The first day of training camp began with the realization that my tent was lost in transit from Houston to Atlanta. I spotted a girl with a hiking pack and walked up to her to see if she was a part of my squad. Stephanie was in fact going on the World Race, but with the June squad. Our friendship instantly began while I put on my hiking pack and asked her to re-adjust my tent, to which she responded “I don’t know how to tell you this, but ummm your tent isn’t there”. At this point, I’m laughing at the fact that I haven’t even left the country yet and have already lost something, a pretty significant something…awesome. After speaking with several airport employees that basically told me my tent was a goner, Stephanie and I headed toward the Atrium to meet up with the other World Racers.
As I walked through the Atrium at the Atlanta airport, people that had been merely names and faces on a blog began to appear. I kept thinking “Is this for real?” From the moment I first spotted my fellow P-Squaders (and fellow Texans) Colby and Lia in the terminal, the fears and uneasiness that I had about my future family disappeared. Everyone was amazingly friendly, kind, and at ease conversing with each other. After meeting up with the entire June and July squads, 135 people, we piled into two charter buses and began the hour and a half journey to a camping site outside of Cartersville, GA. Did I mention that the air conditioner on our charter bus wasn’t working? I definitely think that God saw some humor in preparing us for the heat we’ll be living in for several months. So, sweat stains and all, we arrived at our destination.
The first few days of training camp were really intense. We woke up at 6:30, exercised with our group, ate breakfast, had a session of learning about a scripture, ate lunch, another session of scripture, break, another session of scripture, dinner, and yet more scripture. The schedule made for long days, but it was definitely worth it to see the way that God worked in everyone. The scriptures that we focused on the first few days were really about just dealing with things in our own lives. We talked about Romans 6:11 that says “In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.” There are so many times that we are faced with the decision between right and wrong, but Christ says that we are already dead to sin so if we keep our eyes focused on Him there is no choice to be made.
During camp, we did an exercise symbolizing bondage that pretty much knocked me off of my feet. Our squad leaders had us take a marker and write everything that holds us back from seeking Christ wholeheartedly and just being real. We then tied our hands and feet together and put a bandana over one eye. As I was hunched over with my hands and feet tied together and stumbling to see with vision in only one eye, I began to feel anger rising within me. I looked around at all 135 of us World Racers in two lines that looked ridiculous trying to walk 1/4 mile to our destination; we looked like prisoners. We have been given the FREEDOM to walk in Christ, and this is what we do to ourselves. We let things hold us back, we let things tie our hands and feet together, and we stumble through life with vision in one eye, because we let satan get a foot-hold and tell us we are not worthy. At the end of the journey we took a moment to reflect at a cemetery. I honestly don’t know why I’ve never gotten the revelation of what the bondage of sin does to us when we hold onto it, but I laid down everything at that cemetery and am now walking in true freedom. After we went back to camp for worship, I saw my generation come ALIVE. I could see it in people’s eyes that they truly “got it”. It was amazing :).
Another thing that we talked about was religion. A lot of people have check-lists of what they think they need to do or characteristics that they need to have in order to be considered a “good Christian”. We have made the Church into something that it wasn’t intended to be. So many of us, myself included before this week, sit in the pews at church and act like everything is great. We don’t ask for help, we don’t reveal our struggles, we don’t reveal things that we need prayer about for fear that we’ll be judged and “found out”, and we are not REAL with each other. All because we have made religion into this unattainable perfect image that makes us all feel like failures. It’s not about acting like we’re perfect, it’s not about what denomination we’re from, and it’s not about who is right or wrong. It’s about loving people. I’m done with the ways of pretending to have it all together when sometimes I just really don’t. This week was amazing because everyone was completely real. If someone had a doubt about something, they spoke it and everyone talked about it. It’s about helping each other grow in faith. Just love. Just Jesus. Isn’t that simple?
After the first few days of camp, it was time for some fun and squad bonding. Our leaders told us that it was “moving day” and that we had one hour to pack things that we thought were of complete necessity. We were told to take one hiking pack for every two people, which allowed us very little room. We hiked about a mile into the wilderness and set up camp on the bank of a lake. We used tarps to form the “roof” and “floor” of our shelter for the night, and everyone spread out their sleeping bags to form “beds”. After getting settled into our new home for the night, we decided to go swimming and canoeing in the lake. As I sun-bathed on the shore of the lake and glanced around, I realized that I was among people that had been complete strangers just three days earlier and felt completely at peace. It was a very surreal moment. Afterwards, we cooked dinner and worshiped together below the stars. The perfect ending to an awesome day.
Lastly, we talked about some of the closed countries that we will be traveling to. We played a “game” in which people were given the role of either a Christian, a missionary, a pastor, or the government. The point of the game was for the Christians to find the missionaries, who would then direct them to the pastor. The Christians were part of different churches, and each church had a different signal that identified them. The trademark of my church was that we offered people a leaf and if they accepted the leaf then it meant they were a part of the same church. During the “day”, everyone walked around in a circle in the “market” and tried to find the other members of their church. While we were walking around, the “government” (which was the AIM staff), also walked around and yelled at people if they talked for too long or if they saw anyone doing handshakes or trading items. When they blew an air horn, the “day” turned into “night”. During the “night”, everyone was supposed to stand on door mats that were spread out in the field. You could either choose to run into the woods and hope that you didn’t get caught, or you could squeeze onto a mat and hope that the “government” didn’t come to your house and take it over. If you got caught, they took you to “jail” and screamed at you, made you do push-ups, poured water, noodles, and syrup on you.
Let me just say that this game was intense. It felt extremely real. Keep in mind that the staff did all of this in a loving way to get a point across; they weren’t torturing us or anything, but it was just enough for it to seem real. During the game, the “government” yelled out things like “Do you hear your friends screaming in jail, where’s your God now? He seems really great”. This really struck a chord with me. How many times do we take advantage of the fact that we live in a country where we are free to worship God or whoever we want to for that matter, yet we still keep our focus on so many small problems? Sometimes we’re too tired or lazy to get up and go to church or to even pray, and there are people around the world that RISK THEIR LIFE to be a Christian.
I walked away from training camp a completely different person than I was just 10 days ago. I am thankful to the staff and to my squad for being so amazing! I absolutely can’t wait to see the great things that God has in store for the next year. There are so many more things that I could write about so please ask if you want to know more! Thank you so much for your continued prayers and support. Much love!
As I walked through the Atrium at the Atlanta airport, people that had been merely names and faces on a blog began to appear. I kept thinking “Is this for real?” From the moment I first spotted my fellow P-Squaders (and fellow Texans) Colby and Lia in the terminal, the fears and uneasiness that I had about my future family disappeared. Everyone was amazingly friendly, kind, and at ease conversing with each other. After meeting up with the entire June and July squads, 135 people, we piled into two charter buses and began the hour and a half journey to a camping site outside of Cartersville, GA. Did I mention that the air conditioner on our charter bus wasn’t working? I definitely think that God saw some humor in preparing us for the heat we’ll be living in for several months. So, sweat stains and all, we arrived at our destination.
The first few days of training camp were really intense. We woke up at 6:30, exercised with our group, ate breakfast, had a session of learning about a scripture, ate lunch, another session of scripture, break, another session of scripture, dinner, and yet more scripture. The schedule made for long days, but it was definitely worth it to see the way that God worked in everyone. The scriptures that we focused on the first few days were really about just dealing with things in our own lives. We talked about Romans 6:11 that says “In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.” There are so many times that we are faced with the decision between right and wrong, but Christ says that we are already dead to sin so if we keep our eyes focused on Him there is no choice to be made.
During camp, we did an exercise symbolizing bondage that pretty much knocked me off of my feet. Our squad leaders had us take a marker and write everything that holds us back from seeking Christ wholeheartedly and just being real. We then tied our hands and feet together and put a bandana over one eye. As I was hunched over with my hands and feet tied together and stumbling to see with vision in only one eye, I began to feel anger rising within me. I looked around at all 135 of us World Racers in two lines that looked ridiculous trying to walk 1/4 mile to our destination; we looked like prisoners. We have been given the FREEDOM to walk in Christ, and this is what we do to ourselves. We let things hold us back, we let things tie our hands and feet together, and we stumble through life with vision in one eye, because we let satan get a foot-hold and tell us we are not worthy. At the end of the journey we took a moment to reflect at a cemetery. I honestly don’t know why I’ve never gotten the revelation of what the bondage of sin does to us when we hold onto it, but I laid down everything at that cemetery and am now walking in true freedom. After we went back to camp for worship, I saw my generation come ALIVE. I could see it in people’s eyes that they truly “got it”. It was amazing :).
Another thing that we talked about was religion. A lot of people have check-lists of what they think they need to do or characteristics that they need to have in order to be considered a “good Christian”. We have made the Church into something that it wasn’t intended to be. So many of us, myself included before this week, sit in the pews at church and act like everything is great. We don’t ask for help, we don’t reveal our struggles, we don’t reveal things that we need prayer about for fear that we’ll be judged and “found out”, and we are not REAL with each other. All because we have made religion into this unattainable perfect image that makes us all feel like failures. It’s not about acting like we’re perfect, it’s not about what denomination we’re from, and it’s not about who is right or wrong. It’s about loving people. I’m done with the ways of pretending to have it all together when sometimes I just really don’t. This week was amazing because everyone was completely real. If someone had a doubt about something, they spoke it and everyone talked about it. It’s about helping each other grow in faith. Just love. Just Jesus. Isn’t that simple?
After the first few days of camp, it was time for some fun and squad bonding. Our leaders told us that it was “moving day” and that we had one hour to pack things that we thought were of complete necessity. We were told to take one hiking pack for every two people, which allowed us very little room. We hiked about a mile into the wilderness and set up camp on the bank of a lake. We used tarps to form the “roof” and “floor” of our shelter for the night, and everyone spread out their sleeping bags to form “beds”. After getting settled into our new home for the night, we decided to go swimming and canoeing in the lake. As I sun-bathed on the shore of the lake and glanced around, I realized that I was among people that had been complete strangers just three days earlier and felt completely at peace. It was a very surreal moment. Afterwards, we cooked dinner and worshiped together below the stars. The perfect ending to an awesome day.
Lastly, we talked about some of the closed countries that we will be traveling to. We played a “game” in which people were given the role of either a Christian, a missionary, a pastor, or the government. The point of the game was for the Christians to find the missionaries, who would then direct them to the pastor. The Christians were part of different churches, and each church had a different signal that identified them. The trademark of my church was that we offered people a leaf and if they accepted the leaf then it meant they were a part of the same church. During the “day”, everyone walked around in a circle in the “market” and tried to find the other members of their church. While we were walking around, the “government” (which was the AIM staff), also walked around and yelled at people if they talked for too long or if they saw anyone doing handshakes or trading items. When they blew an air horn, the “day” turned into “night”. During the “night”, everyone was supposed to stand on door mats that were spread out in the field. You could either choose to run into the woods and hope that you didn’t get caught, or you could squeeze onto a mat and hope that the “government” didn’t come to your house and take it over. If you got caught, they took you to “jail” and screamed at you, made you do push-ups, poured water, noodles, and syrup on you.
Let me just say that this game was intense. It felt extremely real. Keep in mind that the staff did all of this in a loving way to get a point across; they weren’t torturing us or anything, but it was just enough for it to seem real. During the game, the “government” yelled out things like “Do you hear your friends screaming in jail, where’s your God now? He seems really great”. This really struck a chord with me. How many times do we take advantage of the fact that we live in a country where we are free to worship God or whoever we want to for that matter, yet we still keep our focus on so many small problems? Sometimes we’re too tired or lazy to get up and go to church or to even pray, and there are people around the world that RISK THEIR LIFE to be a Christian.
I walked away from training camp a completely different person than I was just 10 days ago. I am thankful to the staff and to my squad for being so amazing! I absolutely can’t wait to see the great things that God has in store for the next year. There are so many more things that I could write about so please ask if you want to know more! Thank you so much for your continued prayers and support. Much love!
