this church, is the right thing, instead of chasing camp. I might have raised kids by the time I return to camp, but I am convinced that someday circumstances may grant me opportunity to pursue that dream. Until then, I truly am happy here. As time passes, I find myself forgetting more & more details of my camp stories, but the lessons & feelings stay with me & will always be anchors to parts of my truest self.