WEDNESDAYS AND WOW!

Wedneday afternoons bounce with happiness. It’s Camp B Day! Last fall my Companions class felt we needed to share our love. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, we found a way to do that through Camp B, an afterschool reading club for first and second graders at a local aparment complex. Every Wednesday we meet the children’s bus. They fly, jump, and skip off that bus with big smiles and open arms. Once in a while we can tell their school day was tough, and we open our arms first. On the walk back to the apartment, maintained by Youth Assistance and the complex for just such afterschool programs, we talk and chat and find out just why they’re wearing their clothes backward (Wacky Wednesday) or who got in trouble on the bus, and what words they must know before Friday.

Camp B was set up with book enrichment and reading relationships as its purpose. It is easy to love a child when they’re snuggled on your lap, reading together. We plan happy reading activities, play book games, toss story cubes and read aloud favorite books. We savor books together and all the adults involved nod and keep repeating, “We are learning so much,” “The children are teaching us simple happiness,” “We are the lucky ones.”

This Wednesday that was affirmed once again and it came not from the reading, but from the eating. When the children arrive at Camp B, we have a substanial afterschool snack ready. Yes, we try to be healthy, but an occasional cupcake or gummy worm does slip in. In the middle of carrots, celery, cheese and turkey rolls, yesterday, was a fruit rainbow; a kabob filled with strawberries, oranges, kiwi, blueberries, grapes. We talked about the colors, the tastes, the shapes. They were amazed a kiwi starts as a brown fuzzy hardball.

But it was the popcorn that gave us the greatest gift. JOY. One of the volunteers brought an airpopper and popped the first batch before the children arrived. But the second they were allowed to watch, and watch they did. With rapt attention to the empty popper, they were told to be patient as it “got hot.” Their eyes didn’t move, except to open wider. They were transfixed as the popper gurgled and bubbled out pure white kernals of fluff. One little boy covered his mouth in sheer amazement as he whispered, “Oh.” Two girls who spend most of their time gossiping together, remained silent, their eyes grown huge in astonishment. It was a good moment. Joy eminating from such an innocent foodstuff.

Thanks be to God for giving us children who can transform a simple moment into simple joy.