By Katherine Craddock|Published Date: June 03, 2009
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 Carly Fanti is a sweet 13-year-old girl whose father has been in prison ever since she was born. When Carly was small, she didn’t know where her dad was; she only knew she received a Christmas gift from him every year through Angel Tree.
But when she was seven, her mom told her the whole story. Even at such a young age, Carly was devastated. Angry and bitter, she had a hard time trusting anyone, especially God. Even though Carly went to church with her mom, it seemed like God wasn’t really there. How could God love her and yet leave her without a father?
For four months Carly told no one about her family’s secret. It was too embarrassing. She felt so alone. But God was there. That summer a Prison Fellowship volunteer named Howard Waller arranged for Carly to go to Camp Redcloud, a week-long camp just for Angel Tree kids.
Camp opened up a whole new world for Carly. “I saw there were other kids who are going through the same thing,” she says. “I realized I was not the only one and that I shouldn’t feel sorry for myself.”
More important, Carly realized that her Heavenly Father was there and that He loved her. She accepted Christ as her Savior, and she hasn’t been the same since.
As fun as it was to go horseback riding, rappelling, hiking, and canoeing, it wasn’t these things that stuck with her, it was a simple camp song she learned:
Father, I adore You; I lay my life before You; how I love You . . .
When Carly got back, her mom, Lori, could really see the difference. “She wouldn’t stop singing that song!” Lori says. “She just ran around the house singing it over and over again.”
Not even one year later, when Carly had the chance to proclaim the change in her life at an Angel Tree banquet at the Governor’s Mansion in Denver. In front of 500 people, she shyly told her story and sang the song she had learned at camp: “Father, I adore You . . .”
There wasn’t a dry eye in the place.
Camp changed Carly’s father, Dennis, too. Carly and Lori became a tag-team force, encouraging him to attend PF seminars and Bible studies in prison. And as his relationship with Christ deepened, he was finally able to understand God’s forgiveness. “Because of your love, and your faith in Christ, my life has changed,” he told his wife and daughter.
But seeking Carly’s forgiveness seemed a lot tougher. “Not too long ago, I got really angry with my dad,” Carly said openly. “We wrote and talked on the phone and stuff, but I didn’t want to write him anymore. I was angry that he wasn’t there to see me play volleyball or run track, and that he wasn’t there to see me in the choir.”
On one of her visits to prison, Lori explained the situation to her husband. The next week Carly received a four-page letter from her father. In it, Dennis apologized for hurting her and for the shame and embarrassment he had caused.
It was the first time he had ever owned up to the pain he had caused without blaming his own abusive childhood or drugs. “Prison isn’t my punishment,” he wrote. “My punishment is not being able to watch you grow up.”
Carly has been to camp several times now, working hard to earn the money to go by selling candy bars and raising scholarship money from families in her church, Holy Cross Lutheran. But she hasn’t been able to go for the past two years, and she really misses it.
Lori says, “Camp meets the needs of these kids in two important ways. First, they get to go somewhere they would never be able to go normally. Many children are being raised by grandparents and single parents, and we just don’t have the money.
“Second, they get to talk with kids that are going through the same thing. No more secrets, no more heavy burdens. Even if some of them already know Jesus, and most do not, camp is a time for their spirits to be refilled, refreshed and renewed.” |
