|
Please send donations to Amanda the Panda at the following address:
Amanda the Panda
1000 73rd St. Suite 12
Des Moines, IA 50311
Attention: JoAnn Zimmerman
If you wish to help now, please feel free to Donate Here!
Your Donation Makes a Difference
We know that when you make a donation, you want to know that it will make a difference. Let us share with you the story of Hannah, a little girl who came to Camp Amanda after her mother died and the difference it made in her life.
At every Camp Amanda weekend, we have a "Doctor Question and Answer" period where children are encouraged to ask any questions they have relating to the death of their parent or sibling - questions that still linger in their minds. Children rarely have the opportunity to ask a doctor questions and to have them answered on a child's level.
Hannah was 18 months old when her mother died of cancer. Her two brothers were 6 and 7 and her sister was 8. The older children and their father attended Camp Amanda within a year or two of their mother's death. But Hannah was too young to attend - she had to wait until she was six years old!
When Hannah turned 6, she wanted to go to Camp Amanda. She loved every aspect of the Camp Amanda experience, but the "Doctor Question and Answer" period proved to be life-changing for her. She sat very quietly on the floor in her counselor's lap and listened attentively to the doctor answer the other children's questions.
Slowly, timidly, her hand went up. "Doctor, what causes cancer?", she asked. The doctor answered her question using simple terms that she could understand. A few moments later, Hannah's little hand went up again. "Doctor, what causes cancer?"
Again she listened and paid very close attention to what he was saying. Yet a third time, she raised her little hand and asked the very same question again: "Doctor, what causes cancer?"
At that point, her counselor understood the REAL question Hannah was trying desperately to ask, but didn't have the words to articulate. The counselor raised her hand and asked: "Doctor, if a mother gets cancer when she is pregnant and after the baby is born, she dies, is it the baby's fault that the mother died?"
That was it! That was the question Hannah was trying to ask!
The doctor told her that it was ABSOLUTELY NOT the baby's fault that the mother died! He had finally put to rest the guilt that Hannah had felt all of her conscious life. You could see the huge weight that had been lifted from Hanna's heart! Her whole face and demeanor reflected it! From that moment on, she was a different child - her spirit had been set free from all the guilt she carried!
The next day when her family came to camp for the closing ceremony, Hannah ran right over to her two brothers, put her hands on her hips, and authoritatively said to them,
"I DID NOT KILL MOMMY! THERE WAS A DOCTOR HERE LAST NIGHT AND HE SAID IT WAS NOT MY FAULT!"
|
FAX (515) 223-4782