This Week - Church Camp

My on-the-go kid got back from deaf camp, spent a long weekend with us at a family get-together, spent half of the next week with her grandparents, and is now off to church camp.

She has been a busy girl, but that is what summer is for. She loves deaf camp, but she also loves church camp. There are no other deaf kids at church camp that I know of. She will spend the next week with other jr. high kids from across the region. Hearing kids. And she will be fine. She will not have communication issues, just as she did not have communication issues at deaf camp. She is bilingual. That was our goal. Is she totally fluent in ASL? Not yet. But her skills are good enough to allow her to be independent within the Deaf Community. And she will continue to improve, because she wants to, and we want her to. We will continue to provide her with opportunities to improve her ASL skills. But she is also able to be independent in the hearing world. Is her hearing as good as the other kids at camp? No. Will it ever be? Probably not. But it also does not pose a major road block. She can speak and hear well enough for us to comfortably send her to a hearing church camp without an interpreter or any other communication aids. She jumps right in and starts chattering with the other kids at the table. Time for mom and dad to go. She has already moved on from goodbye without a backward glance. Just like she did at deaf camp.

This is what we wanted for her. The ability to choose her own path, and to be able to navigate that path with ease. Have fun at camp kiddo.