Hello, outside world! Are you drinking your Starbucks right now? Munching on your Moe's Burrito? Well… we had oxtail for lunch. Yumm-o. (Please note that I am a vegetarian.)
We all arrived at training camp yesterday – there are four squads: yellow, green, red and orange (my squad!). Everyone was decked out in their team's color ready to start the journey! We set up our tents (my "buddy", Michelle helped me set up mine. Of course, I no idea what I was doing.) I use quotes on buddy because we use the buddy system here, and she is in fact, my buddy. She rocks.
After we setup camp we retreated to the chapel for worship and lecture. They taught us about discipleship. They taught us that if we want to be more like Christ, it's a process. The process looks a little bit like this: abandonment, brokenness, empowerment, calling and confirmation. If we want to make a difference we need to be broken to be rebuilt like Christ. We also talked about expectations. Obviously, we have a lot of expectations going into this trip. But most of them are self-centered. And, we don't even realize we have certain expectations until they're not met. Our emotional reactions expose them.
We were in chapel for several hours. After that, we were free to walk around or go to bed. HOWEVER, it had been raining throughout church, so most of our tents were flooded when we returned to camp ground. I had a little panic attack when I couldn't get all of the water up. My sleeping pad was soaked! But you know what? I got the water up, it stopped raining, it cooled down, and everything was fine. It always is! I think I should also add that LIz and I shared a tent because she didn't have time to set her's up (long story). It was awesome to be able to bond and talk about Ole Miss and our mutual Oxford friends. What a blessing that she is on this trip! In fact, I've met so many new people and connected instantly with a lot of them! I was nervous about going into this "alone" but I feel like I have a new family. Everyone is so awesome and encouraging. Today in chapel, I had a "moment". I often feel insecure about my faith and that I'm not "Christian" enough. I was feeling like that during one of the sermons and literally 5 minutes later one of my teammates walked over to me and started praying over me that my insecurities would wash away. It was crazy. I started crying.
After chapel they told us we needed to ready the next morning at 7am – tents and bags packed, ready to go. Please imagine my face at this moment – after I struggled to pitch my tent just a few hours prior. Not good. Liz and I woke up bringt and early to people shouting at 6am! Come on people! We gots to sleep! We went for a 20-minute run as a squad (=death) and retreated back to the chapel. This morning we talked about "watering and weeding" the people and habits in our life that affect our relationship with God. It was pretty thought-provoking.
OHH I forgot to talk about the meals. Today is Asian day, so for breakfast we had "congee" – rice with beef and chicken stock. Now, let us all bow our heads in silence, for today I ate meat, I thought I was going to throw up. I tried to pick the beef out, but the chicken stock was inevitable. Sad. For lunch we had oxtail and rice noodle salad. I ate about 12 helpings of the salad.
Whoops. Got to run. Our next session starts in 3 minutes!!
