The Preacher's Kid: College and Beyond - 2. Summer Day Camp

I think Matty and I discovered the quickest—and most outstanding—way to beat jet lag!

First, just stay in bed—naked, of course. Cuddle and kiss until you fall asleep. When you wake up, have sex—everything from tender love-making to some all-out dirty, nasty, ass-pounding. Then you fall back asleep and repeat!

By the time Sunday rolled around, we were in great shape and back on our North Carolina body clocks. Mom was surprised when Matty and I walked up to the family’s regular seats in church. “Boys! What a nice surprise! Have you recovered from your jet lag yet?”

“Yeah! Matty and I ended up taking a lot of short naps since we got back. It seems to have done the trick!”

“Well, don’t you dare doze off during your father’s sermon!”

“Then he better be good, don’t you think!”

Mom smiled and elbowed Matty in the ribs. I love seeing the connections between Matty and the parents getting stronger and stronger. I’m pretty sure that even if we hadn’t ended up together like we had, their connection would still be just as strong.

Dad’s sermon was, in fact, pretty awesome. He spoke on how when you strive to be your authentic self, then you are getting to be the perfect person God created in you. The sermon was a great set-up for the Summer day camps, and there were a lot of good messages I could use when the day camps started tomorrow. I need to remember to ask him for a copy of the sermon to use as a reference.

Before the end of the service, Dad asked Matty, me, and the other day camp teachers to come up to the front of the church and be introduced. He then said a prayer for us and then blessed each one of us by making a small cross on our foreheads using holy oil. I had to ask him where that came from since I was pretty sure there wasn’t a Baptist church in the world that used that shit. Nice touch, though!

We had a nice afternoon with the family. Mom made stuffed pork chops with roasted cauliflower, fried apples, and a pecan pie! I hope that by the end of the summer, she’ll teach me how to bake one or two of her pie recipes. They’re just too good not to be passed down to us younger family members!

Matty and I sat with Mom and Dad after cleaning the kitchen, and we told them all about our trip to London. Well, not all about it—I don’t think they would have enjoyed hearing about our first-ever three-way with a hot British actor boy!

I asked Dad for a copy of his sermon, and he one-upped me by offering to come and speak with my class in the afternoon. Since our week would be all about “UbU,” he would be the perfect way to start the week off!

After enjoying some leftovers for dinner, Matty and I headed over to our place. We hopped in the shower and cleaned each other, followed by Matty fucking me and cleaning each other again. Once we crawled into bed, we started talking about what our week was going to be like. That turned into more kissing, and me fucking Matty. Of course, we were a hot, sweaty, sticky mess again. That meant one more shower before we finally crawled into bed and fell asleep.

You know, there should be some kind of federal law against alarms going off at 6:30 in the morning during the summer months. But the cold, hard facts are that gave my boy and me exactly one hour before we had to be in the car and on the way to church. What’s normally a ten-minute drive on Sunday mornings is a 30-minute drive during morning rush hour.

We got to the church just a couple of minutes before 8:00. Matty and Jaxon Hayes (from the squad!) were going to head up the physical activities program—the Summer day camp version of Phys Ed. I was teaming up with Clara Richardson to teach the teen camp. Dad thought I should get a head start if I was going to be the church’s youth minister. Clara was pretty cool and totally laid-back. She was a year older than me and was going to school at Central Florida.

Clara and I got to our classroom and found the sign-in sheets, class rolls, and an outline of what we were supposed to accomplish each day. Of the two summers I attended this particular class, I remember the first one being pretty awesome. I had kept all my stuff from that first summer and went over some of the cool shit we had done. I was all prepared for the “getting-to-know-you” activities and told Clara what I had in mind. She was all about letting me handle that part since it was one of her least-favorite parts of teaching.

I was looking over the sign-in sheets and discovered we were going to have sixteen kids between the ages of thirteen and seventeen. Most of them were fourteen and fifteen. At 8:30, the first of the kids arrived. Of course, it was Nate. Mom and Dad told Nate he could go to a different day camp if he didn’t want to be there with me as his teacher. I thought it was pretty fucking cool of my kid brother to tell them that I was the main reason he wanted to go to my camp. It’s getting harder and harder to be annoyed by that little shit!

By the time 9:00 rolled around, all the kids had been signed in, and we were ready to go! I was more excited than nervous, but my stomach was still in knots as I got ready to start my ministry career.

We had the entire group sitting in a circle, and I welcomed the kids. The first thing we did was pair everyone off with someone they didn’t already know. We gave them ten minutes to go off to any part of the room and get to know each other. Clara and I would walk around and talk to each pair, becoming as engaged in their conversations as we could without seeming to take it over.

After the ten minutes were up, each kid introduced their new “buddy” and told the rest of the group three things about them. Once the kids were done with their introductions, I introduced Clara to the group. She followed up by introducing me, and I’ll be damned if she didn’t bring up the damned YouTube video thing. Of course, all the kids in the room remembered the video and had all sorts of questions about being famous and the experience of being on national television. Funny—the one thing that didn’t come up was the whole gay thing. Kinda cool if you ask me!

Once we had everything (and everyone) calmed down, we played another fun “get-to-know-you” game called “Two Truths and a Lie.” In this game, each kid tells three things about themself, and the rest of the group has to guess which one is a lie. Clara joked that this was the only time the kids would be allowed to lie in church, which caused some laughter and broke the ice some more.

By the time we were finished with the morning activities, it was nearly 11:00. That meant it was time to gather the gang and take them outside to Matty and Jaxson. I was totally looking forward to this part of the day! No, not because it meant hanging around Matty—but the guys were going to lead our group through the newly installed ropes challenge course.

The course was designed with several activities that would teach trust and team-building. This set-up was split between low-ground and high-ground activities, which required the participants to be in harnesses anchored by the leaders.

With this being the first day, we were going to stick with low-ground trust activities. One of my favorites was when we divided the group into three smaller groups. The smaller groups stood in a tight circle with one kid in the middle. The activity involved the kid in the middle falling backward and let the people in the circle catch them and push them back to the center. Once the kid was again standing in the center, the circle would rotate, and the whole process would be repeated until the instructor saw the elements of trust that were hoped for.

My favorite trust activity involved a five-foot-high platform. One person would climb to the top of the platform and stand on the edge with his back to the rest of the group, which was standing below. The person leading the exercise (Matty) would count to three, and the person would fall backward to the waiting hands beneath. It might sound simple, but it was scary as fuck the first time you try it!

To show how “easy” the activity was, Matty and Jax asked Clara and me to go first. We did, and the kids whooped and hollered when they caught us. We asked for volunteers, and everything went rather smoothly—until it was Nate's turn.

Nate climbed up to the top of the platform and made the mistake of looking down at the group below. He turned around rather quickly, and I could tell from the motion in his shoulders he was crying. He held his arms out to the side (the signal that he wasn’t ready). When he dropped his chin to his chest, I knew something was terribly wrong and made my way up to the platform to be with him.

“What’s going on, bud? Everything alright?”

“I can’t do it, Eddie!”

“Why not?”

“What if they don’t like me and drop me?”

“What makes you think that?”

“I don’t know any of them. They don’t know me. If they let me drop, it won’t mean anything to them.”

“Ahhhh, I see. So—tell me what it was like when you were down there, and you helped catch all those other people.”

“It felt good.”

“I bet it felt like you accomplished something that you could only do with everyone else. You couldn’t have done that by yourself, could you?”

“No.”

“Do you think everyone else down there felt the same way you did?”

“Probably.”

“Probably so, I would think.”

“I’m scared, Eddie.”

“I know, buddy. I was scared the first time I did this, too.”

“When was that?”

“Today.”

“What?? No way!”

“Yeah. But I trusted all you guys would catch me, so I let that trust override my fear. Now—I know you better than I know any of the others in this group. I know you are stubborn—and determined—and—”

“And a pain in the ass.”

“Sometimes, yes. But you’re my favorite pain-in-the-ass in the entire world.”

Nate reached in and hugged my neck. “I love you, Eddie. Even though you are my favorite pain-in-the-ass.”

“Alright, my little PITA, do you think you can do this if I make sure I’m in the middle of the group to catch you?”

Nate sniffled and nodded his head. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Okay, buddy. I’ll make sure Matty doesn’t start counting until I’m in place, okay?”

“Okay.”

I climbed back down while Nate went back to his position. He still had his arms out to signal he wasn’t ready.

“Okay, buddy. I’m here now. We’re all gonna catch you! I promise, once you do this, you’re gonna feel like you can do pretty much anything!”

Words of encouragement from the rest of the group followed my comments, and we saw Nate slowly lower his arms. Matty counted to three, and Nate stiffened and let himself lean back. He did it! Okay, he may have screamed like an eight-year-old girl, but the little fucker did it! Not only did the group catch him, but they also cheered him while several hugged him and congratulated him.

You should have seen the look of pride on Nate’s face when Matty walked up to him, high-fived him, and drew him into a hug. When we were walking back to the room, Nate ran up to me and said that was the scariest and most exciting thing he had ever done in his life.

I just smiled and hugged my little brother to my side as we walked into the building.

After lunch, Clara and I were set to begin our lessons in the “UbU” curriculum. As promised, Dad came in and gave a brief version of his sermon, geared towards teens. He did a great job letting the kids know that God created each and every one of them to be exactly the person they were, and that person was perfection in God’s eyes. He told them that the challenge was to allow ourselves to be our true selves. He then looked at me and smiled, saying that was going to be my job for the week—showing the kids how awesome it feels to be your true self in the world. Great! No pressure—huh, Dad?

Dad spent another hour answering questions—sometimes redirecting them to Clara or me.

At the end of his time with the kids, Dad told them a story about a particular kid he knew. This kid was constantly arguing with his siblings and parents. He made it pretty clear to the kids that this particular kid was definitely not fun to be around.

One day, this kid discovered something about himself that he had been denying and fighting for years—he was in love with his best friend. When he discovered that his best friend had also felt the same way for quite some time, both boys were able to lift the cloud of uncertainty and denial from their lives. Once that happened, both of them began to discover their true selves.

Dad asked how many of the kids thought that the boys’ true selves were their sexual identities. Nearly all of them raised their hands—including me! Oops! That was a mistake!

Dad looked at me, smiling and shaking his head. “No, that might seem like the obvious answer, even to the boys themselves!” Dad looked at me a winked again.

“You see, once that cloud of uncertainty and denial was removed from the boys’ lives, they both became these amazingly thoughtful, caring, generous, and loving young men. Those were the qualities of their true beings—the people God created them to be.” Dad looked over at me with questioning eyes. Through the tears in my eyes, I nodded—knowing what Dad was going to say next.

“One of those boys—one of those amazingly thoughtful, caring, generous, and loving boys is sitting in the room with us this very minute. Not one person could be more qualified to help you learn about being your true self than Eddie—my amazing son, Eddie.”

One of the kids still didn’t quite get it and asked Dad why my being gay wasn’t part of my true self. “Well, Steven—it’s something like this. If you look at Eddie, you’ll see a boy with brown hair, green eyes, a nice smile—that sort of thing. There are also things about him that you can’t see—things like his blood type is A Positive. He hates asparagus. He’s gay. He had his appendix removed when he was nine.

“All those things are things about Eddie Hamilton. Just like there is a list of similar things for each of you. What we hope to accomplish this week is to help you gain the ability to accept all those little things about yourself so that you will be free to allow your true self—the beautiful person God made—to begin to show to the entire world.

“You get to be you! Plain and simple.”

Whoa! There have been times in my life when I would swear that my real dad was swooped up by an alien spaceship and replaced by a super-cool alien that was made to look just like him. This was one of those moments. I was in shock by Dad’s words—and more than a little nervous over how the kids would relate to me after being so incredibly used by my alien father.

It was time for a snack break, and Clara asked me if I needed some time away after all that. I just told her I needed to use the restroom and would be right back. Once I got in the restroom, I cried a bit. You see, that was the first time Dad had ever said anything about my being gay and what it meant to him. To hear that it basically meant no more to him than the color of my eyes or hair was slightly mind-blowing.

For the first time, I actually began to see that my father was a great man. A man who was loving, generous, understanding, thoughtful—whoa! He was all those things he said when he was describing me! Yup! More tears—of pure happiness. I hope that I can truly be all those things in my life. Dad says he sees it. I can’t wait to see it for myself!

When I returned to the classroom, Clara had the kids in the circle once again. She was asking the kids to name one thing about themselves that was one of the qualities of their true selves. If someone had trouble naming something, she would ask them for a quality that they hope to discover about themselves.

I was expecting more than a few smart-ass answers, but after Dad’s talk, I was surprised to see how thoughtful and sincere their answers were. When it came to be my turn, I gave the kids my best goofy look and said, “Well, I guess you guys already know way more about me than I ever thought possible on the first day!”

Lizzie Rogers raised her hand. I called on her, and she said, “I already knew all that stuff about you, Mr. Eddie. That’s why I wanted to be here this summer. Miss Clara, too—she’s got all those same qualities. I want to learn how to be like you two.”

Well, now she did it! Clara and I both had tears welling up in our eyes! They only got worse when the other kids chimed in, agreeing. Nate raised his hand next. Clara called on him to speak.

“So, you guys probably already know that Eddie---erm, Mister Eddie—is my older brother. I probably know him better than anyone here. He was a mean, rotten older brother for the longest tie. He would bully me, tease me, and pretty much try to make my life miserable. I kinda hated him for a while.

“But you see, he’s nothing like that now. Mom and Dad told me I could go to any other day camp I wanted to, but I wanted to be here. I wanted to be here because my brother has turned out to be the coolest brother any kid could ask for. He’s kinda my hero. You saw how he helped me get through that platform drop, right? He helps me like that all the time. You guys are really lucky to have him spend time with you this summer—totally lucky!”

I smiled and held my arms out to Nate. “C’mere, you little punk!” Nate came up to me, and I wrapped my arms around him, whispering, “I love you, little bro!”

He whispered back to me, and then I said out loud, “Now go sit down, my little PITA!”

About three or four kids asked what PITA meant. Nate chimed in immediately. “Oh! That means Pain In The—”

“That’s okay, Nate! Why don’t we let them figure it out on their own!” I looked out at the group of giggling kids and said, “And now that you have it figured out, that’s one of those things I don’t want to hear the rest of the week!”

“But you just said it!”

“I know! I know! And I shouldn’t have! I’m allowed to make one mistake a day. That was it!”

Clara had the kids write in a journal for the next fifteen minutes. Today’s assignment was for the kids to write down three qualities they wanted to discover that were a part of their true selves. They were a bit reluctant at first, but when I explained that the journals would be kept here, locked up in the cabinet, and no one else would ever see them, they began to write with great intensity.

About fifteen minutes later, the kids handed their journals in, and I locked them in a cabinet. That left thirty minutes of free time to play some games with each other. We had a few Jenga games going, along with a fun game of Pictionary and a couple of board games. A few kids wanted to play games on their cell phones, but there was a “no cell phone” rule for the camp, and we weren’t allowed to let the kids play on their phones while they were with us.

At 4:00, the parents began arriving to take their kids home. Most of the kids were enthusiastic about seeing us in the morning. I have to admit that I was pretty excited, as well. If this was my introduction to being a youth minister, I can only say that I knew in my heart that I was heading in the right direction.

The rest of the week was great, and there were more than a few surprises. Our mornings were spent with an hour of ice-breaker games and followed by a thorough discussion of the previous day's activities. The hour before lunch was spent on the ropes course.

The kids thrived on the ropes course. Nearly every one of them had at least one fear to conquer. I’ll be damned if each and every one of them did just that. Fears were conquered every day, and that brought on a confident side to every kid’s personality.

What surprised the four instructors most was the intense bond that had developed by Wednesday. These kids became a tight unit that had each other’s backs. If one of them seemed nervous about an activity, another would step up and be the confidence booster. It was an amazing sight, I tell you!

Thursday was the final planned activity for the ropes course—and the biggest challenge for most of the kids. Of course, I was the first to go! After being strapped into a harness, I was instructed to climb a thirty-foot telephone pole. At least it had rungs on each side to make the climb easier! Once I reached the top, I had to climb onto an 18” circle of plywood. Man, I have never been more grateful for a harness and the knowledge that if I were to slip, I would be eased to the ground by Matty!

As if standing up on that circle of wood wasn’t hard enough, the next part of the challenge was three feet in front of me—a fucking trapeze! I was instructed to leap off the top of the telephone pole and grab onto the trapeze, which would then be lowered to the ground.

Well—dammit—I missed the trapeze, but Matty ended up lowering me. Now that I think about it, it was great for the kids to see that it was okay to miss the trapeze. They were assured that everything was totally safe. We had their backs—literally!

Needless to say, I was more than a little surprised to see Nate volunteer to go first. That little fucker scampered up the pole like a squirrel, hopped up on the platform, swung his arms forward, and landed perfectly on the trapeze—which Jaxson lowered to the ground. Man, you should have seen his face when the whole group cheered and surrounded him with hugs and high-fives.

When I asked him if he was scared, he said he wasn’t at all. I was confused—especially after the first day’s experience. He looked at me like I was stupid and said, “I didn’t have to trust the other kids to catch me. I knew Matty had the other end of the rope and, I was totally safe! Sheesh!”

I know. It sounds like the whole week was about the freakin’ ropes course! I was afraid that to some of the kids, it might be just that. But it was Wednesday afternoon when I knew we were making real progress with the kids in the classroom.

Clara pretty much took charge of the Wednesday topic—bullying. She invited the kids—only if they felt comfortable with it—to share their personal experiences with bullying. What shocked me the most was that nearly every kid had a story to tell. But it was Nate’s story that blew my mind.

“I know most everybody here deals with bullies at school. I didn’t have any bullies at school. Mine was at home. Before I tell my story, I want to make sure everyone knows that my brother is my hero. I love him more than anyone else in my family. But it wasn’t always like that.

“You see, Eddie used to be so mean to me. He would call me names. He would make me feel like I was stupid. I felt like I was always in the way. Eddie would say things to me just to make me feel bad, so I would leave him alone. It finally got to the point where I would just stay out of his way because I was so scared of him.

“It’s bad enough when you have a bully at school—I know that. I see it all the time. But when your bully is someone you go to school with, you learn how to avoid that person as much as you can. When you live with your bully—well, I think that can be the worst kind.”

Jesus! I felt like a total putz! “I’m so sorry for the way I treated you back then. I think I’ll feel horrible about that for the rest of my life!”

“Get over it, Eddie! I have! You see, the best part of the whole thing is how much Eddie changed when Matty moved in with us. Matty treated me like the little brother he said he always wished he had. Eventually, things got a lot better with Eddie and me—especially after I filmed the promposal thing at the mall!”

Everyone smiled, some giggled, some even cheered. “The cool thing is that my bully is now one of my best friends!”

To prove the point that just about everyone has had at least one bully in their life, Clara told a story about the girl who lived next door to her. This girl tormented Clara all through middle school for the simple reason that Clara was home-schooled.

When it was my turn, I told the kids about Donald Harper. You might remember how my relationship with Matty threatened him. I spared the kids many of the details of the beating I took and emphasized the part about learning about why he did the things he did. I wanted to make sure the kids knew that most bullies were afraid of the things they didn’t understand about people, and for whatever reasons they might have, they take it out on people that seem to be easy targets.

I told them how I sat with Donald and found out why he did what he did and explained how Dad and I were able to get him the help he needed to make his life right again.

The next part of the lesson was probably the biggest challenge for Clara. She told a couple of stories that had been created for the curriculum. The lesson's point was that sometimes the bullies who do the most damage to us are ourselves. We can be harder on—and more judgemental towards ourselves than any other person could be.

Next, we guided the kids through a discussion about the things they were hard on themselves for. I was blown away by how open these kids were when it came to sharing things they probably had never thought about before.

By the end of the afternoon, there were quite a few teenage tears as, one by one, the kids were able to forgive themselves for being so hard on the one person they needed to take care of most. It was one of the most amazing things to see the kids begin to transform right in front of my eyes. Crap, I was so glad Clara was my partner in the camp! Dad knew exactly what he was doing when he put the two of us together!

Wednesday's journal time was nothing short of intense. The kids usually took ten minutes to write their thoughts and then spend the rest of the afternoon playing their games. On this particular day, however, the kids were writing for a full half-hour. Many of them were still writing when their parents came to pick them up.

Part of me wished I could read what those kids wrote, but that would betray the trust they had developed with Clara and me. Honestly, It was Nate’s journal that had me super-curious. I promise, I resisted the temptation and kept my eyes away!

By the time Friday rolled around, Clara and I were both surprised at how quickly the week sped by. At the same time, we couldn’t believe the changes we were seeing in the kids. Don’t get me wrong—they were great kids from the very first day! But seeing these teenagers develop a bond of trust and watching them truly care for each other’s well-being was mind-blowing.

Dad came around on Friday afternoon and gave a recap of his talk from Monday. This time, however, he peppered his talk with questions directed to the kids. I think the kids knocked his socks off with their straightforward answers and introspection.

To end the afternoon, I paired the kids off into the same partners they had when they introduced each other the first day. This time I asked them to describe what they saw to be their partner’s true self.

Damn! I was so proud of the kids—especially after seeing the look of surprise on Dad’s face when Nate’s partner spoke. “Nate Hamilton is an amazing boy. He’s fierce. He’s brave. He loves hard. He’s forgiving.”

When Nate heard the last part of his buddy’s description, he looked at me and smiled. He mouthed the words, “Love you, bro.” and a single tear fell over the biggest smile I think I’ve ever had on my face.

The parents arrived at 4:00 to pick up the kids, but they weren’t ready to leave. They spent another fifteen minutes exchanging phone numbers and email addresses. They decided they were going to form a private group on Snapchat. I almost lost it when Nathan whispered to me that they had named their group the GiantPITAS! I fell in love with sixteen kids that first week—especially my favorite PITA in the entire world—Nathaniel Joseph Hamilton.