As most college students do, I struggled with finding a suitable summer job when only coming back home for two months. My aunt recommended and helped me apply to “Rainbows United,” which is a non-profit learning facility for children with special needs in Wichita, Kansas. Although they were out of school, the facility still held “Camp Woodchuck” over the summer for the children to attend from all ages up to 21. Having never worked with special needs people, or with children, in a very large capacity, I thought to myself, “what a terrifying, terrific idea.”

A job is a job to a college student, so I accepted and found myself being responsible for the lives of someone else’s little angels. The system that Rainbows uses is placing the kids in rooms based on their age range and behavioral issues and/or mobility. For example, some special needs are based on high behavioral issues and extreme functioning and others are based on physical impairments and mental disorders. Not all of these can just be randomly mixed. My main room assigned was lower-mobility, lower-functioning students. This consisted mostly of non-verbal autistic children with some extreme physical impairments. Day in and day out, you are assigned within your room a “buddy” or “client,” with whom you are to feed, care for, put on a restroom/diaper changing schedule, and ensure that they do not die or kill another student before you can hand them back to their doting parents.

Now, let’s rewind a moment. In the spring semester before this 2016 summer, I was a part of the Bethany College Honors Interdisciplinary Program, and our class was centered around the question, “What does it mean to be human?”, which had us focus on the relationship between religion and disability. In this class of highly intelligent people, none of us had much direct experience with people with disabilities, so the entire class was mostly in theory talks. This class and its wonderful professor were one of the reasons I considered this job opportunity a divine sign. Out of all the things I took away from the course, the greatest was the representation of the population that had little experience with special needs humans. I was about to enter a crash course in gaining that experience. I felt like an astronaut, taking one small step in the resume front, and one large step for my previously blind self to this hidden side of humankind.

After a few weeks of dirty diapers, non-verbal arguments, brief panic sessions of learning sign language, and powerfully intimate moments with these wonderful and touching children, I had a talk with my old self and the concepts I thought this class had taught me, and I came to the following conclusions:

We, as human beings, are not called to serve those who are strong. We should not reach out to the ones easily accessible, or the ones reaching out to us. It is not the voices we hear that we should answer, but the ones that are silent.

This experience means that the person you were before, who didn’t know what to do when seeing someone different, is not the person you will be after you have that answer. It means no more downward glances or discrete stares when running across disabled persons in Walmart or a restaurant. It means that once you see what they see, you will see everyone and everything differently. And I can tell you, it is a breathtaking view.

Our society has taught us to be blind to these people - to see them and then discard them from your memory. Now, obviously, this is not the case for everyone. The problem is, if this is the case for even one person, it’s too many.

If you are considering peeling the veil off your own eyes, to those in the surrounding Wichita area, I completely encourage you to get involved with the wonderful Rainbows United program. There are numerous volunteer opportunities, or, for those who wish to get a bit of cash while having your life completely changed, I recommend applying for their enchanting Camp Woodchuck program as a Family Staff Support member for the summer (or any hours available during the school year). My only advice would be to follow the motto I formed after my summer of trials and errors with these kids:

You will not run away from bodily fluids spewing at your every angle.

You will not make gagging noises when changing a 21-year-old male’s diaper after he had burritos the night before. Instead, you will continue to sing “Twinkle Twinkle” for the 100th time to keep both of you calm.

You will not cover your ears, even when a child is turning blue while screaming into your face, but you will listen with care and patience you didn’t know you had left to give.

You will not avert your gaze when you are uncomfortable at the sight of someone different and new, but you will smile brightly and engage in conversation, even if it’s one-sided.

You will not raise your voice or retaliate when a child busts your lip and bruises your shins, but you will hug them closer and sing softer through the storm.

You will not throw up when one coughs into your open mouth, and then sneezes into it before you can even recover, but you will say “bless you” and get a Kleenex.

You will not force food down a child’s mouth when they refuse to eat the meal you made them, even when you really, really want to, and you definitely will not flip a table when they throw the plate and spill said food all over everything you just cleaned and now have to clean again.

You will simply smile and say “it’s ok” as you grab the towel and spray.

You will always clean them first after they cover the both of you in shaving cream they found in a cabinet.

You will not cry in front of them in pain that they have made you feel, knowing that they will not understand.

You will wait until you get into the car to clean off the blood and to eat ice cream in order to decrease the swelling in your busted lip, and you will keep extra napkins to blow your nose after a long session of tears.

You will not act in impatience or frustration towards the child, knowing that they are simply acting upon their own frustrations towards the world.

You will not abandon them when they try to make you. And they will try to make you.

You will stay when all you want to do is leave.

You will not give up on a child who needs you to give the most.

You will stay.

To any parents reading this currently, if this sounds like a normal parenting motto, that’s because it should. These kids are kids. With special needs. That simple.

Doing this kind of work isn’t just a sacrifice of your comfort level but of your entire being as you know it. It’s the one sacrifice that, as humans, we are given the responsibility to make. It’s easy to look up and do your good there. It’s harder to look down and do what is uneasy for the sake of another’s. It shouldn’t be something we should wait to be forced to do.

Since I’ve started this job, I’ve heard nothing but people telling me how brave and sweet I am for doing it, as if because I collect a paycheck for simply being around them, my work is noble and can forgive all the other sins and flaws I have. I should not be considered an extra nice person or a hero for working with these kids. I should not be praised or held on high. I am no one remarkable and neither is this facility. They are just kids. I am just someone who gets paid a crappy salary to do a lot to be by their side in a society that too often pushes them away. When you are so far into it, there will not be Facebook posts or social media praise. No awards. No recognition. Because when you do something so “generous,” you realize it shouldn’t be considered generosity in the first place. It shouldn’t be considered “charity.” It should just be considered average. Traditional. Commonplace. It should be normal, which is something these kids too often feel that they are not.

Their struggle is not my gain. Their relief in just knowing that there is someone who is trying to understand them is enough to make the pee-stained shirts, bite marks, busted lips, long drives, coffee guzzler mornings, and drool-soaked clothes worthwhile. In eight hours after I arrive, I get to leave. They do not. That is the difference. If you were to ask me who had the harder job, I would say them. To do their best to cope, and be happy, to live a life and to be found when all they feel is lost… That is worthy. Dear reader, take your eyes off this article and put them to work finding a way to get involved. Thank you.