let lemons be angry

Kids' camp year is over.
On the last day of camp, a few of us travelled back on the bus to the MCYS building with the children, and watched foster parents and group homes come to receive them in trickles. Some parents and homes were late, and the children had to wait. Then I returned to Sentosa where the rest of the volunteers were already having their Welcome Home lunch in loud, festive joy. I sat down with my plate and couldn't really articulate myself, or ease myself into their joy. At night I cried until my eyes were swollen.

This chunk of five days has been more than a week. It has been a year of RFKC. It has been a year of training, meetings, prayers, and hoping. Reading the children's profiles, interviewing volunteers, crossing out things on a long list of to-dos, counting how much money we had left to raise, struggling one month before camp to decide whether to continue on with camp.

It has also been one year of abundance. This whole year, I have never felt like I'm doing this alone, or that I'm too young, or too tired, or sick of camp. And I never ever felt that we had not enough resources to complete it. God provided every day. It was a year of fullness.

So when camp was over, that year of fullness was emptied in one afternoon, and I died for a little while. I thought of children who had really appreciated that there was camp this year, and I also thought of the children who were too self-protective to appreciate anyone or anything fully. I thought of the volunteers who had been strong and loving, and I also thought of the volunteers who had nothing left in their hearts to give anymore. I thought of the miracles like the sun shining every single day, and I also thought of all the man-made mistakes.

Most of all I felt the weariness of all fifty volunteers upon me. Volunteers often expect gratitude expressed from the children, because they have a preconceived notion of what a victim is. We don't realise that victims can be manipulative, insecure, or hurt us back. We don't realise that many children are so deep in their own hurt right now that they cannot rise above it and understand what we have given. Someday they might, but not right now.

On the way back to MCYS, a child asked me how much camp had cost. "They say it's a few thousand, is it?" And I just said yes. I couldn't tell her how much people had given, because that would spoil it somehow.

We too cannot keep thinking about what we have given. That will spoil it all.