Yesterday, Scott took Andrew and Christian to camp at Kids Across America.
Christian, a mere ten days younger than Andrew, is our nephew from North Carolina. Scott’s sister adopted him last year, and their family is even more unique than ours: single, white, 40-something mom in wheelchair parenting 15-year-old black son! There have been challenges, but they are making it work, and I am proud of them both and excited about what God is doing in their lives.
Anyway, Scott had the brilliant idea that it would neat for the two cousins to go to camp together, so Christian flew here last week. He had never flown before, and he had not only a flight change but an airline and terminal change during a fairly short layover at O’Hare! He handled it all fine. = )
Kids Across America (KAA) is a one-week Christian camp, an off-shoot of Kanakuk, specifically designed to minister to urban youth. It’s about an hour from here, and our guys are in the 15-18 age group. When Scott got home from dropping them off, he said it’s going to be a novel experience for Andrew, and that it was the first time he had ever remembered Andrew being a bit nervous.
There were some 200 kids there, and Scott didn’t see a white one in the bunch. Aspects of KAA that will possibly be “interesting” for Andrew include the following.
1. Although his skin is brown, he’s been raised in a white family, in virtually all-white churches, in a virtually all-white community. This is probably the first time he’s ever been around more than a couple black people at a time. Hopefully, it’s culture shock in a good way.
2. Andrew has lived his whole life in a semi-rural setting near a very small tourist town, 30 minutes from a relatively small city. The kids at the camp are probably all city kids.
3. The vast majority of people he’s been around are Christians. Not all the kids at this camp are. Yet.
4. I don’t think he knows much, if anything, about “black” lingo, hair, music, or culture. His cousin was trying to explain to him what terms like “pick” and “nappy” mean. Pretty funny. I knew them (from 16 years at a mixed-race church in Little Rock), but Andrew didn’t.
5. He’s never done (because he wasn’t interested in) team sports. He can, however, turn an infinite number of sequential back handsprings.
6. Andrew has always been homeschooled, so the idea of being required to stand in long lines (for something other than a popular ride at Silver Dollar City) is kind of foreign to him. In fact, all the public school “normalities” are foreign to him.
7. At least 75% of the kids at camp came with their church or school group, so they are with a number of folks they know. Our guys know no one there but each other.
I am sure Christian will do fine and have a great time, and I think once Andrew gets his “sea legs” he will, too. It’s important to him to fit in with a group, so I am praying for him to hold firm to what he’s been taught (2 Timothy 3:14-15 is one of our memory verses) and connect himself to some solid kids. We gave him our standard admonition to be a blessing, be an example, and have fun.
Last evening, Scott and I were talking about it all, and we realized we had both been thinking the same thing: the last time we had a whole week at home without any kids was about 24 years ago! It’s kind of a weird feeling, but so far, so good.