Though I am still very much processing the last 11 days, I thought I’d give you guys a bit of a crash course on how Adventures in Missions managed to turn a nervous, unprepared 17 year-old into an eager, for-the-most-part-at-peace racer.
Going into training camp, I felt B L I N D . No matter how many blogs & videos I watched of past racers I felt there was no way to actually prepare myself (which is fitting because a huge philosophy of AIM is surrendering your expectations). I also realized on the flight over that since I have lived in Tigard my entire life, I have never really had to start from the ground up building relationships. And here I was about to endure first-impressions and icebreakers with 47+ new people.
Luckily, we landed before I was able to really start thinking about this.
Upon arrival at the base in Gainesville, GA, we received our teams of eight (AKA fam for the next nine months, I’ll do a follow up blog where I introduce them 🙂 these people were chosen by our Meyers briggs letters and prayerful consideration!
((clarification)) we have our ‘squads’ of 48. ‘Squads’ travel from country to country together, whereas ‘teams’ of 8 do the specific ministry together. Some months our entire squad will be serving together, and other months we will break off into the smaller teams to do different ministry in different villages- it all depends on the country and the biggest need!
Here is what an average day looked like:
7am pack up camp
7:30 devotionals with the team
8ish breakfast
each day meals & dress code had a theme! at breakfast there would be a paper describing the country & any cultural rules for eating
P.S. almost every meal was something I had never seen before
9-11ish sessions/squad time
sessions: the first 5 days speakers focused on spiritual/emotional wellbeing, after that we still had these but began learning about the religions and customs of the places we will be going
12pm lunch
1-2ish maybe another session
2-5:30 personal time (but really more like stand in line for a bucket shower, there were 8 for all 300 girls to share) & field scenario
field scenarios: possibly the hardest part about camp. they would be announced right before free time so you could mentally prepare for the night. Sometimes they would consist of cramming 20 people and ALL of their bags (yes, the 70L bags) into a 10 person tent in the HUMID 90 degrees; other times it meant an “airport layover” where we attempted to sleep through cranked AC, blasted airport noises, bright lights- using ONLY the things in our daypacks.
6 dinnaaaa
7 worship & session
8-9:30 team time
where we discuss the last session, usually some question prompts
9:30-11 personal time
Some takeaways:
1. The enemy’s voice is loud, but the Lord’s is louder
2. The moment you voice your fears they suddenly seem less scary
3. Never underestimate the power of crystal light
These 11 days were emotionally, spiritually and physically taxing. But in the end, I was so very impressed by Adventures in Mission’s intentionality of EVERY moment. I arrived to training camp, had my walls broken down, became incredibly vulnerable about my fears/hopes for next year with people I had met days earlier, then watched the Lord put me all back together.
I can say that I am feeling equipped and that my excitement outweighs the anxiety so YAY! That’s a win folks.
If you have any questions — PLEASE ask. I didn’t go into depth on all of the scenarios or sessions because I’d be typing for days but would seriously love to go into detail if you’re curious!
