The Man Hike started on July 16 and the hike lasted 3 days The Mission picked the guys up at the airport Wednesday afternoon and that night we camped out at Seth Barns house, the founder of the World Race. Wednesday night was spent getting our packs ready for the hike, this included making sure we would have as little in our packs as possible and all the food that we would need for two days. That night we spent time in our different squads with our squad leader, there was a total of 5 guys from our squad on the hike. Thursday morning about 30 guys piled onto the school bus and headed for the Appalachion Trail. I was hiking with the 4 other guys from my squad along with a few squad leaders. We hiked a total of 6 miles on Thursday which was mostly up the mountain, this was a really great time of bonding with a bunch of great guys. Friday morning we woke up to steady drizzle as we quickly ate this peanut butter square mix and headed down the mountain. Thankfully the hike on Friday was mostly downhill to ease some of the wetness. By lunchtime I was completely soaked and the afternoon went better because I didn’t have to worry about trying to keep dry. We did eventually finish the hike and our awesome leaders talked the YMCA into letting us come take showers there. Saturday we just hung out in Gainsville and waited for the rest of the Campers to arrive at Training Camp. Saturday night was a crazy night as I tried to learn the names of the 43 people in my squad, I guess thank God for name tags. The majority of the first three days was spent in sessions and there was a lot of teaching done those days. The rest of the days after that was spent with more practical sessions that applied directly to life on the world race. One of the coolest parts of training camp was the meals; we would eat how and what they ate in different countries. The day we ate Inida style we all ate with our hands and the day we ate African food the girls had the privilege of serving all the guys. This was a great way for people to prepare themselves for how it would be for the next 9 months. Our sleeping conditions for those seven days was anything from normal and were set up for what we might encounter on the race. The one night half our packs got taken so we would experience an airline losing our luggage, so we got to jump in a tent with someone else. The night we probably got the least sleep was the night all 44 of us had to sleep on school bus. At the moment we all sort of dreaded it but it turned out to be lots of fun. Thursday night we got our teams that we would be spending the majority of our ministry time with and my team is just plain awesome. That night we also found out that the countries
we will be going to are Guatemala, Thailand, and Botswana spending 3 months in each of them. I will be flying down to Launch on September 4 and our squad will spend a few days in Atlanta preparing with each other. We fly to Guatemala on September 9 and are there until Dec 2. Once I get out on the field I will try to blog frequently so you can always check in here to see how I am doing. I would appreciate everyones prays as I venture out onto this journey. I am so excited to see God work these next 9 months in my life and my team.
