Training Camp. No words. I’ve been sitting here at home for three days from my 10 days in “the wilderness,” and I have no words to describe the experience. No, this was not a church camp, no it wasn’t fun in the way you think it could be, it was straight up out-of-your-comfort-zone boot camp! (It truly feels like I’ve been gone a month! Being home feels so weird. Oh the glories of AC, a warm shower, and home food!)
How can I explain it all?
How can I explain to people how a process of healing began?
How can I explain how 40 people who were named a squad became a family?
How can I explain how living like homeless people brought us close and taught us so much?
How can I explain how we become so grateful for food, no matter how weird or where it came from or how we ate it? (Hey E Squad – peanut butter or Nutella, anyone?!)
How can I explain how being perfectly uncomfortable could be perfectly life changing? Thinking how messed up it was and crazy uncomfortable and out of my comfort zone so many things were, then seeing how that was what you needed to learn the lesson in that moment.
How could I explain how at the beginning everything felt so wrong but then over the course of time felt so right and good? When you feel like you won’t make it (through the work outs, the endless sweat, the discomfort. *you cry the first night), you don’t know why you’re really there anymore, wanting to give up and leave.
How could I explain how digging inside and confronting past hurts and feeling the feelings buried for so long felt so freeing? Free to feel and confront. Free to talk about it. Bringing darkness to light.
How could I explain the raw-vulnerable-honest-authentic-beautiful community that understood and could speak life into you, not judging you, bonding with you, and saying “I’m here for you” when you’ve never lived life together until then?
How can I explain an ENO city that was our main hub for talks and hangs and family meetings and WR prayers?
How could I explain how leaving home from people who didn’t understand entirely what I was doing and meeting a group of people who understood and what we were doing together, brought community and conversations of “Me too!”?
How could I explain how I was able to see myself of everything I’ve been struggling with, talking, crying, healing, forgiving, yet feeling like there’s no change occurring in my heart? How could I explain I spent most of the 10 days angry? How I was angry at the conditions, I was angry at what I saw and heard in people, I was angry at my past and those who’d hurt me, and most of all angry at myself that I felt like I was feeling nothing when everyone else around me felt such passion, and I envied them immensely. I felt left out and out of place. THEN to see how much I actually changed and to hear God say “It’s okay” and to not compare myself to others.
How could I explain that by the end of the 10 days, you realize it was all good, all perfect at that moment in your life, all okay, all just right?
…I guess I did just explain it: physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually stretching beyond anything I’ve experienced. (Yup, definitely boot camp.) Training camp is WRECKING! It messes with your life, but its okay, it gets better! It sure messed with my life! Training camp felt so not okay, but I had to learn that it was okay!
They say don’t come with expectations. But by saying don’t come with expectations, you still come with different expectations.
When I came to training camp, I guess I was shocked to discover imperfect messed up sinners. But I found a community instantly bonded by a common ground of Jesus, a craving for more, and a future journey. I don’t know why, but I must have had an expectation that I was the only one and that everyone else was perfectly spiritually ready for this trip. But I found human beings, just like me, who wanted Jesus to radically change their lives and reveal Himself to them. I was proved wrong by this group of people so much, and I love them so much. Being vulnerable is so scary, but it is so important, and grows you together. That’s one of the big ways we grew as a squad during this time!
I stumbled into training camp with heart problems. I stumbled in defeated, angry, carrying a hurtful past, fearful, and the devil had a blindfold over my mind soaked with lies that I was believing about others and about myself. God began whispering into my soul “Let them go. You’re free. You don’t have to listen to those anymore.” I began to be proved wrong, and the soaked blindfold began to be lifted from my eyes, and I begin to crawl with hope out from drowning. I was embraced and spoken life into by strangers, helping me peal away the blindfold to let me see light, telling me I’m loved and that the devil has no place controlling my mind and I can take captive my thoughts. That I’m beloved, forgiven, adored, and wanted by a good, good Father, a Gentleman. All things I had known before, but had never tried to remove the blindfold myself, because I had given up and let myself be defeated and tortured. But it took this body of believers, my sisters and brothers, Jesus in them, to lift me up. And I began to feel freedom, healing, and hope.
I was going to come home and say I didn’t think I changed at all at training camp, that it wasn’t life changing, that I wasn’t a different person, because I didn’t see it. Guess I’m stubborn up in my head. Looking back on all I learned those 10 days, I do see changes of perspective, I see eyes lifted unblindfolded, prodded in the right directions, I see the love and companionship and support of a squad. I did change, I am better than I was, I’m healing.
Training camp was just that for us, training. Real life for the field. A process. Growth. We became a family. Looking around, I imagine that we look like how the disciples were with Jesus, and I smile, cause we still have a lot to learn, but we’re gonna do this thing together!
Part of our green Gap E Squad family!
#teamdauntless
My squad mates did really well writing about our training camp and you can find some of those posts here and here and here. (and so many more. just read them all, just do it, so good, they’re all amazing, and supportive, and I love them all. just if you want to know more about the details of training camp.)
{ Might I just applaud Adventures In Missions for creating this experience so well. Putting a large number of people under incredibly uncomfortable situations and scenarios, making them feel gross and dirty, digging out their hearts and turning them into vulnerable people amongst strangers,…is smart. It works, your plan to bond us over it all and change us, really works. Good job, well done, I like it, keep up the tough good work! }
Financial Support
THANK YOU to those who have been financially supporting me on this journey! I value your love and support! And to those that can only pray, I’m extremely grateful for that as well!
Adventures In Missions graciously let me attend training camp without the needed $9,000 to be there, with the promise that I put top priority on my fundraising efforts when I got home.
I have a deadline of $10,500 coming up on August 21, but that means online donations need to be made by August 18, and my current total is a little over $6,000! So God is good, and He will provide, and I’m looking forward to what He’ll do! (No actually in all honesty I’m a worry wart and there’s a lot of fear in my heart, I just want to be honest with y’all!)
Prayer Requests
- Pray for my squad and I as we prep for our launch in September, like fundraising, gear, medical/insurance, etc…
- A lot of us are struggling with fear and doubt ourselves right now, pray we keep fighting.
Stay tuned for more updates! Including fundraising events, more blog posts from processing training camp, introduction of my team, etc. Or hit subscribe on the left to get updates via email whenever I post here! Thank you for your support!
