I just got back from 9 days at training camp in White, GA. What an amazing time! This past week was very emotional, spiritual and physical. Thank God for an amazing staff at AIM who love Him with everything in them. Its because of them listening and obeying God that the June 2010 squad will change the world next year! Training camp was sooooo long and intense but life changing! God showed up and changed lives! He did amazing things in people in just one short week I can’t wait to see how everyone on the squad is dramatically changed during the next 11 months. No more ordinary – only extraordinary life after our Fathers heart!! Im going to try to break down the week for you in detail without boring you. Jonathan Helser did our worship for the first few nights. This was the first time I heard them. Needless to say we were blessed to have his band. Very anointed! We arrived at training camp on Saturday night around 7pm. After supper we had our first session. Immediately after this was over we were led down to an open field (no talking aloud). Tiki torches were lit in a circle around the field. We broke up in small groups and rotated from tiki torch to tiki torch. Every tiki torch asked a question about expectations that we discussed as a small group. As we opened up about expectations – we soon learned to lay ALL expectations down! That is the one thing training camp stressed – to expect nothing! Because nothing is for certain on the world race. Not even our race route. Here is our new race route (that can change at anytime – even while we are on the race). Romania, Ukraine, Ireland, Kenya, Uganda, Thailand, Cambodia then to Central America! I have to admit I was looking forward to going to Israel and Egypt but its not about me. I will gladly go where God needs our squad to go. Our meals were themed by the countries we are planned to go to. So needless to say this was interesting and always a surprise. Not only did we eat the food from these countries we learned about the culture. For Africa day the ladies served the men their food. After all the men were served we sat on the floor to eat our meal. Tuesday after lunch we were told find a partner and pack for a camp out. We could only take one backpack. No tents aloud! We had 10 mins to get our stuff together. We hiked 15 min or so to the lake. Our squad made several trips back and forth in canoes to get everybody and everything across the lake to an island where we spent the night. We cooked our supper for the night over fire. Once back at the camp grounds the next few days consist of team building exercises. The first one was just us girls. We did the exercise where we had been in a plane crash and we had to get everyone to safety. Once everyone was safe we had to get them up the hill to the pavilion. Easy right? Well we all had handicaps. Some of us were blind, unconscious, lost arms, legs, etc. I lost a leg in the crash. Let me just say hopping up a hill with one leg isn’t fun and took forever! It took us 30 mins to get everyone to the pavilion. Once we made it we were debriefed about what went wrong, what we could have done better, then were told we had to do it again but this time we only had 10min to do it. WHAT?! Guess what! We did it!!! My O squad women are awesome!!! (june 2010 is called the O squad). After a few more team building activities and a lot of prayer our leaders were picked and our teams had been formed. Let me tell you how God blessed me! I have the most amazing team! We are like a family already! As soon as I get a picture of my brothers and sisters for the next year I will post it for you to see. I love my team so much. I can see God in them and I know He will use us next year. We were able to spend Thursday afternoon with our team (off campus!!) to bond and to decide on a team name. After an amazing time with our new family we returned to campus for night session. This session was very hard on us and the AIM staff. We were told to go put on clothes that we never wanted to wear again, close toe shoes and headlamp. The AIM staff created a simulation of an underground church. (Im not getting in to details about this because this blog is already very long but if you want to know more please send me an email). This was very hard emotionally for ALL of us. Some people couldn’t finish the game because they broke down. The staff did a great job making this real for us – I know they hated every minute of it. Its something that will stay with us! Thank you AIM staff!! This was just a little about my life last week. Sorry its so long! We will be leaving on June 16th from JFK for Romania. Thank you for your prayers and support! Please continue to pray for us as we leave our love ones behind in 2 weeks and start this life changing adventure with our new family! I love you!!
