I have spent the last several months of my life running a million miles an hour, seeing everyone I could, traveling all over the place, working at the best job in the world, and trying to put this past season into words. And I finally managed to get it all out. So here it is, my words, my explanation of the past few months, all the emotions and struggles and joy all laid out on the table.
Part one
There are not a lot of moments in my life that I can look back at and think to myself
“Jeez, that changed everything for me”
Some examples of these moments would be my first young life camp, meeting my first friend after I moved (L.W I love you long time) saying yes to Jesus, saying yes to the world race, ect ect ect. I recently had a new event to make this list, world race training camp. Training camp was 11 days of crazy in Gainesville, Georgia, I was sleeping in a tent, taking bucket showers and meeting the people who were supposed to become my new family. And if all that wasn’t scary enough, I also had never experienced humidity quite like Georgia humidity let me tell you.
But regardless of the fear I had going into training camp in my head, my heart was calm, you could even say it was at rest. Logically this doesn’t make sense, but by the first night, I understood what was happening. The relationships I made at training camp calmed the winds, they settled my mind down and switched out all fear for excitement and love. They tell you ahead of time that these people will become your family and to get ready to love them. But it’s hard to actually comprehend what that means in the real world.
The 11 days of training camp taught me exactly what that means in the real world. It means humid tent sleepovers, and cuddle puddles. it means raw vulnerability and sharing your fears and doubts. It meant sitting through long lessons together and making sure we all stayed awake and absorbed all the information we could, it meant having patience and grace for everyone regardless of how fed up you really were. It meant loving one another like brothers and sisters of Christ because that’s exactly what we are.
These new family members of mine were also all vastly different. They all have different backgrounds, different home lives, some are older than me, others are younger. It’s a whole hodgepodge of people who you would never expect to see get along so well. These people I met at training camp also varied from other future racers who were just as scared as I was to be there, to our team leaders who just got off the field and are picking up their crosses to go out again and lead us in the way of Jesus, even if that wasn’t what they originally had planned when they committed to World Race 2018. We finally got to meet the people we had been talking on the phone with for months and got to hug them in person (looking at you Carly Miers!!!) And while it was fun to meet these people and finally see everyone in person, more importantly, it was challenging. Every single person I encountered at training camp challenged me one way or another.
Some challenged me to have patience and love others regardless of how my mind wants to act out. Some challenged me to look at faith differently, resulting in me pushing myself to be a stronger Christian. And regardless of who these people were and how they challenged me, everyone at training camp left a deep imprint in my heart and I couldn’t be more grateful for these people and that God placed them in my life for the next nine months (and then probably forever)
So cheers to the inevitable tears and all the belly laughs the disposable camera pictures, and the group hugs. Cheers to some stellar worship sessions and dancing in the rain. Cheers to some serious self-reflection and newly found self-love, but most importantly, cheers to never having to use the training camp bucket showers ever again.
With love,
SJ
