If I were completely honest, I was really stressed when I found out we had to complete ten community service hours on our own. This wasn’t because I didn’t want to do them. It was because I didn't know when I was going to find the time to do them or where to do them at. Also, I’m a pretty introverted and awkward human being, so going anywhere by myself automatically makes me freak out. When I finally decided to do my service, I decided to go to the LUDIC school for children with autism. My life was changed when I went to LUDIC.
LUDIC is here on Lee’s campus. It is located right behind Pangle Hall. I had been to LUDIC before I did community service hours for this class. The difference was that the first time that I went, I never got to work with the children. I was helping take down decorations and putting other decorations back up. When I did community service this time, at first I watched a video and wrote down everything the people said and did in the video. This helps children with autism learn. They have to have the same schedule everyday. Watching the same video over and over again helps them learn more about social skills and what is appropriate conducts in certain areas.
After I wrote down notes on the video, Mrs. Tammy, the director of LUDIC, gave me one of the kids to swing. LUDIC has this room called the swing room. In the middle of this room, there is a big home made swing attached to the ceiling. This is to swing the children because certain sensations calm them down. Mrs. Tammy gave me one of the children who was having a little fit. His name is Jonas. At first, I was really worried. I didn’t feel like I was qualified to be with Jonas alone. After a while though, Jonas and I started to have a little fun. Jonas wouldn't swing at first. He would swing and then stop and have a fit. After a while, I asked Jonas if he wanted me to swing him high. Mrs. Tammy told me the higher I can swing him the better. Jonas didn’t answer so I told him that when we get to swing, it is like we get to fly. He liked that and told me to swing him really high. As I swung him as high as possible, I started making an airplane sound like his was flying. He later started copying me. He also would count and say words that rhymed. For example, he would say, “cat” and then he would say, “hat”. Jonas was having the time of his life. He was grinning ear to ear the whole time. With this instance, I started to understand the love and the joy of Christ a little better.
I don’t know if it was that Jonas was having so much fun or that I was getting to have fun with him, but I felt so much joy in that room. Jonas and I couldn’t have a really good conversation. He understood me, but he could only say a limited amount of things to me. Regardless of that though, we had so much fun. We laughed together. We both acted like air planes together. It was the most fun I had had in a while and also relieved a little stress off of me in the midst of the end of the semester chaos. Basically, this changed every fear I had about being with the children at the LUDIC center. It eliminated every obsession I had with doing everything right when I got there. Jonas melted my heart.
Another little boy that melted my heart was Christian. Christian is around 5 or 6 and has down syndrome and severe autism. I was partnered with Christian the last two days of my service. I had to help Christian clap along to songs and play with toys. The first day I was with him, he decided to cuddle with me while we listened to the story for the day. I obviously had to pretend that I wasn’t falling in love with this little guy on the spot. Later, Christian and I went and jumped on trampolines. Christian can’t jump by himself, so I would have to bounce him. At the end of my first day with Christian, I had to help him eat. Christian had to eat at a separate table from the rest of the children in his class. I wasn’t really told why. The way he would tell me what he wanted to eat from his lunch box is he would pick out a picture of the food he wanted to eat with the food’s name on it. For instance, if he wanted to eat chips, he would hand me a picture of chips with the word chips on it. I would say, “I want chips,” and then I would hand him chips. It was a long process, but it was how he learned. The second day I got to work with Christian, I walked in and he was watching a movie. He got so excited when he saw me which made me excited. I went and sat next to him and he grabbed my hand and intertwined our fingers and started rocking with my arm in his arms.
I have never seen the love of Christ portrayed like it was portrayed by the children at the LUDIC center. Every child that I came in contact with had this look of love and excitement in their eyes that I have never seen to that magnitude before. Like Adam, the little boy I met as I was walking out my last day at LUDIC, who was so eager to ask me my name and if I spoke another language and if I liked Chinese food because he liked Chinese food. I have never experienced someone wanting to ask all about who I was in such an excited way before. So I guess what I am trying to say is, out of all the minor things I learned at LUDIC like how to take care of a certain child, I learned one major thing and that was how to love.
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