This month, 6 gap year squads—almost 300 people— spent 10 days in Georgia preparing for 9 months on the mission field. So much happened over the course of 10 days. It is so hard to put into words what happened, the ways God moved and the ways hearts changed. There’s just no way to do it justice, especially in a little blog post!
The days were very long–waking up at 6:30am and not going to sleep until 11pm. Each meal was served community style, sharing food between 8 people, and catered to a certain area of the world we were immersed in that day—like Asia, India, or Central America. We bonded with our squads, connected with our teams, and met people from other squads who were doing the same things we were. We slept in tents, going through field scenarios like losing our luggage, sleeping community style, or having 12 hour-layovers in the airport. We showered with buckets, and didn’t look in the mirror for almost the whole 10 days. We sat in sessions learning about things such as culture and world religions, the Bible and evangelism, and intimacy with the Holy Spirit and hearing God’s voice. We worshipped and sang out praises to our Father.
You are GOOD.
Faithful You are.
I’ve seen You move, You move the mountains.
I will rest in rest in Your promises.
You’re a good, good Father.
Even though everything was impactful and important, there were a few moments this week that I would consider life-changing. Not in a black and white, things were bad and now they’re better kind of way, but the kind of life changing that means, “There is no going back from here. Nothing will be the same.”
Saturday morning, all the girls from every squad learned about a women’s retreat that Adventures in Missions hosts called Beauty for Ashes. (Check this link for more information –> https://www.adventures.org/beautyforashes/) Not only did we learn about it, but we got to participate as well.
First, we were encouraged to ask the Lord how we saw Him. I prayed for a little bit, and suddenly a vision in my mind came forward of Him with His arms outstretched, with beaming colors of light—gold, green, purple, white—radiating from around Him. I quickly sketched it into my journal.
Honestly, I was surprised with what God showed me. If it would have been me talking about how I viewed God, I might have given you a description of “someone far away, maybe in the sky like everyone always imagines,” but instead God gave me a truer image to represent how I viewed him. God was exceeding my expectations and was bursting out of the box I had unknowingly put Him in. But it doesn’t stop there.
Next, we were encouraged to ask God how He viewed us. I wasn’t ready. What was He going to say? I prayed hard, waiting and searching for anything the Holy Spirit would reveal to me.
Then a word came to mind— Enough.
And then a picture of a river.
More words. Bold. Courageous. Strong. Beautiful.
Enough.
Something I’ve personally struggled with was feeling like I wasn’t good enough. Whether it was not getting the grade I wanted on tests or in class, or feeling like I did something wrong when anything fell apart. But here GOD was telling ME that I WAS ENOUGH. I burst into tears, absolutely in awe.
I felt so, so special. I felt seen. I felt LOVED. My Father felt this way about me and it was all I ever wanted to hear for the rest of my life. I wanted to hear His voice, every day—forever.
Not every day at training camp was a mountain top like this though. At the beginning of training camp, I felt immense amounts of doubt and fear, something that I’ve never really dealt with before. My squad felt it too, and so did the rest of camp. The enemy was attacking us, in our sleep and in our thoughts, trying to distract us and pull us away. Spiritual warfare is a sobering reality and we were in the middle of it, calling out to our Father to cast it all away. God is faithful, and as the week went on everyone started to feel like themselves again, finding rest and protection in God.
He is faithful, fighting for us from a place of VICTORY.
These 10 days were BIG for me!! They were life-changing. I have started to make my faith my own, and not anyone else’s. I have stepped into this new season with freedom and a heart on fire for Jesus. I’m another step closer to becoming the person I was meant to be! I think I was made for this, and I am welcoming everything Papa has for me with open arms.
