Eight more minutes till we get there?
My hands were shaking, my palms were clammy, my heart was pounding.
Choosing to leave my family and the comforts of home for a year of abandonment, brokenness, and servanthood with a bunch of people I had never met before sounds crazy. And you know what!? It is a bit crazy, but I realized that if I want to live a life that works to further my Father’s Kingdom, then sometimes it will require some crazy. Needless to say, this commitment has been the craziest decision of my life so far, and it never really felt real until my dad told me that we were only eight minutes away.
My hands were shaking, my palms were clammy, my heart was pounding.
My parents began to pray over me. They prayed over my heart.
My mom stretched her calm hands out from the front seat and tightly held onto my trembling hands. Gently smiling, she looked at me with tears welling up in her eyes. It was this very moment that showed me how all of this was finally becoming real not only for me, but it finally was becoming real for her too.
Eight minutes turned into five minutes, and five minutes quickly turned into three.
I’m not even OFFICIALLY leaving yet, I thought to myself.
How am I going to do this in July!?
My hands were shaking, my palms were clammy, my heart was pounding.
Anxiously sitting in the back seat with the minutes winding down, I was taken back to a specific evening this past February, where me and my parents were enjoying a large margherita pizza while discussing the World Race and how I was going to get to and from training camp. While discussing flights and transportation, I gathered the courage to voice out a desire of my heart that I was almost sure they would shoot down.
I mean, it just felt too crazy. I was ready for it to just be a good idea. But I did it.
“Why don’t we drive there!? Why don’t we road trip to Georgia together!?”
My parents looked at each other, took some time to think about how we could possibly make it happen, and they quickly responded with, “Let’s do it.”
And I know that I speak for all three of us in saying that this was one of the best decisions ever.
Coming all the way from Los Angeles, California, we explored (and feasted) our way through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, and touched base in Georgia.
Everything that has taken place in my life has brought me exactly to this moment, and I had never been so overwhelmed with such a range of emotions in my life. I’ve never experienced something like this.
My hands were shaking, my palms were clammy, my heart was pounding.
Three minutes turned into two, two minutes turned into one.
As we were greeted with smiles and shouts of celebration by World Race alumni, they directed us to where my parents would be able to drop me off. In doing so, we passed by a field of people setting up tents, and I thought to myself- This is it. This is the day I had been waiting for.
Counting down the days came to an end.
Counting down the minutes came to an end.
World Race Training Camp was actually here.
I don’t know how to perfectly describe to you what happened from that moment on. I don’t know how to sum up training camp into a single blog post. I don’t know how to share with you just how much God rocked my heart in the span of one week. I don’t know how to perfectly illustrate to you the beauty of the unity and bond that comes between complete strangers when one mission is in mind.
But I do know one thing- God was there, and He moved in all of us.
I can go on and on about all of the lifelong lessons that God taught me in only seven days. I can go on and on about the freedom that I was able to cling onto tightly as I worshipped with a crowd of strangers who quickly became my family. I can go on and on about the beauty of the LORD and how the gospel truly gives broken people the courage to wander into deep waters. I can go on and on about how rough training camp was- emotionally, spiritually, mentally, physically.
But before I dive into all of those stories, let me share with you one.
This is a story about a group of strangers from all over America who came together in some wilderness in Georgia. They dragged their feet through red, muddy grounds together. They suffered from smelliness for the lack of frequent showers together. They squeezed four people at a time into two person tents. They slept under the skies with scorpions and spiders together. They freely praised His name through singing and dancing together. They portioned every meal and only dreamt of coffee, pizza, and soda throughout the week together. They shouted declarations of blessings and of freedom around a bonfire together. They cried, overwhelmed by the reality of the Holy Spirit, together. And most of all, they came out of this wildly, insanely beautiful yet rough week as a FAMILY, together.
And this video is just a peek into the incredible bond that emerges when you put a group of people together who collectively carry a fragrant and contagious passion for their one and only Maker.
I tell you, there is truly nothing like it.
But maybe you had to have been there…
With all my love and joy,
Richelle.
