Story of the One: Letters with Grandpa

Last year I wrote cards for all of the boys at camp, and one child had asked me to do a racing car. All 24 cards were done late into the night and put onto their bunks. I recall one child saying before the end of canp "Thank you Grandpa".

The following year as Grandpas, of which there were two, we randomly split the list of names into two. On the second evening, whilst chatting after Grandpas story time to two boys in a pod, one said that he still had the racing car I did for him last year (I did two that year - the rest took a shorter time to complete). On hearing the this, the other child, who was at camp for the first time, asked if he could have one, so I said yes.

Midst the activity of camp I managed to finish all the cards but realised I had run out of purple card to enclose the pencil messages on paper, so to treat all of them equally I cut the card in half and fitted the messages inside. However, towards the end of the activity, alone in my room, repeatedly I felt from God to leave this one sketch inside card double the size of all the others as the sketch would have had to be folded in two. It went against a thought of treating all the children equally. Later that week all the cards were placed on their bunks when they were out the room: end of activity...

The family circumstances of the child who requested the card was discovered by one of the female staff in the activity team, and it became evident that God wanted a double blessing for this child. The pair of us as workers chatting about this child were in a bit of an emotional melt down in the staff canteen, but we gathered things together and carried on with our tasks for the rest of the camp.

A piece of paper, pencil sketch, and a purple folded card, and being sustained and encouraged by our prayer team, God is in the detail. He knows each child, how to bless them, and as we serve, the Holy Spirit leads and guides. Some tasks at camp seem trivial, but a small gesture of love can help a damaged child experience the healing hand of a loving Heavenly Father who knows every detail of their young lives.