03/07/2024
Just a quick, “Why we do the foster kids camps” story. A couple years ago at TRAC for the girls, there was one girl that was smiling all the time and was always lifting everyone up and looking out for those that she was around. This is sometimes a tell in foster kids that are the oldest sibling and have been put into an overwhelming position of responsibility due to a challenging home-life. This young girl was mother-henish to all the other girls and at times very standoffish from the male staff.
Let’s call her “Kim”. Kim was obviously dealing with more than her fair share in life and had more on her plate than most adults could successfully deal with. Now, being a middle aged man I really didn’t expect a real bonding with Kim so I kinda stayed on the outer boundaries of communication with her and just kinda stayed present but sorta neutral. With some of these kids the worse thing you can do is get a savior complex and try to solve all of their problems in one fail swoop, they have been analyzed and counseled to the hilt already and just want to be a child for a change instead of everything their forced to be.
The final day came and the girls were presented with a photo album of pictures taken during the course of camp. The girls were all excited and were passing their albums around to each other and staff to be signed in the back. A few of the girls had came to me and asked me to write something in their albums and I obliged, but I was somewhat in disbelief and honored when Kim brought her album to me to be signed. She just simply said, “Mr. Tommy would you like to write something in my book?”, I immediately said, “I would love to!”. I took her album and took a couple minutes and wrote a short note in the back of her album and that was that.
The time had finally come for the girls to leave and this is always an emotional time for everyone as you don’t know what kinda situations these kids are going back to, or if you will ever see them again. The girls made their way down the lined up staff saying their goodbyes. I was already teary eyed when Kim got to me and for some reason I was expecting some great revelation of some evidence of a bond that we might have made as with some of the others, but no, nothing, “Bye fishing dude” and that was it.
Fast forward almost one year, we were at the fairgrounds in Russellville setting up for one of our many necessary TRAC fundraisers and I hear a familiar voice, “Hey Mr. Tommy!”. I turn around and it’s Kim! All these familiar faces to her and she picks me out to speak to. I was elated to see her and to learn that she and her siblings had been adopted by a wonderful family and they were all there! We talked for a few seconds and she kinda drifted to the next familiar face to say hi. During the course of the day she returned to our booth several times like she wanted to share something but couldn’t quite get it out. Finally in the last moments of cleaning up to leave she came up to me with a more serious and intentional demeanor. She said, “Mr. Tommy, I just wanted you to know something. I’ve wanted to tell you all day but I knew I had to now.” She said, “Every time I hit a dark spot in my life after I got back from camp I would run to my room and pick up my album. I’d flip to the back where you wrote that note to me and I’d cry and pray and somehow God would get me through it. And I just wanted you to know that God used you to help me and my siblings through some bad stuff. Thank you!”. She hugged my neck and went back to her family. I stood there with tears running down my cheeks in disbelief of what had just happened.
For the life of me, I cannot remember what I wrote in her album, and to be honest I don’t care what words I put down as long as she sees Christ through it.
It is never about us, it is never about what we can do, it is never about our words.....it’s about simple obedience in the seemingly small things! Never underestimate a small unknown gesture, to you it may be minuscule, to someone else it may be life changing.
