Launch picked up right where Training Camp left off – a tsunami of information in a short period of time, it’s just cleaner and less smelly. I had to arrive in Atlanta 1 day early to meet with the leadership teams before the rest of the squad joined us. That first day was filled with sessions with information, advice, and responsibilities that specifically related to leaders. The teachings and note-taking continued when the rest of our squad met us the next day. Distractions, lies, sins, and unforgiveness, and things were stripped away that were holding us back from reaching our full potential with God during the Race and experiencing the full manifest presence of God. Each session tells us how to be successful on the Race; for ourselves, our team, our hosts, and the communities we will be serving.
Months have turned into weeks into days and into hours. Launch is almost over. Our squad leaves for Cambodia tomorrow! It’s surreal. September felt so far away when I got accepted way back in March. After launch I thought that by this time I would feel more prepared than I feel – at least, that’s what I thought in March – that I would have everything figured out by now and I would enter into the mission field confidently. As the weeks turned to days and the final trainings of Launch, my anxiety and my sense of preparedness had not left me. “What’s going on?!” I thought. “I should feel completely prepared for these next 11 months, so why don’t I?” “Has AIM not trained me properly” My mentality was completely independent of God and during my thoughts I was entirely reliant on myself. My thoughts were self-focused and filled with unfaithfulness. You could say that in March, I planned to do the World Race under my own power and without the faith that God will see me through in all situations. What God has revealed to me when I look back on my thought process is that I will never be prepared for the World Race if I try to reduce the anxiety and increase my confidence on my own. The only way to feel prepared is to have faith in God and what He has in store for me and believe that it is the best thing for me. When I believe these thoughts I feel my sense of anxiousness decrease and I begin to walk confidently knowing that God is by my side.
In Other News:
Route change: Instead of Botswana, Swaziland, and South Africa we are doing Uganda, Rwanda, and Ethiopia.
Please pray:
Pray for unity as a team, safe travels (we fly out tomorrow), the people we will be interacting with in Cambodia, for our ministry hosts; that our team will encourage and bless them, and for me to be a humble and confident servant leader to my team.
