First things first… training camp rocked. Was it hard? Yes. Was it worth it? YES!
Each and every day of training camp has a story of its own that I could write countless individual blogs about, but i’m going to highlight the top things I learned.
(Confession: I may have taken more notes at training camp than I did all of senior year… just proves the lengths I will go to for Jesus right???;)
Anywhoo, these are the things I learned:
1. We are the BODY of Christ – no two people are called to be the same
In 1 Corinthians 12, a beautiful picture is drawn of how we – as Christians – are supposed to act as the body. If we are to be part of the body of Christ – then no one part is meant to do the same thing as the other. The foot cannot perform what the hand does and neither can the hand perform what the food does. This became very evident to me at training camp. When getting to know my AMAZING team of 7 girls that I will be spending the majority of my time with, we were able to get to know each other pretty well and rather intimately. The thing that I love most about my team is how different we all are. We all have unique personalities, interests and demeanors. Each of us girls has a story and testimony that only we can share. We have our own individual strengths and have our own weaknesses. I could go on and on about the unique gifts God has given each of us, but my point is that when we bring all of our individual and unique talents together, we are no longer moving as 7 individual girls – we are now moving as one body in Christ. We are stronger when we come together in Christ and act as the body that He called us to.
2. Being a missionary means “living on mission” 100% of the time
We are to be representing Jesus in all we do – whether it’s at an orphanage in Botswana or walking through the grocery store in Minnesota. I learned that if you let yourself be filled with the Holy Spirit, you cannot help but overflow and spill little pieces of Jesus on people wherever you go. Living on mission for God dosen’t have to look like traveling across the world to share his love… MISSION IS ALL AROUND US! It could be helping your parents clean the house, getting a thoughtful gift for your coworker or extending any amount of kindness to represent Christ’s initial kindness towards us. Serving and being love towards one another allows God to shine through us in ways we can’t even imagine. In even the smallest of our actions, God is constantly working in big a mighty ways.
3. God connects to us all in different ways
This is definitely one of the coolest things I learned at training camp. One of our sessions was about learning how God made us to uniquely worship best with Him. There are 7 spiritual pathways that include things such as nature, music, writing, art, scripture, solitude, service, justice, learning, and much more. We were given time to test out these spiritual pathways and it was cool to see people experience the Holy Spirit in such different ways.
I encountered the Holy Spirit in a beautiful way as well. During the musical aspect of our exploration, I asked God to show me who I was to Him. The answer I got from the Holy Spirit was so beautiful that it left me laying on the floor while ugly crying, but with the biggest smile ever… but that sounds like a story for my next blog 😉
Thank you everyone who is supporting me and REMEMBER TO SUBSCRIBE so you can get updates while I’m overseas 🙂
