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ECHO JOURNAL | WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2022
BREAST CANCER AWARENESS |
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Breast Cancer AWA R E N E S S
RAE’S HOPE Cancer survivor raises hopes at Timber Bay Camp By Theresa Bourke Brainerd Dispatch Onamia ovely, Praiseworthy and Noble are the intentions behind Rae’s Hope at Timber Bay Camp, just as the Bible verse states. Philippians 4:8 reads: “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things.” Rachael Hanson certainly thinks about such things, especially when using her pack of miniature animals to identify with kids at the Onamia camp where she works and instills in them a sense of hope and belonging. “Every animal here has a story that just helps (kids) with their trauma or whatever they’re dealing with indirectly,” she said Thursday, Oct. 13, while sitting outside among the autumn foliage at Timber Bay Camp. Noble the miniature horse came to Hanson after bouncing among several different homes because he was deemed “crazy and wild.” He speaks to kids who have been through foster care or the adoption process. Praiseworthy the miniature donkey, along with miniature horse Lovely, came from a farm where they were threatened with violence by the owner’s significant other. “They all have injuries; they all have stories that actually relate to kids,” Hanson said. And so does she. Sixteen years ago, at age 32, Hanson was diagnosed with Stage 3B breast cancer. She still remembers getting the call from an on-call doctor at 6:30 p.m. one night that confirmed her suspicions. “I remember sliding down my refrigerator that I had, and I dropped the phone, and I just kind of cried for a moment,” she said. Even though she felt cancer was the inevitable cause of her persisting illness previously diagnosed as walking pneumonia and bronchitis, hearing the words was a blow. “The reality of being sick, you know, was here,” she said. Her dad dropped his phone in a mop bucket when she broke the news to her parents later that night. They came over to be with their daughter, but not before Hanson set ground rules. “I said everyone can cry for 15 minutes,” she said. “I said, but then we can’t. Then we have to laugh. We’ve got to be normal.” More than anything, she wanted a sense of normalcy before the
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whirlwind she knew was yet to come. Hanson eventually underwent chemotherapy, radiation, a double mastectomy and a hysterectomy. Her life had suddenly become a never-ending string of doctor visits. “I had told my husband one night, I said, ‘You know, I just really feel like I’m running in circles, and I just need to find a spot to stop and rest,’” she said. It was at that time Hanson, a longtime horse lover, equated her journey to a horse in a circular pen. “As they’re doing liberty circles, they normally tend, at first, to look on the outside of the fence,” she said. “So it’d be no different from me looking on the outside of the world, searching there. But if you’re the trainer in the middle, you just want your horse to stop running and to look at you and to rest.” That realization compelled Hanson to write her first program to be used later in her ministry work with kids at Timber Bay Camp in Onamia, where she serves as the camp manager. “In the beginning I thought maybe that I would do my own nonprofit and call it Rae’s Hope and work with cancer people, but my heart just bleeds Timber Bay and the youth that we work with,” she said. Timber Bay is a collection of community groups focused on youths in the Upper Midwest, with locations throughout Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa. The camp portion of the organization serves teens from varying backgrounds who are struggling in life. They could have a lack of parental involvement in their lives, experience bullying or a vast array of other trials. Staff at Timber Bay help the kids through their struggles. And while it might not be the nonprofit she originally envisioned, Rae’s Hope is Hanson’s personal ministry at the camp, where she and her quirky animals serve as quiet confidants, insightful lessons and fierce friends for the campers. Hanson got her first horse, a Morgan named Jante, when she was 11. During a time in life when she struggled with personal connection, Jante became her close friend. Hanson furthered her relationship with horses through 4-H as a kid, which drove her to a summer job as an assistant horse wrangler at Timber Bay when she was 19. While her job title at the camp has changed over the years, her devotion to the kids hasn’t, especially after dealing with the devastation of a hysterectomy in her early
30s as a result of her breast cancer. “I really wanted to be a mom, like how my mom was to me and my grandma - both of my grandmas,” Hanson said as she fought back tears. But her cancer was estrogen positive, meaning the cancer cells used her body’s estrogen to grow. So Hanson had to weigh her dream of becoming a mom with the possibility of leaving her husband with a child to raise on his own. “I didn’t want to make a selfish choice for me,” she said, noting her experience working with kids who don’t have both parents in their lives because of poor decisions. Her decision to have a hysterectomy meant she would never be a biological mother, but she still has hundreds of kids, and she gets to impact their lives in a meaningful way every day through her camp ministry. “And I don’t have to pay their college bills,” she joked. Hanson’s cancer journey allows her to be a sounding board and much-needed resource for campers affected with cancer in their own families. “When they find out I have it, they’ll say, like, ‘How can I help my grandma?’ ‘How can I help my grandpa?’ Or, ‘What should I not say?’” she said. “Or they’ll say, ‘My grandma’s having a breast removed. What does that mean?’ And then I get to share that with them, or then I hope that I bring them hope because I’m still here.” In a similar vein, the animals Hanson cares for at camp show kids they can overcome other obstacles like injury, neglect and even abuse. Her 17-year-old Apaaloosa horse, Hansel, has a scar on his back left leg from being abandoned in a creek as a baby with barbed wire wrapped around his leg when he became the object of a monetary dispute. He was set to be euthanized by the time he came to Hanson. Hansel’s story becomes a metaphor for kids who feel abandoned when their parents constantly fight or if their parents are going through a tough divorce. “But the biggest question they ask is how Hansel can love again and trust again because he bears that scar,” Hanson said. “And so I always tell the kids - or anybody who meets him - it’s because you trust him and he knows that.” Now starting to go blind, Hansel is full of new lessons about walking by faith and not by sight. Fellow horses Charlie, Poppy and Leroy all come with their own stories and lessons, as do goats Joy and Esther, sheep Poodle and miniature Highland/Hereford cow Gideon. Tabby cat Pharaoh embodies the Good Samaritan Bible story for kids, after being
Rachael Hanson, joined by horse Leroy, talks Oct. 13 about how she uses her animals at Timber Bay Camp to teach her teen campers. Steve Kohls / Brainerd Dispatch
hit and left for dead on Highway 169. While at the Garrison Animal Hospital, he was joined by injured cat Taffy to help his rehabilitation. Both felines ended up with Hanson and now freely roam the camp, gently nuzzling up against visitors. The animals have found their home at Rae’s Hope, among Hanson’s sensory garden with plants and other items carefully chosen by campers; among the peaceful woods surrounding the camp; among friends who judge them not for their pasts but celebrate them for their journeys.
And so have Hanson and the many, many children she has mentored over the years. “Helping kids makes me me,” she said. And so does sharing her cancer journey, which has taught her how best to communicate with those she meets, no matter what they’re going through. “You might want to have the most encouraging thing to say to them … things like, ‘You know, you’re a survivor’ because they always say you are after you’ve been told, it’s the next day,” she said. “But words might say that, but inside you don’t
feel that way,” Hanson said. “And I think that goes with anything, even beyond cancer - whether it’s trauma or alcoholism or anything. And, like, you want to be hopeful for them, and I think the biggest thing is allowing that person to - treat them normal and to let them talk to you.” Anyone interested in donating to Hanson’s ministry, Rae’s Hope, can do so at bit. ly/3MJM5en. Theresa Bourke, Brainerd Dispatch staff writer, may be reached at theresa.bourke@brainerddispatch. com or 218-855-5860. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ DispatchTheresa.
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