a fishing pole

No pictures today but a great story. I thought I would have some time to blog and take pictures and I have not done either. I will try to get some pictures tomorrow because this place is out of this world and I just have to share it. {Oh and thanks for all the comments you left last week….that was so much fun!}

This week we have around 325 campers and with us is a Capernaum group from South Carolina.

“Young Life Capernaum gives young people with mental and physical disabilities the chance to experience fun and adventure, to develop fulfilling friendships and to challenge their limits while building self-esteem through club, camp and other exciting activities.”

We are truly blessed to be a part of this week with our Capernaum friends here. Yesterday I watched a kid named Alex, who is in a wheelchair, race Andy and Boone {who was in his stroller}.  Andy told me later is what Alex’s idea. Ha!

Then this morning there was a volleyball tournament and two games were going on: The staff men against a group of guys and then staff spouses against a group of girls…in wheelchairs!  Wyatt played with us and got to “serve” the ball, he loved it and so did they.

After that game a kid named Matt talked to Wyatt about why he has to use a walker. He could see the interest and confusion in Wyatt’s face and just started explaining to him why he has to have one and how he gets from one place to the other.

This afternoon I was walking around with the boys when I saw some excitement happening down by the lake. We walk over and realize that Alex had been fishing and set his pole down to go check out this HUGE spider. He asked someone to get his fishing pole for him but the fishing pole was no where to be found. We look out over the “lake” {which is more like a huge pond} and there is the fishing pole floating in the water but there is definitely something on the other end pulling it. We all laughed because Alex had just been using bread to fish with but there was obviously something that wanted that bread. It was just funny to see this pole going around and around.

A leader decided to get in the water and grab a hold of the pole  but was too nervous to pull it up because who knows if it was in fact a fish or possibly a snake. So he drags it over to Kyle who is one of our head leaders this month. Kyle can see in the water that it’s a fish but does not pull it out of the water. Instead we are all watching and he yells to Alex that he has “caught a big one”. The excitement builds and Alex has the biggest smile on his face. Kyle goes from the one side of the pond over the small bridge, over to where Alex is waiting to see what he’s caught…still with the fish in the water. He then helps Alex pull the fish out of the water and we all cheer and clap in excitement. There were leaders and kids who took pictures and it was just a beautiful moment.

And Alex looked so proud. He was proud. And so were we.