RFKC Part Three – Campfire
At Royal Family Kids Camp, I had the honor of sharing with the kids and leading our campfire time on our last day. It is a time if sharing our favorite memories, then talking to the kids about hurts, pains, and disappointment. They each get a piece of wood and are invited to bring it down to the fire and throw it in when they were ready as a sign of trusting their hurts to God. During this time we play a song they know, "Lay It Down", by Jana Alayra, on the guitar. It's a profound night for these kids, and the emotion that night is pretty intense.
I gave a short talk to set up the time of giving our hurts up to God. We talked about going back home to the lives that were down the mountain, staff and campers alike. As part of that, I shared some of my own story with them. I started by telling them about my parents being divorced when I was two years old. What I wasn't expecting was a response. When I shared that, a voice came from the crowd that said,
"Mine too!"
Following that, there must have been 15-20 kids who raised hands and shouted that out as well. It kinda blew me away. I stopped for a minute and looked to the right where I caught Chris's eyes while I composed myself quickly before moving on.
All these kids sitting here from broken homes. In reality I was pretty lucky with parts of my story. Already many of these kids have lived through things more horrific than I can imagine, or want to. It reinforced in me a passion to see healthy marriages in our communities to keep these situations from happening over and over again.
*Bonus Story: To lighten the mood a bit, we had lots of great songs to sing at camp. I had a good time belting them out at random times in the not-so-prettiest of voices. One time a kid shouted out, "Don't quit your day job!" To which I then replied, "Actually…that is my day job."
Guess I might need to be job hunting soon!
