The day was now Friday June 9th and we as a squad began the day ready for what the day held. Today we were doing what everyone was talking about coming into Training Camp. Everyone was fearful, excited, and ready to conquer it. We were going to be doing the timed hike. In order to go on the World Race we have to pass a fitness test and that is hiking 2-3 miles with our packs on in a certain amount of time. It was super exciting and after 2 tries our whole squad was able to finish in time. While the hike was going on I heard so much encouragement coming from the people around me. Everyone was encouraging, and after some of the guys finished the hike they even went back to help people still doing it. It made me realize how amazing my squad was, and how willing we were to support one another. Although this might seem like a small thing, it made me feel like the individuals that were around me were like family. We ended all together sweaty, stinky, and tired but we grew closer in the process.
After the hike we were able to take glorious bucket showers to clean off. Yep, you read that right, bucket showers. For the 10 days we all took cold showers out of a bucket, and it really wasn’t as bad as it sounded. Although all of us might have smelled a little better if we had access to real showers, they still kept you clean.
The next few days flew by with more worship, amazing teachings, and crazy scenarios. Each night we were given a sleeping scenario that we might encounter on the Race. Whether it was “losing” our bags and having to share a tent with someone else, or sleeping in a mock airport for the night Adventures in Missions kept the scenarios coming. And although it was annoying to constantly be pitching our tents and packing them up each night, every scenario was fun. I know that’s not the point of them, they’re to prepare us for what might happen, but regardless X Squad (that’s my squad by the way) made the most out of each scenario. We grew closer by relying on each other when we needed to.
The next thing that happened was one of my favorite memories from Training Camp, the man hike. The man hike is where all the men from all the squads leaving in August get together and hike the Appalachian Trail. The hike would take the whole day and would entail more than ten miles of hiking. At first when I heard about the man hike I wasn’t worried. Ten miles doesn’t sound too intimidating when you’re just walking the entire time, but it ended up being much more difficult than I anticipated. A majority of the hike was uphill and after hiking for the entire day that got pretty exhausting. The man hike wasn’t about how physically demanding the hike was however, it was about building fellowship, learning what God wants in our lives, and what it means to be a man of God. The fellowship happened naturally as you can imagine. We hiked together as a squad and there’s really nothing else to do but talk in that time frame. So we told stories, heard testimonies, told jokes, and just had a great time getting to know one another. Along the way we stopped several times to rest, but by far my favorite stop was when we reached the top of the trail. Although it was difficult and took the entire day to get there, the view did not disappoint.
P.S. If you’ve ever been in the mountains you know that pictures can never do them justice, so just imagine this picture x 100 and that’s what it was like in real life.
After we got to the top we hiked for about a mile more before reaching our campsite, and that’s when the God stuff started happening. We started by cooking food in aluminum foil over the fire and just rested after the long hike. Then a guy by the name of Gary Black began talking to us about what it meant to be a man. “Manhood consists of more than we think it does.” All of the insights he gave were wise and words I hold onto still now several weeks later. I appreciated all that he had to say and I learned a lot in the process. Then following the talk we went back to where we were staying as a squad. All of the X Squad men set up camp in a small clearing and Gary came with and talked with us some more. He talked about getting vulnerable and what that looked like among men. Then the Holy Spirit started to move. There were people delivered, peopled healed, and people in our lives that were finally forgiven. This took place for 4 hours and was one of the most powerful nights of Training Camp. One of the guys in my squad put into words what happened that night perfectly, his story is beautiful and I would encourage you to read his blog to get an insight on what happened that night.
http://zaycarter.theworldrace.org/post/im-not-the-same-man-i-was-10-days-ago
We woke up the next morning refreshed and encouraged after what had transpired the night before. There was a fire in each of the mens eyes realizing that we were all new men. There was a visible change in each of us that were in the circle the previous night. The rest of Training Camp felt a bit different after waking up. We had several meetings with leadership to discuss what had happened that night. The Holy Spirit can be confusing and sometimes scary, and it was amazing to be able to discuss our thoughts and experience with wiser and older men. After we got back to camp not only were things different with the men, the entirety of Training Camp had changed. We moved away from having worship and constant teachings to doing more team building exercises. This allowed for our trainers and people in charge of X squad to begin forming teams. It took several days of team formations until leadership were happy with the teams and they found individuals in the squad that worked well together.
Alongside the team building there were also more sleeping scenarios that we did as well as various breakout sessions. These breakout sessions included learning about things such as teaching, preaching, worship, how to tell stories through video, and the one that I went to evangelism and world religions. I was so glad to have gone to this session as it put a whole new perspective on evangelism. Evangelism has not been a large part of my faith walk up until this point. Although I strive to live out the faith in my everyday life, I am not constantly sharing about it. After thinking about it for some time I told myself it was because most of my friends were Christians, but then I realized that evangelism wasn’t about sharing Jesus with my friends. It was about sharing Jesus with everyone; stranger, friend or enemy. It didn’t matter, everyone deserves to hear the Gospel and I was just too scared to do it. After I thought about it more I realized what the biggest thing was that had held me back up to this point, fear. I was scared that people might look at me funny, or I might get rejected, or what if I mess up sharing about Jesus? This fear had held me back from evangelizing and the breakout session (which was about 4 hours long) taught us ways on how to share our faith. It gave me tools to evangelize, what evangelizing was really about, how do you do it with someone of a different religion, and so much other useful information. It opened my eyes in terms of evangelism and now I’m so excited to be able to do it. It’s not that I wasn’t able to do it before, but maybe I just lacked the confidence that I have now. Evangelism is now a part of my faith walk and I’m so excited to see the Lord strengthen me in that area. Only several weeks ago I felt unequipped and inadequate to evangelize and now I know the Lord will give me the words I need when talking with anyone about Jesus.
I left Training Camp feeling refreshed, inspired, excited, ecstatic, on fire, filled up, encouraged, and most of all ready. Up to this point I hadn’t felt ready to go on the World Race. It’s a scary thought leaving your life for 11 months and going into the unknown. I was giving up control of my own life in order to do work for the Kingdom, and I don’t think I had come to terms with that until Training Camp. I came back ready to enjoy my last moments here in the states, but I was also ready and equipped for what I would face while overseas. I came back in the same van I left for Training Camp just 11 days prior, and I returned very different. I was and AM ready to tackle this thing called the World Race, and as the journey finally starts in a short 34 days I can’t wait to take each and every one of you along for the wonderful ride.
