Hello beautiful people! I’ve been home for about 18 or so hours and figured I have kept you all waiting long enough to talk about the last 10 days of everything that took place.
Where to start? Squad M. My people. 36 amazing humans I will be spending the next year of my life with. We come from all over the states, even from out of the country (way to represent Coast a Rico Nano!) I cant really put into words how much each of them mean to me. Yes I know what you are thinking.. I have only known them for not even a full 2 weeks! But the amount of time does not outweigh what we experienced together these last 10 days. We became family and community. Each of bring something different to the table. Worship leaders, creative souls that will probably be famous someday, sport experts, and many other things. Each one of them brings a special gift from God that I can not wait to see how it will all be used for the kingdom this coming year. In last 10 days we experienced freedom, worshiped, prayed, fought a good fight, snuggled when half of our bags got “lost” for a sleeping simulation, laughed and cried together. The word in all of that is together. Together has knitted us into one family. I am incredibly thankful for this family and this next year will be the ultimate definition of wild. Bring it on!!!
Camp. What happened at camp? Many things! Each day for our meals, a new place was given to us. For example one of my favorites ASIA DAY. So for every meal, we engulfed our stomachs with delicious asian food. Other days we ate things such as crickets, goat meat, and some interesting foods. All in all it was fun to experience how other cultural eat and what they eat. Another great thing that tool place was session. Many many sessions. It was awesome. Some sessions consisted of pretty great sermons that changed my life and others consisted of the logistics of what all would be taking place on the world race. The whole 10 days, through out each session and break out, even though I was tired most days and probably delusional in the final hours, God always spoke to me, I felt like a sponge trying to absorb all that I could.
“Roughin It” For 10 days, we camped in tents, used bucket showers and good ol port a potties. For the average american that’s considered rough and uncomfortable but to many others around the world, water, a roof over their head and a place to go to the bathroom is considered luxury. From no hot water, to multiple spider bites, I learned one thing this week: its possible to live simple. Material things just aren’t really that important. Yet so often we take them for granted. Did I miss hot water and my bed? yes. But did i manage? no, I was able to do more then manage. I was able to be uncomfortable and stretched out of my own comforts that so often I don’t thank God enough for. My perspective changed. Perspective was the theme during camp. We learned to view our lives through perspective. We learned to view others lives, the ones we will encounter, through perspective. God’s Perspective.
Leadership. Have I mentioned I have the best leaders? Well.. I do. Our squad has 3 amazing squad mentors who have recently finished the race about 2-3 weeks ago and our now giving up 5 months of their lives to come out on the field with us. We have two beautiful coaches, husband and wife, that are kind of like the spiritual parents of our squad. They will come to some debriefs all over the world with us and I cant wait to learn from them! Squad mentors, our mobilizer, and logistics/finance team, are literally incredible and I am so thankful each one of them will be along side of us during this process.
A few things you need to know. Cambodia is our first country!! Yay!! I will know more about the kind of ministry we will be doing in about 2 or so weeks so stay tuned. Greece has recently been removed from our route for good reasoning so stay tuned for what country we will be spending our 11th month in. Each squad is split up into a few teams. Squad m has 6 teams. I am on a co ed team with such incredible gifted people that I am so pumped to do life with. I know they will challenge and grow me into someone better for the glory of God. I have been given an opportunity to help lead these great humans and help figure out how we will get to each ministry host month by month. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous, but through the nerves we are all in this together and I am so glad to have team river dancers by my side.
Fundraising!! “Brooke is it too late to give?” NEGATIVE!I have officially reached $6,000!!!!!!!! What does this mean? This means I need only $4,000 more in 2 weeks to reach my deadline! What happens if I do not reach the September 16th deadline? I will not launch with my team or squad to Cambodia. But heres the cool part, I know, I KNOW I will reach that deadline so I am not worried. I watched my first goal go from $600 to over $5,000 within 3 weeks so I know this second deadline will be a piece of cake! Because it takes around 7-10 business days to process online I am asking that any of you who want to see me keep going, give by September 6th. 2 weeks, $4,000=Possible. If you would like to give, just click the donate button right above on this blog page! Talk about easy! If you would like to know when I post new blogs, just click “subscribe”
Thank You! Thank you to every person who gave financially, supported me through words of encouragement and prayer, and who helped get me to training camp. I honestly could not do any of this without you. Thank you for reading, God bless!
