A full quarter of the staff are feeling ill in some way or another. I have a persistent cough. Some of us are fatigued. I can tell that I've given it my all, and I am proud of it. This afternoon I slept for three full hours and awoke to Becky standing in my doorway! A lovely surprise.
My two groups of girls over the last two weeks could not have differed more. The first week, they were mostly all 11-year-olds. They were boy crazy, self-conscious, self-aware, hesitant to get too deep in a group for fear of being called weak for vulnerability. Individually, they were able to get a little deeper. The girls with whom I had one-on-one time all come from difficult home lives. Kay's father left them on her birthday this year. She has night terrors if she doesn't journal before going to sleep.
Four years ago, Kira found her newborn sister dead in her crib. She has been in counseling ever since. She and her mom go to visit the baby's grave every month. Every month! I was crying by the end of her story. But she seems to be unaware of her stinted healing. She is not moving on.
Reilly is one of ten children. She is right in the middle and proclaimed by all to be the most mature of all the kids. She cleans constantly for fear that she will lose her standing as the most behaved child.
It's difficult to get serious with people who are eleven years old in a group. But they sober right up when it's just the two of you.
This week, my cabin was all ten-year-olds. They did not sober right up when we were one-on-one. Some of their stories were challenging. But they as a group were the challenge. They had constant energy. When Christyn and I would wake up for our personal devotion time at 6:30am, we saw six or seven heads pop up and look about. They ran on less than seven hours of sleep every night. (Note "ran"). And we both went to bed later and woke up earlier than they. Not. Fair.
Middle schoolers come next week. Pray that the coughing will end and that we'll be ready to give a new set of everything.
