The World Race requires 10 full days of training camp, to give us racers a good taste of what life on the field could look like. We lived with less but gained so much more as we spent 10 days in tents, with plenty of rain, bucket showers, foreign foods with no utensils, no electricity, and outdoor bathrooms. Even though living with less brought some challenges, the rewards outweighed the struggles.
Those rewards looked liked getting to know 36 new friends! Having ten straight days of learning, processing, and applying new ways to live missionally. I got to experience foreign foods from many different cultures and finished those ten days getting second place in squad wars. Squad wars is when all teams at training camp compete in full squad games for points and the squad with most points wins.
Three words to some up training camp: overwhelming, insightful, exhilarating. Training camp taught me so much, some of the takeaways have become my foundation for my race. In my future blogs, I really want to elaborate on those key takeaways. First off, I want to share what I’ve been learning about love.
We were born to be loved! The great love that is intended for us through Jesus. We are to receive Gods love in order to truly give Gods love away. Think about it, the great commandment came before the great commission. “‘Jesus Replied: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all you mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments” Matthew 22:37-40. Personally, I have always known and believed the truth of Gods love for me, but I can say I’ve never deeply received it until now. It’s been amazing to allow God to love me the way he’s always intended for me to be loved by him. Here’s an example: 4 months before I left for the race God placed the idea of “His love” on my heart. I was struggling to understand why because I have always trusted in Gods love for me. Through His faithfulness to His protection, I could go on. BUT it wasn’t until training camp that he reviled to me I had never deeply received “His love”. One of the biggest ways the Lord showed me this was on the Saturday before I left that next Monday for WR launch. (side note: my last month in the states was tough, I moved back home after 4 1/2 years of college, no longer had my Fort Myers friends or my Summit church community, and had to say a lot of hard goodbyes to loved ones.) I share that to let y’all know where my head and heart were during this time. God did the sweetest thing though! That Saturday morning my Aunts Bible Study gathered together for the sole purpose to pray and speak truth over my next year on the World Race journey. During this time one of the women said “Bailey, look how much God loves you! He loves you much that he placed it on other peoples hearts to come together and pray for you.” WOW! That blows my mind even writing this… this love that He has for me He has for you too!! He has it for all his children. And all we have to do is deeply receive it. Out of receiving that love, we overflow. Out of our overflow, we are able to REALLY love others. Not for how we feel we should love them but for how God sees them and loves them. I can speak from experience because this month in ministry I’m living that out. The way I am seeing others isn’t through love I’ve stirred up on my own; that’s for sure. It’s more authentic and genuine and it’s only because I’ve really received God’s love and that the Holy Spirit resides in me. This can be true to you as well; I challenge you to ask God what “His love” for you looks like!
Ephesians 3:18 “And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love is for you”
For the sake of His name,
Bailey!
