My last Sunday was June 30. Each week, the children are dismissed from the service right before the sermon to their time of worship. I wasn’t teaching, however I had planned to assist in the classroom in order to spend time with the children on my last Sunday with the church..
The plan was to have this week be a relaxed "party" to celebrate the start of the school year. As I headed from the sanctuary to the classroom, I was told by the CM Director that I had to wait before I went upstairs.
The start of the school year party had now become a "Jesse's last day party". While I waited downstairs the kids decorated the room complete with my own special chair (a folding chair covered in crate paper), my own special lapel-pin (more crate paper) and a "red carpet" (red crate paper taped to the floor). The brightly colored paper was accompanied by balloons and snacks. We simply hung out and played a few games.
I received cards and pictures from the children (and parents) as well as a t-shirt signed by all the children. But the best gift was a set of three ornaments: a bull moose, a calf moose, and a dead moose.
For those of you reading who have not worked in a camp environment allow me to explain. No, there is too much, let me sum up. There is a camp song about a Moose. Actually, there are several camp songs about Moose. This one involves a dead moose.
Okay this isn't helping. Check out the song here (If anyone has a clip of the song being sung at Alliance, that would be awesome) So now that we all know the song, lets get back to the story.
On my very first day as an intern at CCP I was asked to create a “gathering time” to encourage kids (and parents) to arrive on time. It didn’t work. The experiment ended roughly two months in. However I was able to bond with the three children who did attend.
One of the activities I tried was to introduce camp songs, specifically "Bull Moose". I quickly learned why camp songs are camp songs. It has something to do with sending children home with the tunes stuck in their heads. For the next year and a half, each time I saw any of these three children who had learned the song, they asked me to sing it for them. Each time I refused to sing the song again. (Claiming it was a special song for special occasions.)
It was the family of these children that gave me the ornaments. Softened by the gift, I relented and sung the song one last time. I lead the children in “Bull Moose” and as we finished, we were told that service was over, and it was time to dismiss the kids.
The first thing I did at CCP was sing “Bull Moose. The last thing I did at CCP was sing that song. I couldn’t have written a better capstone to my time of service.
--Serving Him alongside all of you, just from further away
--Jesse Letourneau
Tune in next time for "My week with JR" or "up past 1am all week"
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