Mission Trip: LRS Camp 2017 Day 4

This was written by Emily Kam, an Agape Fish high school intern. View the original post.

​I led the morning exercise today by teaching them some fencing moves. Josiah helped me to demonstrate.

Lunge!

Later, the children made dot paint pictures, beaded bracelets, and decorated scratch magic together. The counselors then took all the artwork and tacked it up outside on one of the house walls.

​It was beautiful. 

The display.

The beaded bracelets!

​At the very beginning of the week, even before we arrived at the campsite, I noticed an older girl standing in the midst of the kids waiting for the bus. She wasn’t talking like the others, and I got the sense that she had retreated inside herself in a way, distancing herself even in the crowd. When we got to the camp and started the introductions, I happened to sit next to her, which is when I noticed her gray-streaked hair.

In the English class, she hung back, hesitantly saying the foreign words and making feeble attempts to participate. I wanted to see her smile.

One morning, I noticed that she wasn’t participating in the early exercise. Instead, she sat down on the curb and hunched over a notebook. She was writing. Does she like to write, like I do? I walked over and sat down next to her, waving hello. She looked back at me, eyes flat and serious, and gave a small wave. I silently lamented my lack of Mandarin knowledge, but I just kept her company while the rest of the kids jumped up and down and waved their arms.

But by the fourth day, she had begun to open up. She talked more, participated more, and best of all, smiled more. She wrote down Beth’s and my email address, saying that once she got a computer she would email us. I wondered how long it would be until that happened, but no matter how long it would take, I would never forget her. We gave her an English name: Laura, which means “winner”.

Left to right: Me, Laura, and Beth.