The beautiful smiles from Gods children, the high fives, sweet hello and hard goodbye, a simple I love you and your were awesome in the dunking booth. This past week has been a huge blessing.
This past week was the first session of Camp Buckner foster camp. Its a two night three day camp where foster families come to just be served and loved for a few days! It's the camp we have been waiting for all summer. I was only able to be part of the camp one of the three days, but that one day was a huge blessing. We were encouraged to really interact with the kids, eat meals with them, swim with them, play with them, dance with them and just love them. That was not a hard task to complete. After breakfast we all ventured off to play with the sweet kids outside of the dining hall. I sat with three children playing in the dirt. One little boy walked up to me and told me he was planting me multiple coconut trees. Seeing the joy these kids have from the simplest things. I gave one little girl a little seed to plant and her face lit up as I sat with her. She loved that I was taking time to get to know here by asking her name and age. I couldn't help but smile when I looked at their lit up faces. After that we all met up and had a pump it up session. We got with the kids and just danced to ridiculous fun songs! One little girl who was around two was standing by herself. She was trying to dance to the song. I go up to dance with her and she lifts her arms for me to pick her up. I pick her up and dance with her to one of the songs. When that song ends and were standing around waiting for the next song she lays her head on my shoulder and just gives me a long hug. For a moment she just stayed there then she went back to dancing with me.
That night we had a Buckner state fair for the kids. All of us paired up and came up with one game to do for the kids. For most of them they had never experienced something like this. It was an honor to put the fair on for them. My booth was the dunking booth. I was freezing and wet but seeing how much joy the kids got out of dunking me made it all worth it. They just laughed and their faces lit up every time the water fell on me. I couldn't help but laugh and enjoy it! We also had little prizes or them. Seeing how excited they got for the little toy in a bag was great! Child like joy! One kid told one of our staff members that he had never gotten a prize in his life and that night he got six! How awesome is it that we got to be part of that kids first prize. They were all so joyful and lovable! They wanted nothing more than to hang out with us, and we wanted nothing more than to love on them for a weekend! At the end of the fair we had another dance party. I saw kids who were afraid to dance break out of that shell and just dance in joy. I got to dance with so many beautiful kids who were way better than me!
In one day God showed me more of His loving character than ever before.
The next day we were all sitting at a table eating about to get started on turnover. Most of the families had already left but there were still quite a few left on campus. One family with about five kids came up and said by to all of us. They proceeded to just love on us. They came up and gave us high fives, continually told us hank you and told us they loved us and will miss us. Honestly I could not tell you any of their names, but their words are forever on my heart. One of the girls in the family gave me multiple hugs and told me thank you. All I could say back was "no, thank you" These kids have been through way more than I have in there few short years. They have endured pain that I could not even imagine. Their beauty and their joy is inspiring. They were always smiling and laughing and loving us.
I was here to serve these kids. I was here to love on them with a Christ like love. They helped me more than I helped them. I really felt Gods love in their sweet hugs. I saw His light shining through their beautiful smiles and laughs. Its crazy how we go out onto the mission field to serve others, but those we are serving end up stealing our hearts and serving us without even knowing it. These kids draw me closer to God and strive to have a love and heart like they do.
This week God taught me to love others with the love of a child. They have a genuine love, just like Gods love for us even when we are the least deserving of it.
God bless <3
Heaven Slaughter
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