Meet Ian

Ian was 13 years old and high functioning. If you did not know he was disabled you may think he was just a chronic whiner. He was a smart kid, but had an obsessive compulsive disorder and was also autistic but high functioning. He would just ask questions constantly. His counselor became frustrated very early. He also was obsessed with ants. He would stop anywhere he saw one and you couldn't get him away from that point for at least 15 minutes. He would watch them, touch them, pick them up, ask questions about them, like them, then hate them, want to take care of them, then stomp on them and kill them. We had many ant funerals, literally. When it came to bedtime, he was one of the hardest to put to sleep.

The hardest part about shower time was getting him in the shower. It sometimes would take an entire hour to get through the whole process. he would ask all kinds of questions. If his soap was dirty, you had to pick off the dirty parts before he would use it. He also did not like the drain directly under the shower. he thought spiders would come out of it.

Ian would frustrate me a lot and test my patience with all of his questions and whining. It wore on me as the week went on. But in the end it was all worth it because he is a child of God and I got to serve him in a camp that accepted him. ian would not survive in a normal kids camp environment. He would have been bullied and labeled an outcast from the get go.