Prior to training camp I had never felt the Holy Spirit or known how to identify what voice was the Holy Spirit. I knew God was definitely talking to me but I wasn’t 100% sure and I would always doubt the voice. I doubted until I had leaders come up to me and pray for me. I doubted until I saw the results of a “yes” spirit. I doubted until I saw the Holy Spirit speaking THROUGH ME. I doubted until now.
One of my love languages is words of affirmations. I felt God’s voice so loud as others’ words poured into my head. It was powerful. God knows how to communicate with each of us based on how we listen best, but my theory is that I was able to listen because of the environment I was in.
At training camp, we had a whole unit on “Intimacy with God” and what that looks like. It was my favorite unit because we had worship twice a day for two days! I was in my element. One morning instead of having a session, we went back to our squad meeting points and did an exercise to practice everything we had learned about the Holy Spirit. We all got into our teams of 7 or 8, criss-cross-apple-sauce, in a circle. We were all told to close our eyes and spend time with God in silence while our team leaders tapped one person on the shoulder. The activity was this: we had to listen to the Holy Spirit and say out loud what God was saying through each of us to this person tapped.
My first thought as my squad mentor explained the exercise was: “How in the world is this going to work? How do I know if the Holy Spirit is really speaking through me? What if I have nothing to say?” I had a lot of doubt because before this I had never had an 100% confirmation that what I was hearing was from God.
When we started, I really appreciated the silent time with God. Being in the TC atmosphere, I could connect with God within seconds and my focus wouldn’t break because there were no distractions.
I immediately felt words fill my head and I would ask God, “Okay, is this what you want me to say?”. I would get a yes every single time which would make me doubt even more that it was my voice and not God’s. I eventually started to say what was on my mind and the results were incredible.
By the third round, I was astounded by how much my words had affected my teammates. The third round of this exercise was probably the 10 minutes that changed my life the most in these ten days. I felt such strong urges to say what the Holy Spirit was putting on my mind. The word “sister” kept repeating in my head. I don’t really know how to explain what happened during this round, but the Holy Spirit took control. I said a lot. I talked about my teammate’s sister who I had never even heard about and had never met. I kept saying that she was going to be okay. That she would make her faith her own one day. That my teammate is supposed to be there for her and witness to her before she leaves for launch. That this sister was going to be okay while my teammate is away.
When I opened my eyes I looked over across the circle and my teammate is sobbing. She looked right at me and started going off about how worried she had been about her sister. How her sister had had major health issues this past year and fell away from God because of it. How she was so worried to leave her sister behind, especially as she enters high school. How she didn’t know how to help her but know she knows to just be with her and help her find God again.
It was such a beautiful moment. It was such a reassuring moment. It was a God moment.
When I got home I didn’t really know how to explain everything I had gone through with all the people apart of my life at home. Whenever I was racking my brain trying to organize all my thoughts, I would always go straight to this moment because God used me to speak to my teammate & it was pure God.
There were a lot of things I had never seen or done before TC. Once, during worship, I saw one of my leaders was passionately worshipping God right in front of me, then she got up from where she was, went over to my squad mentor and started whispering into her ear. Then, about 5 minutes later she stepped onto stage, tapped a worship member and started talking into the microphone.
She started talking about this dream she had a year ago. She was climbing this mountain and at the top she was overlooking this valley. She woke up asking God why he had given her this dream and He told her to wait. That transaction alone was mind-blowing to me… but then, as we had been worshipping, God gave her that dream again. This time she overlooked the mountain top down to where the valley was and she saw us. Soldiers preparing for battle. Her dream spoke volumes to everyone in that training center and the Holy Spirit was pouring out through her words. It was so powerful because we were in training preparing for battle. A spiritual, physical, & mental battle as we all go into each country this coming year.
The most extraordinary part of it all was that this happened throughout the whole camp: day after day, people would say yes to the Holy Spirit and speak truth over the whole group during worship. I got to partake first hand what it looks like when someone says yes to the Holy Spirit. Let me tell you, it was POWERFUL. Sometimes people would call a specific name out and the person who belonged to that name would be in tears. The thing that continuously blew my mind was, it was always perfectly said and perfectly timed, almost as if God had placed every person on that stage… oh wait, he did!
Ways YOU can Join me on my Journey:
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Pray. I will need a multitude of prayers ranging from strength, wisdom, clarity, love, joy.. The list goes on. Whatever your desires and feels right, pray.
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Donating through this blog!!! When you donate through here it goes directly to World Race and my fund of $15,800 dollars.
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Cash, Check, or Venmo. Donating to me personally is still much needed because I have to buy all my gear, supplies, airfare and I will need money on the ground. (Venmo: Marguerite-SanMartino)
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SPREAD THE WORD!! Tell everyone about my trip and show them my blog.
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