We picked Tommy up from bible camp this afternoon. We had several notes from him this week, sad notes, saying he was homesick and missed us a lot. We called camp a couple of times to check in on him through our friends Josh and Sarah, who were there this week. They assured us after checking with his counselor, that it was only at night time that he was homesick and sad, all day long he was happy and loving camp. So we opted to keep him at camp, wrote him emails that we knew he could do it and how proud we were of him sticking it out.
We arrived at camp this afternoon and saw a little boy running to us sobbing, so happy to have us there. I don't know that I will ever forget that moment of him running to me with tears streaming down his cheeks. I really don't. I didn't have my camera settings right, I wasn't planning on using it yet and Scott was carrying it. Scott tried to get one of him and I hugging first and the images are all way overexposed...:( and then I grabbed the camera and snapped this, it was a little better. Regardless of the imperfections of this photo, I still love this moment it captured of him hugging his Dad.
He talked the entire way home about how great camp was, how much fun he had, all of the fun games and his wonderful counselors...he just didn't like the overnight portion of camp. :) Thinks he would love it even more as a day camp, hmm a 65 minute commute one way to camp. :)
We are PROUD of him for making it all week, we even gave him the option to come home on thursday and play ball games today with his team, he chose camp. :) He was given the Cabin award today for "Joyfulness", what a compliment that was for him, knowing he had some struggles at nights.
Way to persevere Tommy! God protects you ALL the time, if we are WITH you and if we are AWAY from you.
We are happy to have him home...
Susan, that is so sweet. I think the picture means even more since it was so that moment and shows how much Tommy missed you all.
ReplyDelete