I am a little late to the posting-about-Training-Camp bandwagon since I took a circuitous route home (which gave me time to have a wonderful visit with my grandfather and the rest of my Baton Rouge family). So all of my processing was put off until today, since yesterday I spent most of my time sitting around, being alone, and catching up on 2 weeks’ worth of news. And the best form of processing for me is writing, so pardon if this is a little jumbled.
For all the uninitiated, Training Camp is a 10 day period of preparation for the World Race. It had a lot of the elements of a typical church camp – worship, talks, and large/small group team building exercises. But then they add a layer of “Race building” – situations and scenarios that we may encounter on our trip, from the foods we will eat to uncomfortable sleeping arrangements to how we can minister to others. What an experience!
There are so many things that I learned or recognized about myself and my faith over the course of Camp and I wanted to share a short list with y’all.
Things I Don’t Handle Well
- Not sleeping
- Being really cold (a contributing factor to not getting enough sleep)
- Not knowing the words to songs – I love singing and so it took me out of the worship experience (and really got on my nerves) when the song lyrics were inconsistently displayed
Things I Handle Well
- Living in a tent, even sharing a tent with 9 people
- Bucket showers (or just not showering – what a time saver!)
- Bugs and other critters (namely snakes, frogs and salamanders) being everywhere
Things that Surprised Me
- How much I liked the food (except for when we had strawberries)
- People not grouping into cliques – we really are a family!!
- Healing – I grew up with the idea that miraculous healings didn’t really happen anymore, but heard so many amazing stories that changed me to a “believing without seeing” mentality
- Visions – speaking of seeing, I came to the realization that I feel God talking to me through images rather than words. I will probably be sharing more about that later.
Things I Loved
- Being in community and constant fellowship with my awesome R-Squad
- Women’s retreat
- Having hot tea at 5 P.M. after a week without it
- Intentional time spent with God – praying, reading, reflecting. I am so bad at this in day-to-day life, letting myself get busy and putting God last so it was super refreshing to take the time to reconnect.
- Negativity being challenged in all areas – especially shame, griping about sleep, comparing myself to others – and then having time and space to change my attitude
I went into this week and a half not knowing much besides the packing list. I came out of it with family.
One of the last things we did was a series of focused team building exercises to configure the 8 teams R-squad is divided into. You can see the members of my team, Team Intrepid, along the left side of the page. I am so excited to serve and grow alongside these ladies and go boldly and fearlessly in love wherever our journey takes us!
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***I have reached my 2nd financial deadline of raising $7500 thanks to all of you fantastic supporters! Thank you for your prayers and donations! Two of my teammates are still a ways from their goal which they have less than 2 weeks to meet to be able to launch with us. If you are able to give, please visit annacarter.theworldrace.org and morgangreen.theworldrace.org. And of course, prayers are always appreciated!***
