The Week That Changed My Life

10 days ago I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I was packing up for training camp and ready to see what this World Race was all about. I kind of looked at it as week of cultural preparation, worship, and maybe a few activities here and there. Those were definitely all part of it, but I didn’t know that being set FREE from all of my burdens, dropping ALL expectations, becoming DEAD to sin, and really living in community would be included. I used to never believe people when they said they had a “life changing” week. Yeah well I guess I was proved WRONG! World Race training camp was the most intense week of my life. I was broken down and built back up at the will of God. I was drained physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I was then recharged by the love of the almighty Lord.

The first few days were really uncomfortable for me. It was hot and humid, I barely knew anyone, and I was distracted by all of the southern accents. J There is one teammate named Christy, and God bless her heart, she has the sweetest Mississippi southern accent and she has a hard time saying names with the letter “I” in them. So whenever she says my name it sounds like “FEEL” instead of just Phil. Ahh I love it!! The first few days were just filled with a lot worship and sermon type stuff. Many of the sermons were led by Pastor Michael Hindes who is an amazing man of God and an influential speaker. The worship was lead by Jonathan David Helser and his band. THEY WERE AWESOME!! They had the most beautiful songs and I could definitely tell they were on fire for the Lord through their music! As the days went by things got a little more comfortable. I let allowed myself to be more expressive during worship and DANG GINA (Thanks Mac) it felt awesome!

Don’t even get me started on the people of “S-Squad” Each squad gets a letter and the October 2010 Racers are part of the “S-Squad” Each person is blessed with a BEAUTIFUL soul and God’s truth I cannot wait to serve alongside each and every one of them! As ya’ll know I am an only child, but on July 24^th I was blessed with 60 something BROTHERS and SISTERS! I still can’t believe it sometimes!! We have SO much fun with each other.

 

We did a lot of team building exercises towards the end of the week so that the WR Staff could determine our “teams” that we would be broken up into. Teams would consist of about seven people each and would have at least two men per team due to the ratio of more women than men. We worked together in various activities and switched up team members to see who would work well with who. I worked with some amazing people in teams, but the team that I was placed on is AWESOME! You’ll have to come back for the next blog when I introduce my team…..

I have never felt so loved in my life. I was in the presence of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. We spent a lot of time reflecting on our life and how we need to be actively pursuing a life closer to Him. I was able to break down my walls and FULLY open my heart to the call of God. I imagined Him saying “come and get me! Come and get me!”

There is really too much that happened at camp to blog about it. I just wanted to share a small piece of what God has blessed me with. I am now another life that has been changed for the better only by the grace of God. I will admit I’ve never been so emotional than in the past few days. My heart broke for all the children in Africa infected with aids; I wept for the orphans caught in the sex trade in Eastern Europe, and cried my eyes out for the women in Thailand working in the bars. They are all my brothers and sisters in Christ and my heart aches knowing that they are going through pain and suffering. I prayed to God that He would please just somehow let them know that they are LOVED by Him. I’m getting emotional writing this blog. I’m writing this blog in the student center area at school and I think people are looking at me funny cuz I literally have tears running down my face….ahh well! I don’t like to think that camp made me a softy, but one of the things that we established as Men is that we need to allow ourselves to be vulnerable at times. I just hope I didn’t become *too* vulnerable.

I know the World Race is a calling straight from God. I know I’m supposed to hold orphans and love the widows. I know that God has a great plan for me. I know that I will never the same person I was before I left for camp. I know I’m supposed to bring the Gospel to the nations! I’ve never been more excited for an event than the World Race. I have two months before I leave. I still have many things to take care of before I depart, but I know these two months will fly by and you’ll be seeing “Cribs” videos from all around the world.

Those that have supported me already, I just want to thank you for your contribution. You were able to send me to training camp and have my life renewed and experience God first hand. God bless each and every one of your for expressing your belief in me! I love each and every one of you!

 

I can’t wait to tell you all about my WONDERFUL “small” team of six. They are allll so awesome and each person is on FIRE for the Lord. Check back for the next blog for my introduction of Team…….

 

OH! And you’ll NEVER guess what we did our last day of camp!!

 

OH! And we got our Official-Unofficial Race Route! It’s totally different from the one on my homepage! The first country we’ll be in is………..