These past two weeks have been some of the most influential weeks of my entire life. Training camp for The World Race was from the 6th to the 16th. And man Adventures in Missions is doing something incredible. They are changing the world not only overseas but also here in the US.
So the 6th comes around, a day that seemed like it would never come, and I am nervous about what I got myself into. I had already met some of my squad but still I had 25 more people to meet. And just the thought of meeting all of those people brought out the introvert in me.
So thing AIM did was check everyone in and give us dinner. After being checked in we were led to our campground, which was the furthest campground from the training center. As the day went on and on it just became more and more surreal that I will be leaving the country for almost a year! That night I went into my tent and was journaling to God just asking for strength. I was so scared that I wasn’t going to be able to complete the race. I didn’t think that I was ready. I just asked God to give me the strength to make it through the 11 days, and he gave me more than I asked for.
The next day I felt slightly better about being there, but what really reassured me that I was supposed to be there was my squad. Just seeing how we all were able to connect in such a pure way and the way that we loved on each other even though in most cases we met the day before. God used my squad to give me strength and it is because of them that I stayed the whole time at training camp.
As the week went on the simulations started to happen. The first simulation was called “Lost Luggage!” We partnered up and then they choose half of the people and that half lost their luggage. So they just had their day bag. So we had 24 tents, 24 sleeping bags, 24 sleeping pads, etc. for 48 people. That was just the first of many. We also had simulations where we were off campus, sleeping in an airport, sleeping in community tents, and camping on a man hike.
The food was a huge experience just in itself. Each day was a different region of the continents that we will be going to. The first day was southeast Asia and they fed us real serving sizes instead of American serving sizes. Breakfast the first morning was a soup with rice noodles and vegies that would probably feed 2-3 people in America, but it was for a table to 8 men and women. So that was a little bit of a shock. But each meal was exciting because we had no idea what it was going to be. Africa day was especially interesting. In Africa it is common for men to be served by the women and then the women wait for the men to finish and then they eat the left overs while they sit on the ground. Oh and everyone had to eat with their hands. But overall the food was great, especially the meals that had protein in it!
On the 5th day AIM split the men and the women and the men went on a bus and went to the application trail and we had a lot of hiking to do in the next two days. While we were there the women were having a women’s retreat at the campsite. But the man hike was incredible. We were able to talk to each other for hours. The first day we hiked 12 miles over the span of 10 hours. The hiking was great exercise not only because the distance and heat but also we were carrying our packs with all of our camping equipment and food. But the time we spent just talking and getting to know each other was priceless. The man hike really changed the whole dynamic of our squad. All the men became comfortable with each other and really starting trusting each other.
Worship at Training Camp was some of the most powerful worship I have ever been a part of. There were about 200 racers plus all the staff and volunteers, so in all about 250 people in a room fit for about 200-250 people. It was a tight and it was HOT. The poor AC, it was on full blast but it just could not keep up. The song lyrics weren’t incredibly complex but they were so true and so powerful.
You’re a Good Good Father,
It’s who you are,
It’s who you are,
And I am Loved by you,
It’s who I am,
It’s who I am
I have never felt the Holy Spirit so prominently. The Holy Spirit was tearing down walls, bringing people to their knees, and flipping people’s lives upside down. On the 3rd or 4th day the worship team asked anyone who had any fears to come up front so that they could worship and pray for them. I went up there because I was afraid of leaving my girlfriend for 11 months. But when I went up there He did something totally different. I have always struggled with me forgiving myself and wondering how God could love me when I have messed up and disobeyed him so much, but when I went up front one of my friends, Stephen, started to pray for me and what he said was, “Thank you Lord for Jack, He is your son and you made him perfectly just the way you wanted him.” After he said that I just fell to my knees. It hit me, there is nothing that I can do that would ever change the fact that he is my father and there is literally nothing that could ever change that, so I just had to bow down and pray to MY Father, My Abba for the first time. I always used to call him Lord God or Heavenly Father, but now he is my Abba. God literally broke me down to tears. I actually was on their small stage when it happened, but I didn’t care one bit and I don’t care if people know that I broke down. I hope that everyone gets to experience God in such a way.
On a lighter note, showers! Showers and being clean are luxuries and I didn’t realize how much of a luxury they are until they were essentially taken away. They did have showers there but they were bucket showers. For those of you that don’t know, a bucket shower is where you use a big bucket, you fill it with water, and then use that water to clean yourself. Sometimes you get the blessing of a shower curtain, but sometimes you don’t. Luckily at training camp we did. But there were stretches where I literally didn’t have time to go take a bucket shower. There was a four day period where I couldn’t shower. I felt so bad for the people around me, but then again everyone smelled bad and was dirty. After you shower you are clean for about 30 seconds and then you are sweating again, so no one but the staff was clean. As the 2 weeks went on I started to like the bucket shower more and more. I also treated myself once after the 4 days without a shower, but I took a 2-bucket shower. It was great! After you are done rinsing all the soap off you are able to dump the remaining water over yourself. That was paradise.
After the first week AIM started to put us into teams. Our team will be the people that we will be spending the 11 months with. But we would do team building exercises and then our leader would have a 1 on 1 with each of us asking how it went, who would you like to work with, who would you not like to work with, and other questions depending on your performance, the teams performance or some other variable about a member or members of the team. After several different rounds I got put on a team with some of the people that I grew really close to through training camp. Honestly I don’t think that I could have hand picked a better team for me then the team I am on right now! And then we found out that we added another person and it was another person that I had grown close to at training camp. We came up with our team name with a little help from our friend M at Mellow Mushroom. Thank You M and I am praying for you! But we cam up the name “Kaleo.” Kaleo means calling, to call, or to be called in Greek. I love my team.
As the days went on AIM was molding me for a leadership role of some capacity. I was excited, I love leading, I love being a leader, I love the extra pressure, and the expectations. It all just pushes me a little harder, but when it came to who our team leader was going to be they choose someone else. They choose Austin, a 24-year-old man from Texas, and to be honest I was a little disappointed, but then I was excited because if I were to choice to be led by anyone on the squad Austin is one of the best people on the whole squad. He is open to suggestions and is ok with someone else taking a leadership role. That being said he knows when he needs to take control. He is a great leader and I am excited to travel the world with him.
Squad Wars! Squad Wars is a competition between all of the squads leaving in September. There are 5 squads and they were Squad, V, W X, Y and Z. We were squad Y and we were also in last place by a long shot. The last night was a giant field day of competitions for Squad Wars. Going into the final event we were still in last place, but it was Tug of War and our whole squad was getting fired up and our competitive nature took over. We wanted to win at something so bad. So we made a strategy and that strategy took us all the way to the finals. And right before we started the staff member in charged screamed, “Winner of Tug-of-War is the winner of Squad Wars!” So Naturally we had to win. Long story short we won Squad Wars, no big deal.
Training camp was so incredible and life changing in just 11 days that I can’t imagine what God is going to do in 11 months. I am so excited about going on the Race now.
This is a lot of information I know but there is so much more I just don’t think anyone wants to read every detail about training camp, but if you have an questions please feel free to contact me and we can go get coffee, breakfast, lunch or whatever and talk about it.
Well that’s it for now…
Thanks for checking in,
Jack Baker
