One Man's Treasure is Another Man's Trash

Yes, you read that right, I didn't title my blog backwards. I think you will understand once you hear my story today. Who breaks in and steals things from a locked church bus in a zoo parking lot?

There are many things in life that can make a person feel violated and that is the way one of my girls came home from their middle school youth trip Monday night. Her biggest concern? It was the fact that she had begged and begged to take my digital point-and-shoot camera with her since they are not allowed to bring their iPods and phones on the trip. She said she wanted pictures and I told her she better guard it and take care of it like it is the most important thing in order for me to let her take it. She promised with all the sincerity she could show and I believed her.

Truth is...in our house, people are more important than things. Unfortunately in Monday nights debrief of the youth trip, it had to include multiple tries to get her to understand that I DON'T CARE ABOUT THE CAMERA! It was just talking it through and helping to process the feeling of being violated. Of course I was concerned about her personal things in her bag so I was helping her to think of all that was in it.

The backpack itself was a treasure because all the kids got to pick out more expensive backpacks the beginning of last school year in hopes they would last longer than the typical "throw away" cheap ones. She loved the one she picked out and it was TOTALLY her style. So, we will go back to Kohls to see if we can find one that can be a suitable replacement. I have already been praying about that - I know there is another perfect backpack for her.

She told me she was sorry that she had stuffed the king sized sheet into her backpack. It was my king sized t-shirt top sheet that I have used for camp to put over the mattresses and I have taken it to other places where bedding has been needed. Again...convincing her that SHE doesn't have to apologize, SHE had every intention of bringing it home. (Truth is, at camp in June I noticed there were a lot of little tiny "t-shirt" holes in it and had thought it was probably time to retire it) So, no big deal!

We got to the place in the discussion where I wanted to go through everything she had in her bag. Well...she brought along half of her Sharpie marker collection (which let me tell you is a TON of Sharpies) and the purse that Auntie Chelle bought her in Mexico - that really was probably the most "valuable" thing that was taken because let me continue...

I thought at that moment "Oh no, she had her purse in her bag"! So I asked her to go through the contents of her purse. Here is what she said (Oh how I LOVE this girl!):

• In an empty tic tac box there was a quarter, a dime and a penny
• 2 bouncy balls
• 2 gum wrapper boats
• the broken handle of a plastic fork
• tweezers
• chap stick 

(Insert a "giggle giggle" inside because I SO love her "treasures") As I giggled a little bit, she said "somebody is going to be really mad that they grabbed my bag aren't they?" I nodded and we both started laughing. Then I asked, "so what else was in your backpack"? Here again, is what she said:

• half my Sharpie collection
• a notebook (I asked..."had you written anything in it?" - her answer was "no"
• my hairbrush
• your duct tape ("I promise I will TOTALLY replace that for you" she said, since she hadn't asked to bring my duct tape with her) 
• my first attempt at drawing a picture of Link (from the Zelda video game) that wasn't very good (her words)
• the king sized sheet
• 2 ibuprofens
• 4 bendy straws
• a pocket New Testament that she opted to take because it was smaller than her full sized Bible

So...overall as we continued through the contents of the things that were taken, she realized that as much as she hates that my camera is gone (and whatever pictures were on it), that the purse she always carries from her auntie is gone, that half of her Sharpie collection, and the tweezers (she loved those tweezers she said) are gone along with the backpack - that great back pack, we laughed to think what the person who took this bag is going to be really disappointed when they find bendy straws and bouncy balls!

Before it was all said and done we were laughing and yes, it was bad and we hate that things were stolen but as Dawn says "who breaks into a church bus? what kind of person does that?" Sadly, some others on the trip had more valuable things stolen and I know that this could have been much worse for Dawn since she has been dealing with other things lately too that are not very positive.

Dawn's fish really do miss her when she is gone!

Another lesson learned...this is life in a not-so-perfect world that is tainted by sin. Stacey was very glad she had taken her Nike drawstring backpack into the zoo with them because it was already a replacement for the one that someone stole from her in the gym locker room at school earlier this year.

I wish these kind of lessons didn't have to be learned.