Trust in the YMCA

I volunteered for the first of hopefully many times at the YMCA this past weekend. My roommate Josh and I drove over together, not 100% sure of what exactly was going to be expected of us. We knew we were going to be working with mentally handicapped children in the pool, but that was the extent of our knowledge.

When we arrived, the pool was in complete chaos. Funny, because there were only about twenty people there. We got changed and jumped in. At first, every kid already had someone working with them, so Josh and I were just wandering around the pool with mostly nothing to do. Then, in walked Kelly. Kelly is a ten year old boy who is full of life. We started having so much fun that I never even thought to ask him, his dad, or the head volunteers what his handicap was. We raced through the pool from one end to the other. The first time, we both used noodles, but then his dad told me that he didn't need a noodle. I smile at Kelly, "You've been holding out on me." I told him that I wanted a rematch. We raced back to the other end of the pool without the aid of a noodle. He beat me again! Kelly loves racing.

The next thing that we did was I tried to teach him how to do a canon ball. It was harder than I expected. I got him to get up on the pool deck, but then he just slid into the water rather than jumping. I got out and showed him how to do it. We then went over to the stairs so that he would have something on which to balance when he was getting ready to jump. He jumped! I was so excited. Here, I had only been with this kid for about an hour, and already I got to see him leap bravely into a new experience. And even better, he wanted to do it again. So I challenged him to step away from the stairs. He came. He trusted me to hold his hand while I was down in the water so that he could balance on my hand.

Here is the lesson that I took from this experience. How often are we able to put our complete trust in God? Would I have been as excited had Kelly just grasped the rail of the stairs and walked in? Definitely not. But he trusted. And he did it without hesitation. If anybody thinks that there is nothing we can learn from children, and that we are always the teachers because we're older - WRONGO! I would argue that we learn more from them than they do from us. Thank you Kelly.

Oh, by the way, the woman in the pool...not me. And the little girl jumping in...not Kelly. It all happened in the moment so I was not able to capture a picture for myself, but I wanted to give you a clear idea. And, since pictures are worth 1,000 words, I wasn't 100% up for typing out a 1,000-word description of a kid jumping into the pool.