On Friday, our last day of sight-seeing, we headed out to Luray. As soon as we arrived I noticed something different about the landscape. There was a bright yellow roller-coaster looking thing to the right of the gift shop. The kids saw it too and began begging before they even knew what it was. I told them I’d investigate and sent them to run around by the pond. The ‘thing’ turned out to be a self guided ropes course for kids and it was awesome! The kids were harnessed in and were turned loose to try out whichever obstacles they wanted. They could choose a height and go at their own speed, even the adults could play. Within the first five minutes our group had spread out and shouts of excitement could be heard from every direction. After about ten minutes I noticed that Nina hadn’t moved from the entrance. She was standing next to a pole and biting her lip as she looked at the balance beam suspended ten feet off the ground in front of her. I called down to her to see how she was doing and before I could make my way down to encourage here four other kids were by her side. One went ahead of her looking back and saying “see, it’s not bad, you can do it easy!” The next took her hand and stepped slowly ahead of her walking with her across the gap and the others cheered as she took her first tentative steps. They didn’t stop there though. The little crew guided her through the next three or four obstacles until she gained confidence to try one alone. She didn’t try them all and she stuck to the lower more stable exercises but the fact that her friends came unprompted to her aid gave her the courage to step out in faith and experience something new.
-Bethany Wolstenholme
Camp Victory Director
*the lack of pictures of the kids during the event is in direct correlation to the fun had by both children and staff at this particular highlight 😉