I think, before I begin, I should mention that there are a great many experiences that I

have had and continue to have that impact and influence me. Even the little things. The
experience I am going to share I cannot limit to any set number of words, but I will try to write as
effectively as possible with as few words I can.
I recently had an experience over the summer that will continue to impact me for the rest
of my life. I went to camp. More specifically, I went to a week-long overnight church camp in
South Carolina. It may not sound very exciting, and the swamp-like humidity in which you never
fully dried after being in the lake wasn’t, but that camp changed something in me. And really, it
wasn’t the camp--it was the people. You wouldn’t think of a church camp as the place to go and
meet pretty damaged kids--your own age or younger-- but that’s who I met. I met children who
have to be incredibly strong every single day of their lives.
A girl who years later still has nightmares because the people who should have
protected her innocence are the very people who took it away. She does better with horses than
people.
Another with a smile as big as her heart, but only a year ago felt her life would be better
if it ended. And yet she lights up the room.
Two boys discuss a friend, wondering if their he’s alright after a local gang came for him
back home. Bullet holes riddled his house.
A glimpse of an arm ​covered​ in the clean, raised edges of line, after line, after line. They
turn--it’s both arms.
Someone lets a tear fall in the safety of darkness and admits their greatest fear--to
become an addict like their mother--who they never met.
So many stories I could share from that camp and my heart broke for every one of them.
We often say at Lincoln Charter that we are a sheltered group of kids, protected by a bubble
that loving parents and teachers have formed around us. Of course we’re grateful for it, but we’ll
have to be exposed to the real world eventually. That Wednesday at camp, when the first one
opened up to me---the bubble broke. The real world came flooding in and my wide-eyed naivety
became wide-eyed astonishment. Sadness. Anger. Yes, I knew things like this happened, but
now I’d met some of the most beautiful people I will ever know, and to know what had happened
to them… My heart broke for each and every one. It still does. For most if not all of those
teenagers, myself included, this camp was an escape much needed. I just didn’t realize how
much of an escape it was, for some more than others. For me it suddenly became an
opportunity to be a listener, someone they could trust with their burdens. For them, it was
sanctuary. I gained a family larger than imaginable that week, one that will be with me all my
life.
As our voices rose into the night, all mingling together in old sadness and newfound
love, the words we sang- we sang for each other.
“Pure and holy,
tried and true
With thanksgiving, I'll be a living
Sanctuary
for You”.​