Let me start off by saying this: God is still in the miracle making business. When you open your heart and call upon God, he shows up.
And boy did he show up at Training Camp.
I wish every adult had the opportunity to go to TC at least once in their lives. You would be surprised at how radical your life is changed in 10 short days. Explaining TC is impossible, there is just too much that goes on and I don’t want to ruin the mystery for future Racers. (If you’re reading this as a future Racer, trust me, I understand how badly you want me to tell you all the secrets of TC. But quit stalking TC blogs and just get ready for the most wonderfully overwhelming 10 days of your life!)
Since I really cannot put my TC experience into words, here are my favorite stories from this week:
I’ve fallen in love only once. It was horribly toxic and a very negative relationship. He quickly came into my life and just as quickly left. After two years, I thought I had moved on and gotten over him. Turns out, there is this thing called “soul-ties” and it’s a person that has a piece of your soul and is not allowing you to move on and continue with your life. I realized my ex was my soul tie and that I was ready to give him up. Giving him up was a lot easier said than done, so my squad mate Dee prayed over me and as she was praying, God gave me one of my favorite visions ever.
I was standing at an alter and there was a blurry figure standing next to me, my next vision was of me and my blurry figure standing in front of a house with four blurry children. Next, my blurry vision and I were doing mission work together and I was smiling at him, the look on my face was pure love. My final vision was of two blurry figures, one of us was lying in a hospital bed while the other was holding their hand. We’re obviously elderly, and we’re obviously very much still in love.
I’ve always been terrified of having a negative relationship again, but when God showed me these visions, I felt like it was his way of telling me “Hey, I know you’ve been hurt. But just look at this beautiful life I have planned for you.”
Story number 2:
I got in a wreck about a month ago and it messed up my back horribly. My back pains almost kept me from completing the fitness parts of training camp. So when I had the opportunity to have squad mates pray over my back for healing, I jumped at the chance. I opened my heart to the possibility of God healing my back and my prayer warriors started their praying. After a few minutes, I heard God say “Get down on the ground and do sit-ups.” (I struggled the day before with sit-ups because of my back pain) I knew people would look at me like I was crazy but I did it anyway. I laid on the ground and did a sit-up. WITH NO PAIN. I went crazy and just kept doing them without experiencing an ounce of hurt.
Over the next few days, I slept on the ground (no sleeping pad, only a blanket), I played some serious tug-of-war, I did team building activates that had me standing in strange positions, and I drove seven hours home. Without an ounce of pain.
I choose to believe God healed my back and took my pain away. I choose to believe that God transformed my heart and helped me forgive people that I didn’t even know I was still hurting from. I choose to believe that God is still present in our everyday lives and that God IS NOT DEAD. He is still alive and he is still performing miracles.
I fell in love this week with a team of 40+ people, I learned what a community of believers felt like, I discovered what weightless happiness feels like, I learned how to put up a tent in freezing cold, wet weather, I learned how to support people at their worst, I learned that sometimes you have to sacrifice so others can have, but most importantly, I learned how much God loves me and how important I am to him.
I am now one of 420 missionaries that will leave in January to CHANGE THE WORLD.
My amazing team, we named ourselves Eliora. It’s Hebrew for “God is Light”, I can’t wait to see what our Father has in store for us!
420ish World Racers that are in the business of changing the world!
E-Squad. These people are beautiful inside and out. I’m so blessed to be a part of their community! (P.s we won Squad Wars.)
