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Camp Restore Partners with Families of Oil Spill Victims
July 22, 2010-
Written by Michael Pieper
Photos by Han Nguyen
Well hello there, my name is Michael and I’ve been interning at Camp Restore this summer. In lieu of typing for the next several hours, telling you all how amazing the past five weeks have been, I will just succinctly state that the experience has vastly exceeded my expectations, and that through it God has revealed an incredible amount of his love and power to me.
A big part of the reason it has been so great is what this little blurb is about:
At a meeting in mid-June that I was fortunate enough to attend, numerous non-profits and outreach organizations convened to get the latest update on the vast number of issues concerning the oil spill and to decide what they could do about it. During the meeting, Joycelyn Heintz, a local woman working for a different rebuilding organization, talked about some of the human needs that she had learned of. She said that she kept hearing, from the wives of the fisherman, that the children of the fishermen now had nothing to do and they had just been sitting around in the house.
I later learned that many of the fisherman-families were a lot like the old-time farm-families, in the sense that the whole family was involved in the work; the fishing business was a family business, and so the oil spill hadn’t just effected the employment of the father or the mother, but for many it had affected the whole family’s way of life. I also learned that since the main or only source of income had recently slowed or ceased, some of these families were now living without electricity. With no electricity indoors, it being in the heat of the summer outdoors, and, ultimately, without the routine activities of participating in fishing, children had ended up with no other option than to stay indoors with little or no activity.
Kathy Wendling, the Director of Ministry Restoration at Camp Restore, approached Joycelyn after the meeting about wanting to get involved in putting on some type of event for these kids. Through conversation, we came up with the idea of putting on a 3-day “field day”/“fun camp”/“play day”, and before I knew it, Kathy had allowed me, from Camp Restore’s end of things, to take responsibility on the planning and developing of all this. It was really exciting, but really scary too, knowing that I was being given an amazing opportunity to work on such an awesome project.
I attended three meetings with Joycelyn and with some of the fisherman wives. These women, the wives, were something else, but in a very good way. They had a presence that seemed to fill up the entire room, and they also had an amazing drive about them, like they could do pretty much anything if they were to decide to really go ahead and do it. The best portion of the “work” in preparing for this event was done by them, and I thought that was appropriate. They testified to how good it felt to have the opportunity to put their mind and effort back into a task again, after the oil spill had been trying to force upon them idleness. It was awesome to witness them being able to work on something for their own community, for their families and their neighbors and all the people they love, rather than just accepting the “handout” of an event like this. It was a very special partnering, being able to work with them.
Last Tuesday evening, the day before the event, I had this pit in my stomach. I had spent the day stressing out about all of the work I had done up until this point. Camp Restore was providing the volunteers to facilitate this event so I was in charge of orientating the volunteers and putting together a number of games and activities that would occupy most of the 5 hours of this field day. My mind was racing with thoughts of the schedule for the day, the process of splitting the kids up into age groups, the stations that the groups would rotate to and from, the list of games that I had prepared for the volunteers, the breakdown of what games were in what station, etc. Late that night, one of the volunteer groups staying at Camp Restore asked me to pray with them as I was walking by on my way to go to bed. I then realized that I had been occupying myself with all of the details and nuances of tomorrow, so much so that I had not yet slowed down and actually asked God to bless it and to watch over all of it. We joined hands, went around the circle with our petitions, and at that point I totally offered up the authority and sovereignty of the next day over to God.
The next morning came and the schedule that I had spent hours laboring over, the stations I had stressed about, the age groups I had tried to plan all went right out the window. It didn’t end up happening. And it was for the best. It’s not a hard or structured thing to enjoy and experience the concept of play with children. Now, I see that it was as if God was telling me, “Michael, it’s not that hard when you just trust me.”
Click Here to View Photos of Down Da Road FUN CAMP!
The volunteers from Camp Restore that came were absolutely incredible with the kids, nothing short of blessings, straight from God, into the hearts and smiles of these children. But the kids were the highlight of the inaugural Down ‘Da Road Fun Camp (that’s the official name that we ended up calling it). They immediately opened up and made their way into our affections. Every single child, out of the approximate 100 that attended one or all of the three days, experienced the gift of fun and joy, but gave it back ten-fold to us “grown-ups”. Throughout the three days, I heard a number of kids say how much fun they were having, especially compared to how boring most days have been this summer. Hearing those words made me so happy, but also so sad, wishing that we could have this “fun camp” every day for the kids, that it could never end.
As I am writing this, my whole legs and upper body are sore, and I am completely exhausted from these three days, but mostly, I am filled in all of the other ways that matter. If you turn on CNN these days, you will hear loads about the terrible effects of this oil spill, and you can start to feel helpless in being able to offer any type of redemption to the situation. The Gulf Oil Spill is terrible; I have learned that, being here the past 5 weeks. But I want you to know that there are very good things happening in the midst of all of it. For whatever reason, I was given the invaluable opportunity to be a part of an event that brought joy and light into the lives of some of the kids and families whose lives have been so negatively affected by this disaster.