Wet Tent
To say I’m barely enduring my first night of Training Camp is an absolute understatement. I’m lying in my tent in a puddle of water, my sleeping bag and padding drenched from the unannounced Georgia rain. There are voices outside, coming from 62 of my squad mates, still strangers, all camped out around me. I’m sweaty, dirty, hungry, frustrated, and I miss home. I rummage around my daypack and find a half-eaten tangerine and devour it. I look at my phone, no service here in the camp grounds. I suppose the only person I can call on right now is God.
“God are you there? “
“Yes, Jackie I’m here.”
“Am I meant to be here? I already don’t feel like I belong. I’m a girly-girl from San Francisco. I don’t know how to pitch a tent and can barely carry a backpack that fits a year’s worth of my belongings, and to pack everything I just unpacked by 7am tomorrow? Not to mention, I’m like the only Asian here. And I’m like the oldest person on the squad, but with the youngest looking face, why did you do that to me God? ”
My questions came like bullets from a machine gun, fast, furious and one after another coming right at Him. But God, He was patient with me.
“Jackie, Listen to me.
I know you don’t feel like you belong. But that’s exactly where I want you- uncomfortable, not belonging.
But why?
So I can work in you, so you can lean on me.
It’s not you that will show good works and bring me glory. It’s my Son living in you. Remember that.”
Missing Tent
The second night I slept in a tent shared with my new buddy Carly, a junior high teacher from Ohio. As my pack was misplaced, I now have no tent, no belongings, no fresh undies, no toothbrush, just the clothes off my back and a tired body but a somewhat hopeful spirit from full days of training and truth teaching where we learned about the 6 steps of missions: Abandonment, Brokenness, Dependence, Empowerment, Calling and Confirmation. I figure I must be in the abandonment stage since all my belongings seemed to have escaped me and I feel a bit abandoned myself.
Well, at least I don’t have to pitch the tent again, as that morning’s struggle to pack up was fresh on my mind, deflating my bed padding, rolling up my sleeping bag, just to stuff both in tiny bags which took about 10 attempts before both fit, a task enough to scare me off the field. To my surprise, when I asked if I could bunk with her, Carly immediately let me in to her tent and showed me some Midwestern hospitality by letting me sleep on her sleeping bag- it makes good padding to lay on, I shared her shower stuff and we went to sleep after a refreshing heart to heart, letting out both of our insecurities about "being the old women" at training camp and the Race in general. The prayers we said for each other ringing peace as I closed my eyes. It turned out to be a better night than I expected.
No Tent
Not to spoil the surprise for future racers, we did sleep in an even more crammed space as a squad of 63 one night, abandoning our tents for even harsher places to lay our heads. By this time my complaints to God have turned into “I dare them’s”, as in “I dare them to feed us snake intestines”, “I dare them to make me hop up a hill with one leg again”, “I dare them to take away all my stuff and let me get rained on”.
My attitude midway through had turned from no way to bring it. Not because I came to a place of surrendering my own rights, but that I’ve decided to let my own strength to carry me through.
But it wasn’t long before I was made to realize that my own strength was never enough to carry me through what’s coming ahead.
To be continued…but first a video highlight from camp (a treasure is on timestamp 7:15):
Lastly friends, I can't do this Race without your help, to support me on this Race, go here.
