Hey, Guys!
From July 6th to July 16th, I was at a training camp in Gainesville, Georgia to help my team prepare for the World Race. These ten days were some of the hardest but also best days of my life. I learned more about myself, my squad, my team, and God than I could have ever imagined. I discovered that God truly and deeply cares for and loves us, and how He has called me and every single member of my team to help lead a movement of the gospel and to spread the love that he has shown each one of us.
Powerful. Awestruck. Wonderful. Freedom. God. Worship. Lice. Cultural.
These are some words that I would use to describe training camp.
I would use the words powerful and awestruck because I’ve never experienced God the way I did at training camp. I could feel His presence and actually hear Him speaking to me, which is kind of a crazy thought but it was amazing and inspiring.
It was wonderful because I got to create so many new memories with my new brothers and sisters. We got to connect on such a level after ten days that I have never even got to connect with some of my friends that I have known for years back home. Everybody was very intentional with how they spent their time, who they spent their time with (making sure we were getting to know as many people as we could), and with the words they spoke, making sure that we were lifting people up in every way we could.
Freedom. So many people, including myself, got to experience true freedom in Christ by learning and fully grasping the concept that God loves us so much and that he chose us and sees us as perfect even through all of the mistakes that we have made. God sees us as perfect. He looks at us and sees a part of Him inside each one of us, and says that we are “very good!”
God was so present during these ten days. God is pretty cool! He has blessed each one of us with a different story so that we can better understand and spread his love on to others.
The worship was the most authentic worship I have ever experienced. Whether it was spontaneous worship sessions of 5 people, squad worship sessions, or 250 people singing out praise; every time, every word we sang was authentic and real and with our whole heart.
Lice. Yep, that’s right we got lice at training camp. 20 out of 38 people got lice in my squad. But who knew lice could be such a great bonding experience as all the girls combed through each other’s hair, brushing the lice out of the hair and bonding and laughing like we never have before (don’t worry we’re lice free now!).
Cultural. We learned a lot about different cultures during training camp. Each day was based on different cultures, so we had Africa Day, Asia Day, India Day, etc. where we followed the dress code of that culture’s country as well as eating food that you may find in these specific cultures. Doing this was very beneficial as we learned what to expect in different countries and what is culturally accepted and not accepted in those cultures.
Overall, training camp was one of the most life changing weeks of my life, and I can’t wait to be able to travel 9 months with my new brothers and sisters and spread love to the countries that we will be visiting.
