I spent a couple hours in my hammock yesterday, journaling pages and pages leaving me with frozen toes, cramping fingers, and a better understanding of the whirlwind of this past week.
Based on alum and staff advice, I tried to approach camp with few expectations. With me being a thinker, needless to say that didn’t go so well. And just as I had been advised, training camp was not at all what I had expected.
I loaded up my 70L REI Venus pack with my essentials for the week (aka my essentials for 2014) and lived in the beautiful, chilly Tennessee wilderness with my new family. I showered once over the course of 8 days and didn’t mind a bit. I ate ethnic food family style with no utensils with 7 other people. I fell asleep in tents or on cold concrete floors to the sound of my squadmates’ rustling and snoring. I woke up to morning jogs, 30 minute squad yoga sessions, and smiling faces despite the chilly air and lack of sleep. I was confronted by beliefs and doctrine that were at odds with my own in a few areas, pushing me to lean into God and seek truth in His Word. I wrestled with my views of God’s sovereignty both opposed to and paired with His power in and through people. I drew out my best conclusions of truth all the while experiencing the Holy Spirit in whole new ways. I heard from the Lord and felt His presence in my bones. I felt an immediate, supernatural, familial bond with the 44 other people I will spend my next year with. We shared food, tents, experiences, hopes, dreams, and germs, and we shared a bond divinely and delicately knit together by our Father to embrace the nations with Him.
The best part of training camp for me was not in the sessions, or worship services, or cooking meals on a campfire, or the border crossing and market place simulations, or learning to communicate the Gospel with and without words (although all incredible facets of the week). No, the best part of training camp for me was the beauty found in the eyes of my squadmates – eyes lit with drive and fire and a passion for the nations ignited and fanned-to-flame by Jesus Christ. I experienced real truth in the intimate and one-on-one conversations around a campfire or in a crowded tiny tent and when I got to hear what God was doing in the lives of someone who mere days before was a stranger. I experienced real love when a friend called me out on my pride, my self-protective tendencies, and my unwillingness to shatter the perfect facade that I’ve painstakingly built for myself. From him I learned that my rawness, vulnerability, and moments of weakness and brokenness help make me relatable and validate my testimony. Another challenged me on my unwillingness to appear weak and kindly forced me to confront my feelings of inadequacy, unworthiness, and ugliness and instead receive true love in light of all those things. She refused to let me settle for mediocre, superficial love and devotion and taught me a lesson on unconditional love. I experienced true joy and peace when locked arm and arm with my squad, surrounding a struggling brother and sister to lift them up in prayer and interceding on their behalf, where personal space issues melted away and love and unity remained. I experienced power on the last evening when I tightly clenched the hands of the other men and women chosen to lead our squad as we cried out to God in desperation for unity, clarity, discernment, protection from the enemy’s advances, and strength for C-Squad in the coming months before launch. It was in these moments – the laughter, the joy, the peace, the pain, the brokenness, and the fire – that I realized what the Race is about. The Race is about our faithful, loving Lord and His delight in using these sons and daughters that He’s called out from different backgrounds and at different places in life to lay aside themselves and take up their crosses in order build His Kingdom next year and every year until He returns. Will it be easy? Absolutely not. Will it be worth it? Abundantly yes!
So here I am, still trying to make sense of all God has done in a week and anticipating all He will do in a year. I am humbled, encouraged, and slightly terrified that I was chosen to be a Team Leader for an incredible group of women next year. My one constant prayer since being accepted to the Race was to be put on a co-ed team and to be given an opportunity to simply follow and “just be” for a year instead of leading. God is hilarious, right? What is even more hilarious is the level of peace I feel with these ladies and this position despite my adamant prayers against it. God’s plan is perfect and I could not be more excited to be placed with these ladies and given the honor of serving them and serving with them as a leader.
So meet Team Wrecked Warriors, the incredible, driven, passionate daughters of the King that I will be serving with next year.
(left to right) Rita, Stacy, Christina, Bre, Miranda, Beth.
“Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle; He is my steadfast love and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield and He in whom I take refuge, who subdues people under me.” – Psalm 144:1-2
Camp may be over but training is certainly not. He is so faithful to prepare us to battle against evil, injustice, and lostness from now until the end. I so appreciate your commitment to pray for me and my squad as the Lord lovingly straps us in His armor and sends us out on mission. Thank you friends and family. You mean the world to me.
All my love,
Bre
