Cleveland Heights

Cleveland Heights was the most difficult week thus far. It's not to say our campers were particularly bad kids, or kids who had disabilities. The church is technically an inner city church, even though (as the pastor put it) it appears that the Cleavers live right next door. All but one of our campers were African American. They were completely adorable (at least my group was; I'm not sure how much pre-teens would appreciate being called adorable). Kathryn and I had the younger kids. Thus, they were adorable.

But they were a handful. The first day they were lethargic as could be. The next days they had more energy, but all they wanted to do was play games. We could eek maybe one craft out of them, but that was about it. However, by the end of the week they were getting up, singing songs at the top of their lungs, and one of our campers said one of the most adorable prayers. Kathryn and I both wish we could remember exactly what he said. It was just that hilarious and cute. His prayer was something along the lines of, "I know you're up there in the clouds watching us, Jesus. And Barack Obama is our president and we'll take things one step at a time. And we love you God." I had to stifle my laughter while he was praying.

The week, in a phrase, was "organized chaos." Even then, sometimes it was just chaos. But the church appreciated us being there and having the camp period. So that was good to know.

We did have a quite enjoyable time with our host families. We were able to visit President James Garfield's monument in Lakeview Cemetery, eat gelato and walk around Little Italy, and just spend time relaxing at our host homes.

Peace.