Camp Brave Heart
Don’t you just love that title? It is more than a title. It is a place of hope and refuge. My friend asked if I’d like to volunteer with him to help with getting children and teens off to their summer camp.
I wasn’t hesitant at all, but WOW, did I get a boatload of inspiration when those kids were making their way to our table to register them.
The parents and children from ages 6-17 started arriving around 8 am. It was then that my heart strings were tugged. Reality set in. Those children and teens were going to Hospice Austin’s Camp Brave Heart. This wonderful camp is a 4-day/3-night camp for those who have been and are grieving the death of someone important in their lives.
Camp Brave Heart is offered free of charge and is a fun, high-energy camp combined with grief education, peer bonding, and emotional support led by grief support professionals and trained volunteers.
Maggie Cochran with Hospice Austin says: “A lot of children, when they lose a loved one, they don’t know a lot of other kids that have lost a loved one and so to bring them together to spend fun time together and therapeutic time together can really help them grieve and heal as they continue through their childhood and adulthood.”
Quite frankly, I thought about me, who at age 15, experienced the passing of my father. How timely it would have been for me to have had that kind of support and encouragement.
Some of the kiddos shed some tears at the sheer notion of leaving their parent, but I like to think that those tears turned to joy and inspiration once they felt the love and support by this beautiful team of caring and loving team members.
One of the “veterans” who has served the camp for over 20 years, schooled us with four important objectives for the campers:
1) To realize grief and loss is normal and, yes, it sucks.
2) To increase moments of connection. “You are not alone. Look around you. We are ALL connected.”
3) To cultivate feelings of empowerment and self-awareness.
4) To develop coping and expressive skills via play and creativity.
I love this down-to-earth reality check. This program is wrapped in the Gospel as we know it. God sent His Son to help us “normalize” our lives. He was one of us. He suffered grief and loss of His earthly father and His beloved cousin, John the Baptist.
He demonstrated the importance of “connection” by starting a “connect” group – His disciples and other followers. He demonstrated empowerment and self-awareness in His teachings and His actions of healing, restoring, and delivering the captives of sin, sickness, and distress.
And, through His Holy Spirit, He offers us everything we need to overcome the challenges of this life.
We all need someone to lean on and how amazing to know that we have each other and most of all, our Lord Who is with us in every struggle and disappointment we might face in this life.
I shared about Camp Brave Heart to nudge my readers to find a place where they can be the hands and feet of Jesus in our world. There are many worthwhile charitable organizations that bring hope and healing to their community.
Are you tired of finding your “fix” watching TV for hours, playing games or other unproductive activities, then I encourage us all to find an organization that helps to spread “the Gospel” of loving our neighbors as we love ourselves. Take it from me — you’ll be so glad you did.