Today or tomorrow
Alan, a teen helper at camp, is on assignment: His mission is to relieve the counselors for a few hours at night, watching over (hopefully!) sleeping campers. If his assigned campers aren’t asleep, his mission is to help them feel secure and peaceful enough to fall asleep. After a full day of activities, he wonders if his charges will be sleeping, as he approaches his assigned area.
Arriving at the dorm, Alan is told by a counselor that only one camper is awake but resting quietly. With that, the counselor heads to the break room, and Alan takes up his post.
After a few minutes, he checks on the campers and sees that an 8-year-old boy is still awake. He walks over to his bunk and asks the camper his name.
“My name is Zachary, but I get angry when people call me that. I like to be called Zach.”
“Well, Zach, it’s time to go to sleep. You’ll have a busy day tomorrow,” Alan advises.
“Sometimes I just have too much energy,” Zach replies. Alan tells him that sometimes he has this problem, too. Zach asks him, “What do you do to fall asleep?”
“I think about my favorite things. Sometimes I pray to God about things I’m thinking about.”
“Well, I don’t have any favorite things to think about.”
Alan pauses, unsure of how to respond to Zach’s comment. Then he notices that Zach has a stuffed animal. “Do you think about your stuffed animal?”
“It’s a puppy dog,” Zach informs Alan.
“What’s his name?”
“He doesn’t have one.”
Alan suggests that Zach might think about giving his puppy dog a name. Then Alan tells him that when he gets angry, he can pray to God and ask God to give him happy thoughts. Zach considers this and says he will try to think of a name. Alan again takes his post, outside the dorm doors. Five minutes later, when Alan checks in on that particular room, he sees Zach has fallen asleep.
The next morning, Zach sees Alan at breakfast and runs over to him. “I named my puppy dog, and his name is Travis!”
“That’s a great name!” Alan tells him.
Zach says that he told the other campers, and they said it wasn’t a good name. “I started to get angry, but then I prayed to God, like you do, and now I don’t care if they like Travis’ name or not,” Zach says with certainty.
Amen! thinks Alan. And then, Thank you, God, for giving Zach his own favorite thing to think about.
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Royal Family Kid’s Camps is an international non-profit organization that provides the foundation for creating week-long camps for campers age 6-11. To learn more about Royal Family Kids corporate, visit them online.
Onward & Upward is our weekend-long retreats for 13-15 year olds. The retreats use a curriculum focusing on character traits of godly men and women. We began this semi-annual program in 2004 with 39 teenagers and 46 volunteers.
SUMMIT is our weekend-long retreats for 16-18 year olds. The curriculum focuses on skills that will help them function better as adults. Examples include managing bank accounts, completing job applications, & mock interviews. We began this semi-annual program in 2007 with 12 teens and 16 volunteers.
RISE is a weekend-long retreat offered in April for teen boys and November for teen girls, ages 12-18. OFC will continue to use a 2:1 teen to counselor ratio at RISE, and the curriculum and activities are designed to help teens build self-esteem and navigate gender-specific issues.
Our Father's Children exists to provide HOPE to children of abuse and neglect in Texas, ages 6-18, in week-long camp settings and weekend retreats. We recruit volunteers from a variety of cities, churches and organizations who have a heart for offering these kids hope in Jesus Christ. Whether as a volunteer or donor (or both), we would love to have you join us in providing hope to these kids!
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