You might be wondering did you really spend two weeks straight in the hot sticky humidity sleeping in a tent? Yes, I did. We had to tear out tents down each morning and reset them up in the evening. If the thought crossed your mind about rain being in any of our horizons, HA! Let’s just say when it rains in Georgia it pours! I got to be the lucky duck who’s tent flooded and all my gear was soaked through. But Jesus has been so good! My teammates were so quick to help me drain my tent and lend me things I needed for the night. Through this all I actually found out that I LOVE to camp! It wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be!
Pictured above is a part of the campsite my squad stayed at.
I stayed in my hammock as many nights as I could without getting rained on.
Some of the others who had the same idea!
My mom put this in the inside of my sleeping liner for me! Isn’t she the sweetest?!?!
These two weeks have been crazy rollercoaster of emotions. Jesus has just been tapping into each of us in new ways and spreading healing over parts of us that we didn’t know still needed it. There were times you could feel the spiritual warfare going on and it was intense. Near the end of camp a girl had an allergic reaction and the ambulance had to be called. It sent many people into a sudden frenzy of panic. Let there be no doubt it was satan trying to shake us!! We were not shaken though!
Each day looked a little different at camp but here’s the general schedule of my past two weeks…
5:00 wake up time
-I liked to get up early for alone time. I’d walk myself down to the bucket showers. (I liked to get there before everyone else because the lines were crazy.)
7:30 devotions with your team
8 breakfast
8:32 clean up
– each squad would take turns at each meal cleaning it all up and washing the dishes in buckets
Then we’d have teaching for a couple hours or they’d start us off with worship
12 lunch
Then teaching, debriefs over teaching, personal time was sometimes thrown in there which was usually used shower or reorganize your stuff.
6:30 worship
7:45 final teaching for the day starts then team debriefs
11 quiet time
Some nights we had different scenarios thrown at us. We came back to our campsite one night only to be told that the airport had lost half of the teams luggage. So half of us were left without our packs which holds our tent, sleeping pad, liners, clothes, and well everything… I got lucky in that I had packed a spare change of clothes and put my hammock in my daypack just because I always like to be prepared. Another scenario was the airport scenario. All night long they blasted airport sounds and turned the AC to super cold. Everyone was super excited for this one because we would finally be out of the heat… Bahaha the joke was on us. By the middle of the night you’d start to see the cuddling began in effort to keep warm. Most people weren’t able to sleep due to the noises created all night. We also had to sleep in a community tent. That’s 12 girls crammed in one big tent with no room to walk. Let’s just say after sweating and rain the smells were super interesting!
Pictured above is the airport scenario. It was in the building we all packed into to worship and lessons.
Emmy and I getting ready to go to sleep in the community tent. If you look closely you can see how crammed together we are.
All the community tents. Two squads did this at a time. So about 100 people fit in all of them that you see pictured above.
Our phones were taken during the day. We only got them back after team debriefs in the evening which could go late and then we turned them back in at team devos in the morning. I personally loved not having my phone! I didn’t miss it at all except for pictures. I didn’t get very many and the ones I did we all look exhausted because we just woke up. But speaking of pictures… let me introduce you to my team!
(In the back you can see the community tents where they packed 12 people and all their stuff into. Nice thing about that night was we didn’t have to set up our own tents.)
These will be the girls I do life with. In the picture you see me (obviously haha), Emmy, Lillian, and Kaileigh in the back. The front is Emily, Luba, and Anna Katherine or as we call her AK. So we have our whole squad which is close to 50 people. Within our squad it’s broken up into teams. There were several other squads who were at training camp at the same time. My squad is Squad Q and we are being sent out on route 1. Route 1 is Costa Rica, South Africa, Thailand, and Myanmar.
Each day was a different country. The food went according to the country and we had to follow their customs for that day. I definitely was branching out each day trying all sorts of stuff I’d never seen before. Most of it was good. It was served community style which is on one big plate where we all reach for it. Might not sound bad until you think about how we’ve been sweating and not much washing of hands has been going on. I wish I could have taken pictures of the food for y’all. Definitely some interesting stuff the most interesting thing I ate being a cricket!
During camp the Lord gave me two visions. Which was super cool! I may do a separate blog posts over that. But lots of crazy God moments were happening. People was being spoke over like crazy. A girl was healed from her migraine one evening. The Holy Spirit is inside us people and He loves to be pursued!! Jesus is just so good!!
Near the end of the 10 days we had to do the fitness hike with our 50 pound packs on our back. We had to complete 2.3 miles in 38 minutes which wasn’t bad at all! I actually had a lot of fun with it! We were out and ready to begin at 6:45 in the morning.
Lillian and I on the fitness hike!
Bucket showers were also not as bad as it sounded. It’s basically just as it sounds. You get a hose and fill a bucket up with water. There’s a little measuring scoop of sorts inside the bucket and you take it to a stall with wooden floor boards to shower. The waters super cold, but after the first initial shock of it all it’s not to bad. Worst part about the shower were the long lines to take one.
This was taken after our fitness hike when I went to shower. It was a little easier to wash my hair just using the hose.
The very last day in the evening we had a relaxed evening. We did friendly competition between the 6 different squads at camp. This included a dance competition which our squad crushed! We came I first place for that portion of the competition, but second overall with the other games included.
Shoutout to Luba for bringing the red powder that set us apart from the other teams in a huge way!!
A group of us walking to the squad wars.
One of my favorite parts of training camp was the random worship breakouts my team and I would have. I think my favorite spontaneous worship memory from camp was when it started pouring rain and we stood dancing and singing in it. That is already something I do personally to worship with God, but doing it with a group of believers my age was such an incredible God moment for me! It was just another thing that reassured my I’m in the right place for the next nine months!
And then there was the heart-attack moments… no this isn’t my daypack! Thank goodness haha
I’m honestly so excited to go serve. All of these things are definitely out of my comfort zone, but as humans we adapt so easily to our surroundings. I’m so pumped for it. Training camp was a really good experience for me. The days felt long but in reality it went so fast. My squad is incredible and filled with Jesus loving people. I’m so thankful to have them all already. My squad mates are great!
Jesus is so so so good!! We learned so much these past for weeks on better ways to share the gospel and just for personal growth in our walk with God also. The Holy Spirit definitely prompted me in different ways and I learned how to have a better relationship with Him.
Guys!!!! I’m so excited for this adventure with Jesus! I can’t wait to just go love on people and spread the gospel. There’s no doubt in my mind that this is where I’m suppose to be! Please be praying over my squad for the next 7 weeks before we launch in September. It’s so easy to come back all pumped up and on a Jesus high when you’re surrounded by believers for two week straight, but Satan still likes to get under our skin.
Side note… please comment any questions about camp or the race in general!! I’d love to answer them!!
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; teaching them to obey in all that I have commanded them and surely I will be with you always until the end of the age.
Matthew 18:19-20
P.S. I had some awesome videos I was planning on putting in the blog, but couldn’t figure out how to add them in. May try to upload to Facebook! So be on the lookout for that.
