So many things happened between August 20th and 30th, I won’t be able to fit it all in one blog. But in this one I’m going to hit some of the highlights of what went down (and what I learned) and then go in to detail in the next coming days/weeks.
Training Camp: 10 days of getting to know all 48 of my squadmates, intense worship sessions, several freezing cold bucket showers (take that, Georgia heat), and growing closer to God.
Abandonment: Our choice to leave other things behind when we follow after Jesus. When He told the disciples to follow Him, they didn’t know exactly what He was calling them to do, but their answer was “Yes”. I have no idea what the next year of my life will hold, but I’m saying “Yes” to Jesus all the way.
Trust: Even though we don’t know what God is calling us to do, we’re doing it. If I knew God’s plan and timing for my life, my trust would be worthless. (Acts 1:7)
Mission: Serving, encouraging, and making disciples. What God has called us to do. (James 1:27)
Intimacy: Knowing God more, knowing yourself more, having an identity in Christ, study the word and act it out.
Community: Being the church and building the body. Speaking the truth in love and putting others before yourself. I experienced more of a community this week than I ever have.
Feedback: (This one scares me) Encouraging, truth comes from love. This is about the Kingdom and not about me. You will be known by your love of others. “Out of the heart overflows the mouth”. (Hebrews 10:24-25). The BODY is the fullness of Christ.
Living Life in Abundance: Physical health = Emotional health = spiritual health. If one is unhealthy so are the rest – they are all connected! Jesus calls us to ACTION. (John 1:38-39, Matthew 4:18-20, Luke 9:23) Action will allow understanding, which means once you learn something YOU WILL UNDERSTAND – study the word and you will understand the Lord.
Fear: You can operate in fear or faith – not both (2 Timothy 1:17). PERFECT LOVE CASTS OUT FEAR (1 John 4:18) You cannot fear someone if you love them, so why are we afraid to share Jesus?
Shame Vs Guilt: Shame is non-biblical and creates disconnection. Shame says I am a bad person. Guilt is biblical and creates a connection. Guilt says I did a bad thing. (John 8:1-11). Do I have the power to condemn myself? Do others have the power to condemn me? NO AND NO. So why do we give that power to ourselves and others?
Hearing the Voice of God: This subject was one of my favorites. We can hear the voice of the Lord in different ways: His word – Jesus is the word! His Spirit – remind, convict, develop intimacy – when we share our deepest, darkest secrets with someone it creates a connection. His People – God uses those around us to speak to us.
Forgiveness: Unforgiveness spreads until you kill it completely. It can also spread to other people if you let it overwhelm you. You find yourself holding those around accountable for something that someone else did to you. Unforgiveness can be hidden. You may not know that you haven’t forgiven someone until it hits you out of nowhere. Forgiveness is all about you and your heart position with the Lord. BLESS THOSE WHO CURSE YOU. (Matthew 6:14-15) Jesus says forgiveness and reconciliation is more important than your gifts you bring and your worship. If you’re trying to grow closer to Him, but you hold resentment and unforgiveness in your heart, you better go sort that out.
Evangelism: Evangelism is an INTERRUPTION. There is never an opportune time.
Reputation: God doesn’t care about your reputation! He made Jesus of NO reputation!
Testimony: If your life is filled with telling other people’s stories, you are just an ECHO.
Prayer: Prayer is a two way conversation. If you only give God a list of things you need, how are you building a relationship? If the only conversation I had with my mom was telling her a grocery list of items and nothing else, we would have no relationship. Prayer is not always asking. Tell God about your day, He knows, but He likes to hear. If you take care of the heart of God, He will take care of you.
Walk with the Spirit: We are FREE from SIN (Romans 6), We are FREE from LAW (Romans 7), We live with the SPIRIT (Romans 8). If we walk with the spirit, we walk in holiness. We are FREE from CONDEMNATION.
Worship: Some of the most intense worship sessions I’ve ever been a part of, including dancing, yelling cheering, crying, etc. It was cool, y’all. I’ll include some of the songs we sang at the end.
Bucket Shower: Shower is a loose term here. In order to make sure we didn’t stink to high heaven every day we had to walk to our outside showers (8 wooden stalls at the top of a hill, separated by white plastic tarp), fill up a 5 gallon bucket from a water spigot, and carry it back into our stall. From there we would take a measuring cup and pour ice cold water over us as fast as we could handle it. My strategy was POUR-LATHER-RINSE-POUR-LATHER-RINSE. Washing hair was an adventure that, I think, I tackled with grace. But, then again, I only washed my hair twice in eleven days. But I loved those showers, though, because it created a connection between me and my squadmates. Who else can say they showered outside surrounded by 40 of their closest friends?
THE HIKE: Ah, the hike. I’d like to give you every detail, but I think I blacked out for most of this experience. We were required to do a 2.2 mile hike in 38 minutes with our packs. My pack weighed around 30 pounds at this point (I tried to make it as light as possible, but ya girl’s not about that light pack life). Right out of the gate we had to climb this massive hill that I can’t even begin to describe. Think Mt. Everest, but 100 times worse. If I hadn’t had the strength of the Lord and my teammate Marissa (shoutout, girl!) with me the whole time, I never would have made it in time. But I did. In 36 ½ minutes, y’all.
The Food: For two solid days this past week and a half I went without utensils and shared a community plate with my entire table… because apparently that’s what they do in other countries. And I am totally okay with that… I think. I’ve also never had so much rice and so many lentils in my life. I did eat a cricket for breakfast on adventure day, though, quickly followed by an entire bottle of water and loaf of bread.
The people: I’ve never had a community like this before. I didn’t have much of a college experience and my church doesn’t have many people my age, so I’m not used to living with 88 other people who are all experiencing the same thing I am. This was the part I was most worried about. But let me tell you…. They were all amazing and I literally cannot wait til I get to see them again at launch in FIVE WEEKS.
Stay tuned for details on some of the incredible things I experienced at training camp and subscribe for all my updates!
Worship songs:
What a Beautiful Name – Hillsong Worship
Head to the Heart – United Pursuit
Since Your Love – United Pursuit
Yes and Amen – Housefires
Do It Again – Elevation Worship
Reckless Love – Bethel Music (this one was hard to find, for me)
Never Going Back – United Pursuit
Beautiful Surrender – Jonathan and Melissa Helser
Take Courage – Bethel Music
King of My Heart – I really like the Kutlass version, but there a lot of different ones.
Only Jesus – Brian and Jenn Johnson
