The Christians must be crazy

Let's all say it together now....bad, bad, bad Annalyse! I know - I have been woefully unfaithful with the blog updates recently. I should (and have been) shamed thoroughly, by both my own reproachful self and several family members. But really - it's not my fault! Personally, I blame it all on the professors - giving me all sorts of assignments and stuff. What do they think this is? School?:) And though I have had multiple exciting, fantastic, or frustrating experiences over these past few weeks, I think the most memorable was Royal Family Kid's Camp.
If you've read Mommy's blog, then you have most likely heard a little bit about this. But, just for clarification-sake, Royal Family Kid's Camp is a camp for abused foster kids. The whole premise of the camp is to show God's love to kids that, through no fault of their own, have been dealt a hard hand. We try to become Jesus with skin on by spending time with them, having fun with them, and in general, spoiling them. Each child there was treated as royalty - literally. I felt like I was working at DisneyWorld - "where dreams come true". But so much better.
After being switched around for weeks, I was finally assigned to horse staff - which meant I put kids on horses and led them around for 20 minutes (often spending more time running than the horse). It was exhausting, but incredible. So many wonderful stories of kids that were terrified of horses overcoming their fears and getting on anyway; or where the kid attached to the horse and began considering them "their" horse. After every ride, most of the kids would get off with enormous smiles on their faces, kiss the horse on its nose and beam at me, saying "I think he likes me!" (Which, of course, he did.)
There were also heartbreaking situations when I had to bite back the tears and keep my mouth shut. One day, an older boy - J - got on the horse I was leading. I did what I normally did (pretended to be an extrovert; so successfully, in fact, I think I fooled everyone into thinking that I actually was) and began asking questions- what had he done that day, had he enjoyed it, what was his favorite part of camp, etc., etc. J told me that horses were his favorite activity and went on - "I don't know how people could hurt animals. I love animals. I just don't understand how ANYONE could hurt them." (Of course, the next logical step is "how could anyone hurt children?") For the next 20 minutes, he did therapy on the back of this horse. Praise God - I had the intelligence to keep my mouth shut for most of the time, uttering occasional Hms and ohs. Once I asked him what he would like to do when he grew up. He wanted to be a zoo keeper. So I praised the idea and told him that I thought he would make a wonderful zoo keeper because he cared so much about the animals, and he was gentle with them. He was the only child during the entire camp that didn't smile once while riding. When it was finally time to get off, he kissed the horse's nose several times and said, "I think he'll miss me." With tears in my eyes, I assured J that the horse most certainly would.
While I was at camp, I knew that we were impacting these kids' lives...that it was a sort of missions trip. But, we had comfortable beds, good food, warm showers, and days filled with the sole purpose of having fun, so I was thinking that this would be one of the easier missions trips I'd been on. After all, how hard would it be compared to Mexico or Thailand? I was wrong - so wrong. I didn't know how wrong I was until I returned and a week and a half later, I was still recovering. It was one of the most intense trips of my life. But SO worth it. The kids touched me permanently, and I was wounded for them...a wound that I hope will, with God's provision, always remain tender.

And I can't wait to go back next year.

P.S. I realized on this trip why the rest of the world thinks Christians are crazy. I'm serious! I think I figured it out....we are gluttons for punishment. We pray to be taught things that we know are going to be painful lessons (take patience or unconditional love); we pray that He will dig deep into our hearts and make us more like Him (what, in DTS, we called "open heart surgery"); we go on trips and do things that break our hearts, and then we go back and do it again! All for the sake of obedience. And then, we start to LIKE it! That does look a little like goofiness, doesn't it? But, there IS method to our madness....and that's what makes it worth it!