Feature - Angels among us

The air was thick with excitement as I stood among the crowd of staff in green polo shirts. Any minute the buses were going to arrive. This was the moment that we had been waiting for all summer long—Angel Tree Week.

I spent this last summer working as a counselor at Frontier Camp, an outdoor sports camp in East Texas. It offers a variety of different sports such as kayaking, wakeboarding, mountain biking, horseback riding, canoeing and sailing. The first nine weeks of camp were filled with middle-class children, ages 7 to 12 years old, from Dallas and Houston suburbs.

The latter part of the camp was filled with children from the inner city of Houston. Their ages ranged from 7 to 16, and they were being bussed to our camp to have the experience of a lifetime.

Little did I realize that by the time the week was over, it was I who was going to have the experience of a lifetime.

Before I worked at Frontier, I had never heard of the Angel Tree ministry or an Angel Tree week before. According to a heartbreaking statistic, these children are six times more likely to end up in jail than a child whose parents are not incarcerated. The ministry works to turn the tide of this number. They work in homes that have a parent in prison. One way that they work to turn the tide is to provide opportunities for the children to come to camps like Frontier.

Angel Tree partners with area churches and uses special scholarship funds in order to be able to send these children to camp. Often times, it is a-once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for them. A lot of the children I met the following week were living a lifestyle that was minus a childhood. They were like little old men and women, having encountered things that I had never been confronted with, such as drug abuse, verbal abuse and physical abuse. Camp allows the children the chance to get away from the turmoil of their lives at home and simply be a kid again.

Accompanying the children of Angel Tree was a group of ex-convicts, who were to work as staff members. These men had all been through a sister program of Angel Tree, called Prison Fellowship. Many people might be surprised that ex-convicts would be sent to work with children. But, while every man that accompanied the kids had been in prison, every one had turned his life around with the help of the Prison Fellowship program.

They were sent to Angel Tree because they could relate to the children since they had grown up in similar life situations. These ex-convicts could reach kids that we, as trained counselors, could not—they knew exactly where each child was coming from.

As three big busses steamed inside the camp gate followed by a green Excursion, excited yells began to fill the air. Angel Tree Week was about to begin.

"They're here! They're here!" As I waited to carry their luggage, I remember feeling anxiety. I was nervous about meeting the kids and nervous about how we were going to click solely because of the differences in our backgrounds.

But as soon as I saw the first one step off the bus, I knew it was going to be just fine. They were so small and scared. You could see the awe in their eyes as they looked around the camp. As a counselor, I was paired with four girls named Annie, Lia, Joy and Rachel in Memorial cabin. We were given the youngest group of girls, the 7-to 9-year-olds.

We quickly found our girls and their luggage and headed back to the cabin to pick out bunks and make beds. It pained me to see that several had only one blanket to cover their plastic mattresses, and it didn't even cover the entire mattress. Many of the girls did not have pillows. I turned and looked at my own inviting bed which was covered in a burgundy and tan comforter with two pillows on it. I felt heartbroken.

One day I went into the bathroom and found one of the little girls washing her clothes. I asked her what she was doing and her reply was, "My mom doesn't have enough money to wash our clothes, and so I have to wash mine in the sink." I cringed when I began to think how many times a week I use our washing machine and how I take it for granted.

Monday morning we began our daily activities: crafts, outdoorsmanship, swimming and canoeing/kayaking. These are activites that I have done all my life. The little girls were terrified to begin most of these things. They would cry at what we, the counselors, considered the smallest, un-scariest thing.

Nonetheless, each day, they slowly grew more accustomed to what we did, and we could see them calming down and beginning to enjoy each activity. For example, the first time we went swimming in the lake, each of us had at least four of our campers hanging on us. Most of them had never had swimming lessons. By the end of the week, they were all swimming with life preservers on their own like pros!

It was incredible to see the joy and excitement on their faces as they did the things that were "old-hat" to me. It made my week. It was so much fun to watch our girls warm up to us and to their surroundings. By the time the week was over, you would not know these were the same timid girls that got off the buses. They treasured all the attention and love that we gave them. The girls appreciated it when we asked them to sit in our laps. And by the end of the week, they were climbing in our laps of their own accord. They cherished our hugs. I think I must have given over 500 hugs to those girls that week.

They told me over and over again, "Julie, we want to live out here with you." They'd go on and on about how this was the best vacation they'd ever had, and they would ask me, "Can my mom buy a house out here?"

They also related some sad things to us, things that I could never even imagine. They would tell me about their dads that were in prison. A lot of them did not even know their dads. Many times if they did, they would tell me that their dads were mean to them and hit them.

But with the former convicts, who were now staff members for Angel Tree, spending time with these girls by horseback riding or swimming, these children could now experience something they had never had before. I loved watching these girls, whose dads were in prison, have the chance to have a dad.

After all had been said and done, what I came away with from my experience was a greater awareness for the world around me. Growing up in a typical, middle-class American lifestyle, I was very sheltered from people that were less fortunate than me. I knew they were out there, but I never really knew they were out there—I never came into close contact with them.

My week spent with these Angel Tree kids opened my eyes to the reality of what these kids go through. It really overwhelmed me that I have so much, and I have done so much, but this could be the only opportunity for these kids to be able to do something like this. I would count that first week in August as one of the most incredible weeks of my life. It was so special to me to have the chance to share in giving those Angel Tree campers an opportunity of a lifetime.

This story was produced by Happynews Citizen Journalist, Julie Jarrett. Jarrett is a senior in high school. Once she graduates, she plans to pursue a degree in communications. She credits her love of writing to her sophomore writing teacher, Eileen Chapman.

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