Raquel
Raquel is about ten, long and thin, with bushy pigtails instead of the carefully beaded braids that bespeak conscientious mothers or aunts. When we were first canvassing to tell kids about camp, Raquel’s teenage brother said she wouldn’t be able to come because she was sick – she had scoliosis in her back, Raquel was flat in her affect, but said she’d try to come. On the first day of camp she hobbled along behind the rest of the group, walking stiffly and so slowly the Action team members and other kids had to keep stopping to let her catch up. During the morning Raquel didn’t participate in any of the active games, but spent the whole time sitting on the picnic bench, looking blankly around with her shoulders hunched up and forward.
The next day she didn’t come to camp because her back hurt too much.
On the third day she came, with strict instructions not to do any running or jumping. That morning was much like the first, although she allowed herself to be coaxed down to the sidewalk in front of the house to play a game of charades. I looked over during the game and saw her lying on her back, clenching her knees to her chest. Walking over, I asked her if her back hurt, and she nodded yes, so I called the other girls and staff over to lay hands on her and pray. She was sitting up during the prayer and when we were done, here shoulders stayed down and her back straight the way I’d pulled them while praying. I asked if her back hurt anymore, and she shook her head, no it didn’t. We went back to the game, and soon after someone saw her jump off the retaining wall, about three feet. On the walk home that day, Raquel was twenty yards ahead of the group and had to stop and wait for them to catch up with her.
The next day she was so happy that she kept spontaneously running around in circles and doing back flips. I’d never seen her smile, and she did a lot of it.
During the latter part of the day, when the girls were knotting friendship bracelets, I pulled out a book about Amy Carmichael (God’s Madcap, now out of print). Amy was a missionary to India in the first half of the 20th century, and saved a lot of temple girls either by harboring refugees or actually kidnapping them. I loved the book when I was a little girl, and my mom mailed it down to me here. On this particular day I read a story about Star, who’s baby brother had died at nine months, and who had a bad temper (Raquel immediately piped up and said, “I have a bad temper”). Star wanted to not have such a bad disposition, and asked her father which of the gods was the god of the them all, so that he could change her temper. Her father didn’t know, but soon thereafter Amy came to her village and Star her a preacher say that Jesus Lord had saved him from being a lion to become a lamb. Raquel has trouble paying attention, and moved around some during the reading. She stayed for a good fifteen minutes of it, which was a feat, and when she was done, Jeanette joined her. Raquel told Jeanette about her grandmother’s death, and that sometimes she thinks she sees her, and sometimes she’s afraid. Jeanette told her her grandmother is with Jesus and she doesn’t have to be scared. If Raquel sees something that scares her, it’s not from Jesus and she can command it to be gone and she can start singing.
Raquel said, “Can’t the devil be in people? When people fight, isn’t it the devil making them do it?” Jeanette said, “The devil didn’t make them do that – they chose to do that. Remember how Star asked Jesus to help her not get angry and he helped her? We can choose to not do things and Jesus can help us. Satan isn’t making you do stuff, you can choose not to and be like the girl in the story.”
Since then Raquel has volunteered that her back still doesn’t hurt, and she spent two days working out her temper with Jeanette and me at camp. The Lord is really at work, and we’re definitely in her quality world. And she’s in my heart.