Imagine this with me….
You’re in the backseat of a comfortably warm car. The Georgia sun is peeking and you’re snuggled up in a soft blanket, sleeping. The perfect place for an afternoon nap. You’re dreaming of your favorite things: for me, this consists of sweet tea, dogs, musicals, the list goes on and on. All is going well in your midday nap, until…
You’re woken by multiple excited screaming adults, all shouting and jumping, and some knocking on your window. No, this isn’t a nightmare, it’s just the start of World Race Gap Year Training Camp.
You may be wondering, “what in the name of Pete is Training Camp?” And to be honest, I couldn’t give you a very precise answer. In a few words, training camp is:
-a time to get to know your World Race squad in the best and worst circumstances
-a time to try and not fall into the porta potties
-a time to learn about the cultures you’ll be visiting
-a time to set up and take down your tent countless times
-a time to learn how to take a bucket shower while realizing you’re in that one shower with the wasp nest
-and last but not least, a time to explore every emotion possible with The One who created them.
Over my time at camp, God blessed me with many learnings. Going into it, I just knew in the back of my mind that training camp was going to be awful. As many of you know, I had the pleasure of traveling to Swaziland with Adventures in Missions last July. I had training camp for that too, although it was only 4 days and very different. I cried myself to sleep every night, felt as if I had no friends, and didn’t poop at all. It was a bad 4 days.
God decided to bless me right from the start of World Race training camp! For the World Race, you have your squad and your team. My squad consists of 35 amazing young adults from all over the US. I knew this before coming into camp. The piece I didn’t know yet was my team. The squad gets split up into separate teams of 6-8 people. This team is the people you spend the race with! There is a possibility it might change, but the goal is to have the teams stay the same. The team of girls I’ve been placed on is absolutely AMAZING! Each of them make me laugh, help me feel loved, and push me to chase after God more and more. I learned how to treat their emotions, learned their love languages, and learned how to love them how God does! Besides having me poop the first night I was there, God blessed me with SUCH a beautiful team. Here is a photo of all of us together… and their names left to right!
Team Priceless in Him: Christiana Cole, myself, Kaitie Meeks, Tori Roman, Elizabeth Grace Friend, Carly Owen, Haley Walker.
These girls and I experienced so much together. We hiked a total of 4.4 miles with 30lb. packs on our backs, shoveled rice into our mouths with our hands, worshipped our hearts out, laughed till we cried, and I absolutely cannot wait to get to know them more! [Subscribe to their blogs for some rad writing!]
One of the most moving parts of training camp for me was during a nightly worship session. The entire day, we had been talking about the Holy Spirit. We spent time in listening prayer and learned more and more from multiple amazing speakers. This had to be my favorite day. That night when it was time for worship, there was a spirit of joy in the room, you could feel it. That time of worship was the most beautiful time I’ve ever had with the Lord! Normally when I worship, I close my eyes. This time though, God had me keep my eyes open. He had me look around. In that room of 300 worshiping young adults, I saw everything from dancing with the Lord, to weeping in His presence, and everything in between. It was breathtakingly beautiful. The Lord had me bubbling with laughter that night, even when there wasn’t much to laugh at. THAT was joy. It was basically an inside joke between me and God, and that’s pretty dang cool. HAH! He’s the King of everything, even Dad jokes.
This next story is full of learnings, buuuuuut they came in a bit of a different way.
Just about every night of training camp, I slept in my tent. On the last night, I decided to sleep in my hammock since my tent was already packed. I was trying to avoid having to tear down my tent in the morning. I checked the forecast, no rain in sight! It was a perfectly clear evening, which made seeing the stars even more enjoyable than normal. It was purely stunning, and perfect for hammocking. I got myself all set up: I hooked up my hammock, sprayed it down with bug spray, got my pillow and sleeping bag liner, and boy was I ready! I snuggled in and got ready to sleep, sending my final goodnight texts. Remember earlier when I talked about those favorite things to dream about? I didn’t quite dream about those, but I definitely had a dream. This one consisted of running through my campsite…
…to the nearest porta potty. I was running as fast as I could, jumping over those sneaky tent stakes that would trip you at any moment. And then, like a miracle, I made it to the porta potty! What a blessing! …Right?
Keep in mind, that was all a dream. That being said, I woke up in a bit of mess of my own.
Yep, I peed my hammock.
I had been staying very hydrated in the Georgia heat, so there was quite a bit there. My wonderful eno hammock is made out of a material that doesn’t let ANY liquid through, so I was just chillin, in a pool of my own urine. I tried to get out the best way I could, but what was the point? My hammock, sleeping bag liner, pillow, and self were all soaked and dripping. It was disgusting, but I couldn’t help but laugh. I simply asked, “God, what are you wanting me to learn HERE?” I gathered myself and walked over to my teammate Tori (4th from the left in the photo, grey dress) who was also in her hammock and explained to her what happened. I told her I needed to go shower right then in that moment. And guess what? She got up and CAME WITH ME! It was about 1:30 am when all of this happened. She didn’t have to do that, she was sound asleep with a contained bladder! Yet, she got up, grabbed her own showering items, and we walked our mile walk to the showers together. (our campsite was VERY far away from everything, especially the showers.) After we cleaned ourselves and made our trek back to our campsite, I realized I couldn’t sleep in my soaked-through hammock. Tori also put these pieces together, and let me sleep in her tent that was already set up.
God decided to bless me abundantly that night, and all through Tori. He showed me love like no other; the love of friendship that I adore so much. He showed me to laugh in the hard times because sometimes, that’s all you can do. (as well as take a shower. that’s just needed in some situations.)
….and these are just some of the happenings of 10 DAYS. I can’t even imagine what 9 MONTHS will bring. Thank you all for loving me every step of the way, including the pee-soaked, laughter-filled ones.
Here’s some great songs!
“Do It Again” by Elevation Worship
“On and On” by Housefires
“Barcelona” by Ed Sheeran
