I’ve been home from Training Camp for a couple weeks; which honestly blows my mind. It’s both felt like I have been home f o r e v e r however at the same time I feel like I was just in Georgia jumping in worship and running to shelter from the rain. So this blog is going to be about training camp and my thoughts, feelings, and things I learned while in Gainesville, GA!
Starting out, this was my first time flying alone (if you didn’t know I live in California) so that was interesting. It was a pretty good flight to be honest, nothing exciting happened haha. I finally made it over to where my squad was; after waiting about 30 minutes for my bag and getting a “where are you” call from one of my leaders hahaha (thanks Phillip). My first thought walking up to my squad was “OH MY GOSH MY HUMANS HI I FINALLY GET TO MEET YOU” but everyone was pretty mellow so I tried contain my extrovert a little bit hah. We were all sitting on the floor sprawled out in a hallway with all the squads, and kinda bored, so I brought out my playing cards and we played spoons! Except we didn’t have spoons so….we played markers!
Anywho, we loaded onto a bunch of vans and made our way to Gainesville which is about an hour and a half from Atlanta. Coming out of the bus the first impression was definitely “HOT” because it was about 90 with what felt like a match in humidity. BUT one of the greatest thing ever was I got to see some friends from another squad that I met when I went to Costa Rica with WR for my “test run.” It had been almost 7 months since I saw them, so it was so cool to get to hug them again, and to be in the place that we talked about 7 months earlier was wild!! (HI KATIE + EMMA + CONNALY)
After getting checked in we headed down to our campsite to set up our tents! Our campsite was on a slanted hill which would end up with everyone always laughing about waking up at the end of our sleeping pads. Every morning we would have devotionals with our team and team leaders (I’ll introduce them in a blog soon! They’re awesome) even though we had a schedule at training camp, it always felt new and different each day. Whether through the different speakers, the different foods through the different culture days, or the new people and conversations I would have!
Training camp was also hard don’t get me wrong. It was very emotionally taxing, and I faced things I never thought I would have had to face again. But God has such an amazing, renewing, and refreshing grace. He covers all shame and all insecurity, He is so so good.
We did many things throughout the week. Most of our days looked like getting up for devotionals @7:30, eating breakfast, then grabbing our bibles, pens, and chairs 🙂 and going to a morning session from a speaker (typically world race alums). Then we would have a little bit of a team builder or a team talk about the session and what stuck out to us.
It’s so hard to describe everything that happened during the 10 days I was there, because so much happened! Also because I accidentally left my notebook in Georgia…..oops. But I know that that week was the hardest I’ve worshiped in my life. I felt such freedom and worship truly felt like it was just between me, and God. I wasn’t worried about how I looked, or how I sounded, I just got to sing my praises to my God. I had so many amazing conversations and felt the freedom from vulnerability. It was so fulfilling.
All in all, training camp was powerful. It was so spiritually fueled, and the community I experienced was unlike any other. I am so so so grateful for the goodness of Jesus and His sacrifice. I am so grateful for my squad, and having the bravery to step into this season and willing to be honest and open up to each other. And I am so SO grateful for all my leaders!! My squad leaders, squad mentor, coaches, and team leaders; they lead us so well in 10 days, and I can’t imagine how much greater it will be over 3-9 months.
God is awesome. He’s so good to me. I’m so excited for this next adventure. Thanks, Jesus.
Verse: “What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs.” – Matthew? ?10:27? ?
Worship: Open Space – by Housefires
