11 words for Training camp.

1. Crazy. Like the kind of crazy where you never know what is going to happen next, and you just have to be ok with that.
2. Good. The deep kind of good where it goes past just the happy kind of good and takes you to the kind of good where there is substance, meat, and a raw kind of soul touching good.
3. Intents. Ready for the Cheesy joke. Training camp was the most in-tents week of my life both literally and figuratively. But really there was so much packed into those 7 days of my life that I am pretty sure it will take the next 2 months to go thought and process all my notes.
4. Changing. The definition of change is to make the form, nature, content, future course, etc., of (something) different from what it is or from what it would be if left alone. My heart was changed this week because it was not left alone it has been moved toward something different and even greater then what it was before.
5. Community. I got to meet my squad for the first time I got to see what it looks like for 55 some strangers to come together and form and new kind of strange and hospitable family. They are great and I can’t wait to spend the next year of my life getting to know them and becoming part of each other’s stories.
6. Empowering. God is going before us as we are getting ready to head into the nations, He will be there with us, and He will Be there when we leave. I have to trust that He prepared the time, and the place for us there so that He could use us.
7. Sobering. I am going to be gone for a year. That feels like such a long time. So much will happen both for me and the people back home that I love.  I am going to miss stuff. People might get married, have babies, pass away and I will not be there. My nieces are going to grow up. I want to be honest and say that my biggest reservation of going on this trip is that I by the time I get back they might not even be kids any more. I am going to miss their birthdays, I already missed their first soccer games, and I am going to miss coffee/ice cream /painting dates. I can only hope that somehow they will be encouraged to know that they can follow the dreams that God has placed on their heart, both when they are kids and when they grow up.
8. Spirit Filled. There is no way that you can deny that Jesus moved in people lives this week. The sessions were powerful and convicting, worship rocked, prayers were answered, and people were moved by the words that were placed on their hearts.
9.   Freeing. Be here now… that is what kept running though my head as I was flying to training camp. Put down the weight that I carry on my shoulders for other people and just be. Let God have what is His anyway and just lay it down. I felt God challenging me to make training camp a week about me. I don’t know how to do that. I spend too much time devoted to other people I forgot that it is MY relationship with God that need to be most important.
10. Authentic. I just want to say that Training Camp was real. The people were real, the emotions were real, the community of love and compassion was real, the conversations were real, the prayer was real, the cold air was real, and the warmth of my amazing sleeping bag was real. I have to tell myself it really happened and that this is real life, and the world race is really happening.
11.  Done. Training camp is over. We made it we survived the crazy, the cold, the fear, the challenge, the getting really close to people really fast, the anxiety, and the awkward first hellos. We did it we came out on the other side. Go us. But if that was training was in the world does THE WORLD RACE look like?

Psalm 146