Week 6: Project evaluation

“It’s not enough for you to do well, you want to do good. You want your life to matter. You want to live in such a way that the world will be glad that you did.” –Max Lucado

This has been a summer that has constantly been changing me and changing my campers. One week I wrote in my journal “8 beautiful little girls with a LOT of sass, keeping us on our toes! Didn’t realize how nice it was to be overstaffed until now with three more of them than us! I have some cute little babies holding my hand all of the time!”

At the end of cancer week I wrote, “What an absolutely beautiful week; so incredibly life changing. I had girls bonding over the location of their port, how many surgeries they had, the smell of the gas used to put them to sleep before surgery. One little girl at the age of 8 has had 36 surgeries already. Two became best friends. All are braver than anyone I know and have seen way too much for 7 and 8 years old.” One of the little girls was diagnosed with leukemia about a year ago and I had the opportunity to see the pictures of her sick. I burst into tears immediately. However, as sad as it was to see that, it was even more incredible to see how far she is come and to know all of the incredible things she has ahead of her. I cried so many tears over her and the beautiful little girls in my cabin. It was an awesome week.

So. What have I learned? Diseases know no boundaries. Even though a 15 year old boy was born with no arms and dealt with more teasing and bullying than any child could, he can still get leukemia. Even though it took him most of those 15 years for him to accept his body the way it is and to come to love himself, he can still get a disease that will begin to attack him in a different way. However, I also have learned that those labels don’t make a child. The child takes the labels and accepts them, but then pushes past boundaries and limits that society places on them. Just because one girl was told she would never be able to control her own wheel chair didn’t mean it would be true. She got a controller put in the head rest, and now wherever she leans her head directs where she goes. Just because a child will never be able to walk on their own, doesn’t mean that when you put him into the water he won’t hold up his own weight and walk across the pool. This summer I have learned to raise your expectations for these children, because they will do things that are more incredible than you could possibly imagine.