Unconditional Love
I never thought disabled people could teach me anything, but
I was wrong. Our first and last week in
South Africa we worked at a camp for disabled people and they taught me so many
incredible things. Our second week at
camp we all talked about how we were learning about love- especially
unconditional love. I never thought my
greatest example would be less than an hour before our last camp ended. Our last camp was for young adults with
intellectual impairment- meaning they were from 16-30 with all sorts of
impairments from birth (Down Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy, Autism, etc). It was a challenging week. There were about 16 campers and I was
responsible of taking care of 4 guys for the week- 3 with Down Syndrome
(Charles, Tim, and Philip) and the other with Cerebral Palsy (Darren).
Charles, Tim, and Philip were really easy to take care
of. For the most part they did
everything they needed to other than being reminded to brush their teeth and
bribing them to take a shower every few days.
Darren was more challenging. When
I first read his information sheet before camp I think my stomach dropped a
little bit. The sheet said I would have
to bathe, feed, clothe, wipe, and shower him.
Darren can’t use his month so all his food has to be cut up into tiny pieces
and then he spoons the food into his mouth and attempts to swallow his food
without chewing- making a gigantic mess in the process. He also can’t talk. With his family he uses sign language but
with strangers he has a book with pictures and words that he points to when he
needs or wants to tell you something.
Eventually we created our own sign language for if he was doing well and
going to the bathroom. During nap time I
would look around the room to make sure everyone was ok and Darren would always
look at me with a big smile and give me a thumbs up.
kids because I didn’t want to have kids like this. I want kids that are “normal” and these guys
weren’t. They were nonstop work and
tough to handle all the time. The job to
take care of them only stopped when they were sleeping and even then some were
up most of the night. After a while I
started to appreciate their differences, the constant laughs they gave me and
the incredible love they always showed me.
When all of their parents came to pick them up, the love shown to me did
not even compare to the love the parents had for their kids. When Darren’s dad came to pick him up and as
we all walked to our cabin to grab his stuff, Darren’s dad couldn’t stop
kissing and hugging his son saying “oh my son, oh my son, I love you and missed
you”. I thought, how? I was torn.
Having a son like Darren is hard.
As more and more parents continued to arrive my eyes were opened even
more. They all showed perfect examples
of true unconditional love and a perfect example of our Father’s truly
unconditional love for us. We are far
from perfect, messy, and definitely not normal- but God’s love for us is so
great he just wants to hold us and say “oh my son, I love you”. South Africa was one incredible month!
Higher Ground Camp from Glenn Pickens on Vimeo.
