Well, I made it home a few days ago without any problems at all, so thank you everyone for your prayers. Training camp was….just WOW. Words can’t begin to describe how amazing everything was, how God moved and met me personally, how He challenged and stretched both September and June world race teams. But I’m going to try anyway over the next few entries, so you can read about it in digestible chunks. I’ll start light.
Since my family moved when I was 8 the feeling of home being a particular place has been an elusive feeling that I’ve never managed to re-attain. I thrive on change, getting antsy if I stay in one place too long. It feels weird if I’m in a location without a definitive time when I’ll be on the move again. As a result, I’ve learned the value of making strong connections with people in short periods of time, setting my feelings of home in the relationships I experience rather than places. This has taught me what it is to be part of God’s family, one of very few eternal things we can experience here on earth.
The last two weeks have been a reminder of what it is to be in that family. Though we’d only known each other a few hours or days, we were willing to show who we really were under the layers. We wept together. We laughed together. We sought (and experienced) God’s presence together. We leaned upon one another, challenged each other, poured out our fears and deepest pains, and pushed each other towards our common goal of living as Christ lived. Though we only have the beginnings of knowing everything about one another and haven’t had to face hardships yet, those beginnings are solid, built on God’s truth and a stripping away of all the masks we wear in daily life. We’re new to it, but in short, we are family.
I look forward to spending the next year with this team, this family that I’ve already come to love.
