I’m about to jet off to World Race Training Camp tomorrow for a 10 day intensive training in the woods of Gainesville, Georgia. It doesn’t officially start until the 19th, however I’m going a day early with some other people that signed up for a storytelling workshop. It will basically introduce us and teach us how to tell stories on the mission field through video. It will be a jam-packed week and a half with seminars, trainings, work outs and hikes, worship, prayer, strange food, and bonding with my squad-mates. I have 60 other squad-mates. There will be about 220 Racers, going on 5 different routes that will be there. We will be sleeping in our tents most of the time and going through different scenarios that could happen on the mission field.
Its going to be challenging and uncomfortable. I don’t know if I’m ready for the bucket showers (where you get a bucket of water and pour water on yourself with a cup) or the overflowing Porta Potties where we’ll be getting REALLY uncomfortable. I don’t know if I’m ready for being dirty and smelly all the time and letting people that I just met smell me and look at me in that condition.
But I AM ready for God to speak to me in the quiet moments when I’m unplugged from the world, and in the loud, worshipful ones. I AM ready to become family with my squad-mates. I AM ready to be broken and for God to build me back up. I AM ready for God to speak to me in my brokenness. I AM ready to come out on the other side stronger, prepared, changed, and equipped. I AM ready to be vulnerable. I AM ready to be affirmed and receive more confirmation that this is the plan that God has for me. I AM ready to be stretched outside my comfort zone.
If you could pray for these 3 things over the next 12 days while I’m gone:
-That I would mesh well with my squad and that we would become tight-knit. One of my concerns about leaving for a year is being away from my close-knit church community of peers. God has blessed me the past two years with some of the best friends I have ever had in my life. And I know He is about to bless me even more with these brothers and sisters in Christ I’ll be doing next year with. I know a lot is going to change in a year and some of my friends are getting married or moving or starting a new chapter of their life. I know that when I’m off fulfilling God’s call on my life, my friends will be fulfilling God’s call for their lives. I am happy for the exciting developments in my friends’ lives but knowing I won’t be there for them and I don’t know what I’ll be walking into when I return home at the end of November 2017 makes me nervous.
-For the team that I will be placed in. Our squad of 61 people will be spread out throughout each country we go to doing different ministries in teams made up of about 7 members. So this is the small group of people I’ll be with 24/7, months at a time (we’ll change teams a couple times throughout the year). Pray that the people from Adventures in Missions that are in charge of placing us in teams will receive wisdom from God about who to place together. I don’t want to ask for the perfect team, because I know that conflict and differences will still produce Christ-like qualities in us if handled in a Christ-like way.
-That God would have his way in my heart. That my walls would be torn down and I’d be able to hear what God wants to speak to me and through me. There’s going to be a lot of spiritual and emotional things that are going to happen; testimonies shared, strongholds broken, and breakthroughs… all of which require vulnerability. And all will probably produce tears. This is where we meet God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit in a new way. So please pray for these moments. And especially pray for the moments when I don’t want to be vulnerable, when I don’t want to engage, when I have a bad attitude because I’m tired, hungry, or homesick. Pray that God will break through my walls.
Thank you for reading this. Thank you for praying and supporting me through this experience. Thank you for sending me.
