08/20/2026
Before we share this story:
To protect the dignity and privacy of the camper involved, certain details have been intentionally generalized or omitted. The photos accompanying this post show the camp environment and are not connected to the specific events described.
HOPE UNFOLDING
A Foster Hope Series
We Specialize in Staying
I found myself saying something several times to our team during this second week of Royal Family KIDS Camp:
We specialize in this.
Not because we have all the answers.
Not because trauma doesn’t overwhelm us sometimes.
And certainly not because every situation ends the way we want it to.
But we have intentionally built a ministry that is prepared to serve children whose stories can make trust difficult.
Children who may struggle in environments that work well for other kids.
Children for whom being safe and feeling safe can be two very different things.
And sometimes, serving those children means staying.
This week was hard.
There were moments when campers became deeply dysregulated. Moments when multiple trained adults were needed to keep everyone safe. Moments when all the preparation, training, TBRI, experience, and good intentions we brought into camp were put to the test.
There was one particularly difficult moment when I had the privilege of staying near a camper who had gone to a very dark place.
I want to be careful about how much of that story I share.
That moment belongs to this child, not to us.
But I can tell you what it meant to me.
My wife and I had the privilege of staying close while a team surrounded us to make sure everyone remained safe.
There wasn’t a magic phrase.
There wasn’t a quick solution.
There was patience.
There was calm.
There was using what this child’s caregiver had taught us about what might help.
And there was time.
A lot of time.
Eventually, there was a small response.
Then another.
And slowly, we watched this child transition from darkness back toward the light.
I cannot adequately describe what a privilege that was.
To be invited into one of the darkest places in a child’s story…
and to be allowed to stay there until the light began to return.
Later that day, this camper came looking for us.
That part broke me.
Because during the hardest moments, everything seemed to communicate:
I don’t want you here.
But we stayed.
We weren’t waiting for gratitude.
We weren’t expecting an apology.
We weren’t trying to earn a hug.
We stayed because, in that moment, staying was what love required.
And then, hours later, this child sought us out and wrapped arms around us.
I’ll never forget that hug.
All week, we had been telling our campers:
Jesus knows you.
He sees you.
He loves you.
Sometimes we communicate that through worship and Bible teaching.
Sometimes through laughter, celebration, and five days of allowing a child to simply be a kid.
And sometimes we communicate it by staying close when everything gets hard.
That’s what I mean when I say:
We specialize in staying.
It doesn’t mean there are never boundaries.
There are.
It doesn’t mean there aren’t situations when protecting all of the children entrusted to us requires an incredibly difficult decision.
There are.
And it certainly doesn’t mean we always get everything right.
We don’t.
It means we prepare ourselves to enter the hard places.
We listen to caregivers because they know their children.
We train our volunteers because good intentions aren’t enough.
We surround children with people who understand that sometimes what looks like rejection, anger, or defiance has a much deeper story behind it.
And when things get hard, our first instinct isn’t:
How quickly can we make this problem go away?
It’s how can we love this child well right here?
At the end of the week, I had the opportunity to speak with this camper’s caregiver.
I told her about the difficult moments.
But more importantly, I told her what an absolute privilege it had been to walk through the darkness, and stay nearby until her child could journey back toward the light.
Her eyes filled with tears.
And then she told me something I didn’t know.
She had tried camps before.
Different kinds of camps.
But at some point, when things became too difficult, she would get the call.
You need to come get your child.
So when she entrusted her child to us for five days, she knew that call might come again.
And after the week we’d just experienced, I understood why that mattered so much.
Because there were hard moments.
There were moments when staying required more of us.
There were moments when this child couldn’t feel the safety we were desperately trying to provide.
But there were also moments of laughter.
Activities.
Meals around a table.
Worship.
Relationships.
Positive memories.
And a hug I will never forget.
For five days, this child got to experience camp.
And for this caregiver, this time, the call never came.
