This past Saturday I got back from training camp, which was held in Gainesville Georgia! It was an exhausting and exhilarating ten days filled with new friends, sweat, worship, dance parties, bucket showers and hikes. It was tons of fun but I’m not going to lie, it was tough, really tough.
The first few days all I wanted to do was go home and quit, I didn’t want to leave my amazing family or my uber-comfortable life in suburbia. This transition from high school to adult life is shaping up to be one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. By the fourth day of training camp I knew that the World Race was what God had in store for me, but I straight up didn’t want to go. I felt unprepared and terrified of all of the unknowns. I’m not a quitter though, so I told myself that I had to finish training camp before I could quit. Little did I know that in the six remaining days of training camp God would change my attitude and give me a spirit of excitement and joy towards the World Race.
Matthew 8 talks about the cost of following Jesus and that “the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head”, following Jesus is filled with unknowns. When we read these passages it is easy to say “Oh yeah, I would give up everything to follow Jesus, sign me up!” but the reality of leaving home and everything you’ve ever known, to spread the Gospel is a terrifying prospect that seems impossible to prepare for. But as training camp continued God began to point out to me how He has been preparing me for this journey. From teamwork skills from an extracurricular to life lessons from my high school swim coach, God has placed activities and people in my life that have been preparing me for a journey such as this.
So much was squeezed into those 10 days I can’t begin to unpack it in one blog, so I’ll just give you some highlights.
– We had a pretend layover in Korea
– We hiked 3 miles with all of our gear
– We found out our teams for the first three months (these are the people we will live with and do ministry with in each country, my teammate Max wrote a pretty cool blog about our team (http://maxscheffer.theworldrace.org/post/meet-my-team))
– We also found out where we will be serving in Guatemala; our team (tentatively) will be living in San Raymundo Guatemala working with a school/church duo
FUNDRAISING UPDATE:
I am currently 53% funded!! A huge thank you to everyone who has gotten me this far, and to everyone who participated in the piece of the puzzle fundraiser! 100 pieces have been claimed so far, and if 250 more are claimed I will be fully funded (see my last blog post for more information on this fundraiser)! It has been humbling and amazing to see how God has provided during this fundraising process!!
