To open, I’m going to be really real with everyone:
- I cried taking my last step on the Big Island. I am actually a baby and I’m done apologizing for it, I love my island and I miss my poke* and my weekly plate lunches**
- While at training camp, I washed my hair once. Yeah, just once in ten (10) days. Be disgusted if you want, but washing more than two feet of a curling mass is an ordeal in a real shower let alone in a bucket (and yet, defying Ian’s prediction that I’m going to be a ‘real hippie,’ it didn’t dread. So there.)
- For those ten days, I think I spent only five minutes not on the verge of tears, and those five minutes were when I got to enjoy two –yes, two- whole slices of pepperoni pizza.
- I explained my basic life story (I’m from Hawaii; my family owns a vanilla farm –yes, you heard right, a vanilla farm; yes, I’m Hawaiian; no, I’m not full Hawaiian; I have four brothers, one sister-in-law, and a niece; No, I don’t know how to say ______ in Hawaiian; yes, I do eat spam; no, I do not surf nor do I live on a beach) probably no less than a hundred and fifty times. Coming from the girl who had a name she used at Starbucks because she didn’t want people to ‘know her real name,’ and who would tell people she was from Canada to avoid having to explain her real life, we can safely assume that Emma is growing up.
It’s been just under two weeks since I left home, and this is the first time –sitting at my computer, writing this blog- since leaving that I have actually, truly been alone. Believe it or not, I haven’t gone crazy. Yet. Maybe it’ll hit two weeks from now, or maybe two months, but I’m still riding on that crazy awesome peace I felt pouring over me the day I left (with that one minor break down on the tarmac).
So I went to Training Camp. It was amazing. I met a group of brilliant, loving, raw, open people, the fantastic iSquad –winners, every single one of them (and I mean this literally because we won Squad Wars and though we didn’t get medals or even participation certificates, we still winners). We spent ten days crying, laughing, singing, dancing, praying, praising, loving, encouraging, hugging, holding hands. We lived in tents, under the blazing June sun, in the red Georgia dirt, drenched in sweat, covered in bug bites and sunburns. We sat through seminars and teachings that tore us to pieces; we were told things that stung, things that were too real and too close to home; together, we brought to light things that had stayed too long in the dark. We were brought to understanding. Not to understanding about the state of the world, or of the things that we were going to see and experience (we didn’t get into those things until like—day eight?): we were brought down to our base identity. Who are we, really? What do we believe? Who are you in Christ? How does He see you? Because only until you have a clear, solid, and correct understanding of those things will you be an effective disciple of Jesus.
I really had no expectations going into it all. The most information I had was from the World Race website, and I don’t even remember exactly what it said, I only remember that when I read it, it freaked me out.
More real honesty, Training Camp had me more nervous than everything else I’ve had to go through for this journey (more nervous than giving speeches, and that’s saying something.)
I didn’t know what to expect, but even what I was expecting did not even come close to what did. I love going deep. I love cutting crap and getting straight down to the core of things. I love hard questions and hard answers. I love learning more about myself, and though Training Camp kind of took the band-aid routine to uncovering stuff, it was what I needed, and I didn’t even know it. I didn’t even know I had things to cover up, I didn’t even realize the weight of the things I’d been burdening myself down with.
So… post-TC: Do I feel filled?
No. I feel pretty empty, to be honest and vulnerable with you. I feel like I’ve spilt everything inside me, down to the very last minute detail, the final heavily guarded secret. I am exhausted, emotionally, spiritually, physically. I don’t feel filled. I feel empty.
Is empty a bad thing?
Yeah, no. Do you know how many misconceptions and lies and burdens I was carrying around with me? Yeah, me neither until ten days ago! So I emptied them all out, laid them all at the feet of Jesus –hallelujah- and now I’m… empty.
Now what?
I get to get filled back up by Him. Again, and again, and again. I get to spend my life being filled by Him. I get to learn who He is through the eyes of the people I meet all over the world, and I get to see them through His eyes, and everyone, it is going to be amazing. I’ve got my source back. Not that He was ever missing or that we were ever separated, just… it feels different than it ever did before. It feels like a deeper, fresher well than what I was drinking from before, and it is pretty great.
And what’s even greater is that I’ve only just begun. Seriously, it’s only been ten days and I feel like a new human.
Scary, I know.
What is going to happen to me over the next year?
OKAY I’ll be introducing my team (Team Hinematov -we have a theme song and everything) in the next blog, so look forward to that sometime… later…
I want to wish my amazing sister-in-law Malia Reddekopp the happiest birthday on the planet! Aaannnndd introducing: Aria Reddekopp
Thank you so much for reading!
Until next time
<3
*Poke is cubed fish. Look at it, all shiny and covered in limu and shoyu. So beautiful
**Plate lunch is 2 scoop rice, a bunch of meat, and vegetables (and by vegetables, I mean long rice.) Mainlander’s don’t get these, which means for the next who-knows-how-long, I don’t get to either. It’s a real tragedy.
