Richard's Sermon Today at Church

His sermon went with Readings I Kings 17:17-24, Psalm 30, Galatians 1:11-24, Luke 7:11-17

Deacon: Good morning everyone. It's nice to be here this morning with my sermon helper Richard.

In today's readings Scripture is full of miracles of God and how people who were dead and brought back to life through faith and miracles preformed by God, our Father. One thing I do hope is that the rest of this summer's readings aren't as gloomy.

Is gloomy the right word? I don't think so...some people get sick and pull through and others don't. Some folks are killed in auto accidents, but some don't. Some folks life to be 111 years old and some don't. And the same is true of our animal companions, it's no different and our feelings are not different.

We grieve our loses. There is a process in which we go through when we grieve and not only for the loss of a loved one when they die, but for example when we loose a friendship, a job, a community when we move away and things like that.

And not everyone grives the same way. There is a process, but not everyone goes step by step. Children go through a different process which is unique to them at their age.

The Garman Family just recently lost a member of their family to death. Four month old George, their little Monkey. This was very hard for the family and they are still grieving their loss. However, 11 year old Richard has been struggling. In his mind, he has been too busy consoling everyone else, that he did not give himself permission, nor did he realize that he needed to grieve.

So, Richard and his family found this wonderful Grieving Camp, Comfort Zone Camp, that was formed after 911 in NJ. It's existence is through donations, volunteers and the use of different camps in NJ, California, Texas, Virginia. Here, Richard was able to come to terms with George's death and he would like to tell us about it.

Richard: I went to Crosroads Camp in Secaucus, NJ for a weekend of Comfort Zone Camp.
I arrived on a Friday night-introduced to my adult big buddy, who's name is Da, but we called him Jesus because he looks so much like how we pucture Jesus. He took me to our cabin, which we shared with our healing group and talked and played until dinner.

Parents were having dinner together separate from we kids as they learned more about the program and visited and got to know other parents of children staying for the weekend.
The campers are devided into three categories- Little Buddies(that was me and the other kids at the camp)

Jr Counselors 15-17 yrs old who helped with games and activities.

and 18 to adults were the Big Buddies. All of us, including the counselors and big buddies lost someone they loved.

After dinner, we said good bye to our parents and participated in "get to know one another" activities. My favorite game was "rock, paper, scissor shoot.
Saturday morning, after breakfast, and by the way the food was really good, we went to our Healing Circles where we told our stories about why we were there. If some did something or said something courageous we gave them a pin worthy "pin".

After our Healing Circle, we had lunch, the food was really good, then we had free time where I went up on a really high zip line and it was very difficult for me to do because I am very afraid of heights. But, I'm really glad I did it because I tried something that I was afraid to do and found out that I could do it.

The we had free time again, dinner, and more activities.
One of the things we did Saturday night was to have Smores at a camp fire in which we placed an index card with a not to our loved one. The purpose was to turn our messages into energy so that our loved ones could read them because of their energy being all around us.

The next mroning, Sunday after breakfast, we went to our Healing Circles again to finish up our

stories.

We went to lunch and back to our Healing Circles to plan something for our group to do at the Memorial Service. We planned for my friend and I to come out and tell our families something about why we were there.

We had a fashion show with the theme of "the Jersey Shore", where someone from each healing circle was dressed up. We dressed our guy up in a paper bikini and hoola skirt. That was lots of fun! I got to narrate the bikini theme.

After dinner our parents and families arrived for the memorial service before ending the weekend. Then those who wanted to tget up and tell something about their loved one were given the opportunity to do so.

I was one who wanted to share. My friends, my big buddy, and my parents told me tat I did a great juob, so I would like to share it with you.

My baby brother, George died on January 29th of this year. The reason they listed for why George died was Sudden Unexplained Death of an Infant, better known as SIDS. My mom and the doctor that diagnosed Joshua feel that George had Mito and actually died from complications of the disease. There is not enough research for either disease so we will never really know why he died other than that God wanted him in heaven.

The day of George’s service my mom gave me this monkey. She took one of George’s t-shirts and ironed on his picture. She hoped it would be a way for me to hug him even though he was no longer here in his body. I sleep with it all the time and hug it when I miss him most. Everyone at the serviced loved it!

When I got to choose what I wanted to do for the memorial at Comfort Zone, the only thing that I could think of that reminded me most of George was the song Upside Down by Jack Johnson from the Curious George movie. The DJ played it at the service for me and it reminded me how much I love him and miss him, both my mom and dad cried and so did I. He was our family’s Curious George. There were lots of people there to support us there at Comfort Zone and they all knew how we felt. I am so glad that I got to go!

Then everyoone finished sharing, we took letters that we had written to our loved one to one in one of our sessions and attached it to a balloon for the balloon launch. With our parents we let go of the balloons.

We said Good bye to my new friends and left for home.

I would like to finish by saying thank you for giving me the opporutunity to share my experience with you and I would like you to pray with me.

Richard: The Lord be with you

Congregation: And also with you

Richard: We know that you have listened, God, to all that has been said about George and about Comfort Zone Camp. We pray that this camp will continue to do good works. We thank you for the times we had together with our loved ones who have died. We thank you for Jesus, who sush us yhour love. We know that He is close to our loved ones and that he is close to us. We pray that you will grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and wisdom to know one from the ohter. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Richard sort of used this as his guide and improvised in some sections. He also played the song from the Curious George movie, brought his monkey to show, and shared the book that the founder of Comfort Zone had created. We were so proud of him for being able to do this.