Hoffnung Siegt

"And in the end, when all Hope is lost, it will be the Forgotten ones that shall prevail and save us all." -The Forgotten

Tomorrow, I will journey across the state of Kansas to a place that many have never heard of, but a place that has forever changed me because of my time there. I will reunite with friends that I only see once a year, and we will sit patiently as we flip through page after page of a simple notebook that we all see every year at this time. On the front of this notebook is the stamp of the American Cancer Society, and directly above that, etched in the familiar font are the words, "Camp Hope."

I always get the question, "How in the world do you do that?" The that to which I am referring to is Camp Hope. This may seem like a normal camp on the outside, but upon closer inspection, you find something completely different. Camp Hope is a camp for children who have had, or who are currently battling some form of cancer. 2011 will mark my 4th year at camp, and I have loved every minute of it.

I know the first thing you probably think of is, "Geez, that camp must be horrible." Yeah, in a way it is. It is horrible because you wish you didn't have camps like that, and in a perfect world, we wouldn't. But, despite what they tell us, we are not living in a perfect world. Even though it is tough going to the camp knowing what those kids have been through, there is also a beauty throughout the camp that you never thought would be possible. As I look at those kids, still smiling through it all, you can't help but stop and thank God for the life you have.

Because of this, I have found something in myself that allows me to keep going back to camp year after year. Sometimes I have to dig down really deep to find some semblance of a human being, but somehow, it is always there. I am able to do camp because the laughter heard there trumps the heartache I feel every year. It is hard, I will be the first to admit that. But it is on the days when you are so tired and emotionally drained from everything that you truly find the person you are meant to be. It is in those moments that I realize that the only two things we really have in this world are faith and hope. As long as you have those two things on your side, you will never lose.

I have a tattoo on my wrist in German that says the words, "Hoffnung Siegt." In English, it means, "Hope Prevails, or Hope Always Wins." I don't really get around to telling people the story of why I got the tattoo, but I have that tattoo through a combination of camp and my book. I had gone to camp for 2 years when I started my book, but I always knew hope would be a huge part of my story line. Three years later, things haven't changed much. The tattoo serves as a constant reminder to me that even when things seem at there worst, and nothing in this world can make it better, we always have hope. It is the one thing on this Earth that cannot be taken from us. The world can beat us down until we don't think there is anything left, but if you dig deep enough, we can find enough hope to pull ourselves back up to rejoin the fight.

And we all know, hope always wins.