"Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time." - Ruth Bader Ginsburg
2020 has been full of changes, most unexpected and unwanted. Work and family life look quite different, and even simple activities like grocery shopping come with added layers of anxiety. As October begins this fall, leaves are changing from deep green to bright orange, yellow and red; nature reminds us that change can also bring beauty. Beauty is in each girl as she changes and chooses to pursue healing. Survivors embrace freedom by walking through challenges one step at a time. In this season of COVID, we have the opportunity to grow and change for the better precisely because we are afraid.
May 28, 2015
When I started the Avalanche wilderness camps eight years ago, I really didn't know all the ways it would be transformational for the girls. I certainly didn't know I would be impacted, nor did I realize that other camp staff and volunteers would be changed. I didn't even know how it would work! But as I gazed at the pristine beauty of the uninhabited lake, the surrounding mountains and the swathes of jungle, rivers, and generous sky, I knew it was a setting where great change could happen. Surely this was a place they could heal. Camp Avalanche would hit the pause button in their lives, and, much like a gasp of fresh air, their brains might literally “re-set”. A few days of unadulterated freedom and fun in a beautiful setting might just give them the boost of hope they needed to make good decisions about their futures. Eight years and fourteen camps later, I realize the camp does so much more.
The camp embodies huge challenges for girls who have never experienced wilderness before: kayaking, rappelling, crossing streams, swimming in waterfall cataracts, hiking long trails over difficult terrain, sleeping in a tent, walking in the dark, facing the elements of rain and cold. Any of these activities can trigger deep trauma. While our intent is not to bring girls to a catatonic level of fear, occasionally it happens. Real fear pushes our limits.
Once, a girl was in a kayak and fainted in the middle of the lake. We pulled her back to safety and she came around, only to faint a couple more times as we walked the trail back to the camp. During a night walk, one girl instantly started to sob when we were instructed to turn off our flashlights. Later we found out she had been held for many days in a dark hole with no light in a brothel.
The physical duress of our three days in nature brings all our most basic drives to the surface: insecurities, fear of failure, desire for safety and protection, need for comfort, inability to trust, fear of the unknown. The camp drives all of us to the edge of our comfort zone. Then, as we move through the thing that makes us afraid, as we keep walking, we conquer our fears. Girls emerge stronger, more confident. They are able to trust. There is great joy in the aftermath of the challenge. They experience freedom.
I realize that everyone who comes to the camp is transformed. The camp is for all of us--the U.S team, the Indian chaperones, the staff from other homes, and me. We come, thinking we are there to help the survivors of trafficking. But almost immediately, we are out of our depth. We step away from everything familiar to experience something utterly new. It's uncomfortable to have all our comforts taken away. The routine, activities, work, family, friends, and places that define who we are. We struggle to bridge language and culture. We feel inadequate. We are extraordinarily tired.
Freedom Camps push us to our limits. Today, COVID-19 has pushed the world to its limits. In the moment that we abandon all that we know, when we stand exposed and unable to control our surroundings, good things begin to happen. We are stripped of our normal way of operating, and we have to trust each other in new ways. We discover things about ourselves that we never knew before. Sometimes we are elated by what we find. Sometimes we are sobered. Most of the time we find we are far stronger and more resourceful than we ever imagined.
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