In this past month I have been to two camps, eaten a cricket, met my squad and teammates for the world race, won the seat of power at youth camp, and have made a lifetime of memories and friends. I have been trying to sit down and write this blog about training camp for a week now and I just can’t seem to put into words all that I have experienced and learned, but I will do my best to give you a glimpse into my heart!
World Race training camp is a 10 day camp that prepares you spiritually, physically, emotionally, and all the (allys) for the world race and boy was it a ride. So before even going to training camp I actually thought maybe this isn’t what I was suppose to do because I was so dang scared of the unknown and failing. The beautiful thing is the Lord is greater than all of my fears!
Those 10 days I slept in a tent every night, my sleeping pad popped day 4, which means I slept on the ground a couple of nights (shout out to Gina Marie for bringing two and letting me borrow one), did one of the most gruesome fitness hikes with my pack (Georgia hills are no joke and shout out to my squad mates and leaders who were right there with me), used a port a potty, ate a cricket, took bucket showers, and a lot of other things that were uncomfortable, gross, and hard. BUT. I also experienced a new sense of freedom, love, forgiveness, community, and joy in the Lord unlike I have ever known.
One of the many lessons I learned while being at TC was that I don’t see God as a father. I found it uncomfortable to have that father/ daughter relationship with him, to ask him for help, to rely on him, to receive love from him, and that he wants good things for me. Wow is our God great, but our God as a daddy is a whole new level of dopeness and security. The way he loves, fights, and pursues his children, his daughter Allison Bodle, will forever fill my heart with gladness and make me want to run after him all the more by telling other people about this great love so they too can have this kind of love and hope.
Among getting to learn more about myself and who I am in Christ, I got to meet my leadership team, squad mates, and teammates. All are amazing and love so well. I could seriously talk about them so much that I will be writing a whole blog post of my new fam bam (be looking out for it)! I wouldn’t want to spend these next 11 months bringing the Kingdom with anyone else.
I could write pages and pages about TC, but I figured giving y’all my top 5 best moments would be better, and if you want to know more than hit me up and we can get coffee.
- Father Hug: You go and get prayed over by a leader and they speak so much truth and encouragement into you as if the Lord was holding you himself
- Camp out night: between praying for a fire to start in the rain.. and then it starting, to all of the laughs and fire puns, and worshipping under a tarp in the rain with my brother and sisters… all I can say is the Lord is sooo good.
- Worship in general: I have never felt so free to worship without people judging me in my life. We had people making up there own songs, praying in their native language or in the spirit, and people praying over people… it was amazing
- Evangelism/ team day: We got to walk to streets and just hand out water bottles, pray over people, and get to know our team more.
- The international market: the leaders put on this real life international market for us so that we can get accustomed to how life would be like and our teams had to go and buy dinner and it was just the best. We loved it!
Clearly I am leaving out all the fun chats that we had all day long, how bad we smelt, the amount of spiders I screamed at, the time I tripped over a tent, doing my first yoga class, tea time with Danny, but just know that it was amazing. The Lord showed up in some big ways y’all!
Prayer Needs:
-pray that I can trust in God’s faithfulness to provide funding for this trip, I am about $1,500 from my next goal (July 20) and about $10,500 from my ultimate goal
-pray for my teammates the Joy Riders and the ministry that we will get to do and that we can love each other well
-pray that our hearts will be at rest and be prepared for these next 11 months and that the Lord is preparing the hearts of those we will get to share God’s love to
-pray that I can learn to balance my work, home, and rest life in this last month before leaving
-pray for my dad as he just had surgery, that he will have quick healing
