There I was, walking up to a group of people in an airport having no idea who they were. Since they all had huge backpacks for luggage, and not the typical suitcase, I made the assumption that they were fellow racers. Sure enough they were! That was when the overwhelming number of names came flooding in, not to mention this wasn’t even half of my squad of people.
This was the start to a week I will never forget. A week full of laughter and challenges with a group of people unlike any other. The pure community of training camp was one of the best things I have ever experienced in my life and because of this, I did not want to come home at the end of it. After the first night I was ready to give up because of how tough the living conditions were and how far out of my comfort zone I was – so the idea of not wanting to come home after ten days seemed completely ridiculous to me. The biggest thing that changed this for me was the people. I never thought I could consider people family within a week of meeting them. I never expected to talk about how God is working in my life at the dinner table with friends. I never expected to look forward to waking up at 6:30am in order to start devotions. I never expected to be able to tell that someone will be a life-long friend after just ten days of knowing them. I never expected this week to be as life-changing as it was and it gives me the goosebumps just thinking about the ways God will move in my life as well as those around me on this nine month trip.
Race details update: My squad consists of 44 people total; 36 girls and 8 guys. The squad is broken up into 7 different teams and my team consists of 7 people. My team has Ryan, Donte (we’re the only three guys) and then Sarah, Becca, Julia, and Sammie. I love these people and cannot wait to live and serve with them for nine months! Packing everything into one backpack will be a struggle for sure, and the thought of having to pick only five shirts to live in for 300 days sounds insane. However, I have most of my gear at this point and now it is just a matter of stuffing it in my pack.
Support update: I have a $10,000 deadline coming up in a few weeks and just want to humbly ask anyone who feels led to support me to be praying about that. I also want to thank everyone who was praying for me while at training camp as well as those praying for the preparation process.
One last reminder, if you are interested in keeping up with my adventure click on the “Subscribe for Updates” button under my picture and name. If you do this you can choose to receive an email or text whenever I put up a new blog post.
I love you all and can’t wait to share with you what my life will look like in around the world doing the Lord’s work!
