Once we got to training camp we got to find out that we would be using porta-pottys, taking bucket showers and camping out the whole time…exciting right? The first night, we slept in our tents and to be totally honest I went into a little bit on a panic mode. My thoughts were “I can’t believe this is going to be my life for 9 months! I’m leaving the people I love so dearly to sleep in uncomfortable tents!” etc. Things just got so real, I wanted to cry. I let my fears take over and started to believe I was the only one that felt like this. Satan loves to make us feel alone. A couple days later I starting bonding more with my squad and a few of them starting sharing how they felt the exact same way. Apparently there was a lot of crying going on the first night, I had no idea. Throughout the week we had a few different scenarios we had to go through. One night they took half of our squads packs so we understood how we would have to do things if the airport lost half our bags, so we had to share tents. Which wasn’t as bad as you would think. Surprisingly, I slept better with another person in my tent. Another night we even left camp and had to set up our sleeping site and cook our food in the middle of the woods, which was pretty fun if you ask me. There was a fitness requirement that everyone was pretty nervous about, we had to walk 2 miles with our packs on in 40 minutes. It sounds a lot easier than it was. I ended up making it in 33 minutes, thank the Lord! The food there was quite amusing. The first morning we had soup…for breakfast. I didn’t know that was a thing. It tasted good, it just felt so wrong. I gotta tell you I’ve never had or even craved soup for breakfast. Throughout the week they gave us a whole bunch of funky foods. For example we had fish and coleslaw…yes together, cornstarch mix with lentils and spinach(I think from a can)…yum? I did like that we got to try a bunch of different cultures. It was really cool how it was set up. My least favorite part, the bucket showers. I had never taken one before training so it was quite an interesting experience. I’m one of those people that just likes being clean and bucket showers don’t really clean you all that much, they mainly just make you feel better. You can guess how good everyone smelled all week. All in all training camp was exceptional. The worship band is so humble, we truly completely focused on God. Freedom is the word that keeps coming to mind for me. We could dance, get down on our knees, do anything the Lord was calling us to do and never for a second did I feel judged. The Lord is moving in that place. There’s something so divine about not worrying about a schedule but completely letting God “take the wheel”, thats faith right there. The people there have such a refined focus on God its so encouraging to see. Being able to meet my Squad and share these experiences together has made me even more excited for the months to come!
